A GRIM PICTURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25241, 2 June 1943, Page 3

A GRIM PICTURE

EFFECT OF ALLIED BOMBING DESOLATION IN GERMANY LONDON, May 31. Germany’s vital Ruhr area has become a “square of death.” on which 10,500 tons of bombs have fallen within a month. Duisburg, Dortmund, Dusseldorf, and Wuppertal stand as the corners of the square. The Stockholm correspondent of the Daily Express calls it “ the area of lost men in the heart of Germany, over which desolation is spread,” and adds that news from Germany' builds up a grim picture of idle factories, railways thrown into chaos, homeless people wandering in the streets,' and angry Nazi officials shouting orders to demonstrators who are protesting that their relief is inadequate. What Germany fears is that the continent will be invaded, and that Italy will give the Allies air bases from which attacks can be launched against the Reich and Austria—where big industries are now established —as well as attacks from the west. > The Daily Mail’s aviation expbrt says: “The exponents of the win-the-war-by-bombing .".theory are seeing their ideas tried out. If the present offensive fails in'that supreme objective no harm will have been done, for the Allies will then, have put into operation the, wishes of the other school, which regards the bombers as a great softener-up of the enemy preliminary to the ground forces gping in. That is the inner meaning- of the masses of air raids launched from all quarters, which might, to the layman, appear haphazard and unrelated.”