NAZI SECRETS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24699, 30 August 1941, Page 10

NAZI SECRETS

PROBED BY AIR FORCE DAY-TO-DAY PATRQLS CHECK ON MOVEMENTS Though little is. said in the official reports of work they do, the patrols of the Royal Air Force, carried on day after day in every kind of weather, supply the striking units of sea, land, and air with the' information to make their successes possible. >•■•.'■ Every move of the Germans is noted: troop concentrations,: naval distributions, the shift of industries to socalled safe areas, fluctuations of traffic —all are observed, frequently photographed and speedily reported. The R.A.F. patrols probe Germany's secrets and many carefully guarded by the ensmy have been revealed by ex-pertly-examined photographs. A pinpoint may indicate the presence of new, defences; a; shadow may give a vital ■clue.'' •■ ;■ When the Tirpitz, sister battleship to the Bismarck, Was under construction its; whereabouts were disclosed by a photograph in which nothing of the ship appeared except the reflection in the water of her superstructure. The rest was hidden by dark shadow, but it was known that the.reflected detail could belong to no other ship.- ~ Elaborate Camouflage German efforts, to hide the movement of the battered Scharnhorst from, Brest were elaborate. Camouflage netting was spread over the vessel's berth, and to provide convincing shadows of the proper length two merchant ships were put in her place. But the patrols uncovered the secret—the shadows were just not right—and the Scharnhorst was promptly discovered at sea. After she had been bombed at La Palaice, 250 miles down the coast, the Germans were glad to sneak her back to ; the more heavily-protected docks of Brest.

The eyes of the R.A.F. found the Altmarck; they found the Bismarck before she left Norwegian waters on her last cruise; they spotted a pocketbattleship off the coast of Norway trying to sneak into the North Sea, and Beaufort torpedo bombers scored ,at least one hit, and perhaps two, before she scrambled .back to shelter. New aerodromes along the occupied coast are visited regularly, and every indication of change in the scene is carefully examined. Only trained observers can detect the minute changes which have taken place between reconnaissance flights. Thus a photograph which shows a few small white rings on the ground may mean that posts have recently been erected to carry cables for telephones or electricity. These cables may indicate the presence of large bodies of troops. A certain loop in a railway line may mean that a battery of the heaviest guns, which run on railway lines, has been installed. Entire industrial areas have been mapped by aerial photographs, and it is possible to estimate the output from these places by means of further pictures. Air-raid damage is measured through the work ofl the Royal Air Force patrols. From a pin point on a photograph, representing a hole in a root, the extent of the damage within an industrial building can be estimated and later confirmed by what subsequent patrol cameras discover. Examined by Expert Eyes It is' through the accumulation of evidence from day-to-day patrols, examined by expert eyes, that vital information is gained and enemy secrets are uncovered. In other theatres of the war similar patrols are working, and their harvest > flows through appropriate channels to the central points to be sifted, co-ordinated and " referred for action." , Behind all operations—sea. land or air—there is a mass of accumulated evidence. It is carefully guarded, for it is essential that the enemy should not discover how much is, known about him. Thus little of the, discoveries made by the Roy&l Air Force patrols reaches the. public; thus every little while the public and the enemy are amazed by some apparently fortuitous circumstance leading to an Allied success. .. And the civilian soon begins to realise that outside the group of leaders to whom this information is available there is more wild guessing than sound forecasting.