NEW WEAPON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25565, 19 June 1944, Page 5

NEW WEAPON

PILOTLESS AIRCRAFT A “ MORALE-STIFFENER ” CANNOT HELP GERMANY WIN (Rec. 8 p.m.) RUGBY, June 17. The pilotless aircraft offensive is regarded in London as primarily designed to stiffen failing German morale. The Under-secretary of State for Air, Captain H. H. Balfour, speaking at Margate to-day, said: “ Tito new German secret weapon has been hailed with all the trimmings of totalitarian thuggery. The Nazi radio has excelled itself in sadistic joy, neurotic gloating, and absurd exaggeration of its air weapon. Hitler said to the German people, ‘This is a weapon of retaliation against England.’ One moment’s logical thinking, and we can be comforted by the weapon and the way it was introduced, because Hitler still declares that he wants to win the war. “ Yet ’he knows that this aerial bomb cannot help him one bit strategically to defeat the Allied navies, armies, and air forces,” Captain Balfour said. “He knows it cannot help him in the Battle of France, where Goering admits that the Luftwaffe is stretched apd we' have complete air superiority. Yet' Hitler diverts valuable materials of which he is not getting too great a supply, skilled man-power of which he has a declared shortage, and scientific research in which Germany is second to ourselves. All these are taken away from the German forces to concentrate on a weapon the one aim of which must be to prop up the decay of confidence and the dissolution- of beliefs in a people slowly awakening to where their leaders have led them. Damage Relatively Small

"We shall get the better of this weapon before much longer, and already we are taking its measure and a toil of its numbers. Science, combined with the skill and courage of those concerned with our ground and air defences, will evolve new countermeasures which will make Hitler soon realise he is pretty well back where he started.” The Home Secretary, Mr Herbert Morrison, in a further statement on the - pilotiess aircraft, said the damage they caused had been relatively small. The new weapon would not interfere with our war effort and our sure, steady march to victory. The enemy’s aim was clearly, in view of the difficulty of his military situation, to try to upset our morale and to interfere with our work.

It was essential that there should be the least possible interruption in all work that was vital to the country’s needs, he added. The Government’s counsel was that everyone should get on with the job in the ordinary way and should take cover only when danger was imminent. Mr Morrison said that there was no reason to think that raids by this weapon would be worse than, or indeed as heavy as, raids with which the people of this country were already familiar.

The pilotless German planes over England on Thursday night and Friday are believed to be controlled by radio, or propelled by jets or rockets, says the Press Association. Descriptions of the planes vary slightly, but agree on the following points—terrific speed, bright lights, flames from the exhaust, and a very straight course. The pilotless planes are much smaller than a Spitfire; they are really midget planes. At night time they show a distinct yellow glow at the rear, and eject streams of smoke in small, thick puffs. The planes have a distinctive rhythmic note. Two or three are sometimes believed to be sent across the Channel together. Many of them have been übserved in daylight, and R.A.F. fighters several times dived into the ack-ack fire around them attempting to make a kill. The machines came in very low, and were met by' a terrific concentration of anti-aircraft fire and rocket shells. The Ministry of Home Security issued this warning to the public: “ When the engine of a pilotless plane stops and the light at the end of the machine is seen to go out, it may mean that an explosion will soon follow, perhaps in five to 15 seconds.” Little Military Use The fact that the pile lless plane has been turned against Southern England after the invasion is an almost certain indication that Hitler, by its use, hopes to divert some of our overwhelming air strength from the fighting areas in France to deal with the new weapon, says the British United Press aviation correspondent. The Germans doubtless hope that Allied bombers will be diverted from roads, railways, and bridges behind the German lines to deal with the area from which the pilotless planes are launched, and also that our fighter planes will be diverted from the battle area to try to shoot down the pilotless-.planes as they fly over Southern England. The basic military use of the new weapon is so small as to be worthless. The enemy otherwise would certainly direct the pilotless planes against harbours where we are building up strength for invasion. The correspondent added that the radius of the pilotless planes is believed to be a little over 100 miles, which places their launching area somewhere in the Pas de Calais area. The pilotless planes have an important secondary purpose—the bolstering up of the German people’s morale. The Stockholm newspaper Afton Tidningen, in a leader advances the theory that the Germans used Sweden as a target for their experiments with the pilotless planes. The newspaper, recalling the recent discovery in Sweden of a projectile of this kind, which was apparently fired from the Danish island of Bornholm, suggests that Germany was then trying to test the new weapon’s range, accuracy, and destructive force. The newspaper ■ urges that Sweden should keep all details secret. German Exultation

The keynote of Dr Goebbel’s propaganda was that the pilotless raids are a reprisal for the Allied raids against German cities. The German News Agency quoted the German, deputy press chief as saying: “ The new weapon now being used against England is the beginning of our revenge. The destruction of Germany’s cultural monuments will not remain unpunished.” The News Agency’s commentator, Schroeder, said that the pilotless plane now being used against London was the first of Germany’s secret weapons which would be brought into action against Britain. “It is certain everybody will be content to be in Berlin and not in London,” he said. “ Our enemies by their mean terror crimes lit the German people’s feeling with hatred aild a glowing wish for revenge. We remember all the shameful acts of the British and American air gangsters, and their cold-blooded and cowardly attacks against defenceless German civilians.” The German News Agency’s commentator, Captain Sertorius, said the planes were directed against invasion jumping-off points from which supplies were flowing for General Montgomery's men who are still fighting on the fringe of the French mainland. He added: “The existence of this new weapon may not be without influence on the further development of the great struggle between Germany, Britain, and the United States.” Berlin radio said the whole German nation, with the utmost tension, was eagerly watching the development of the action Germany was taking against Britain; action, for which Germans so long had worked and hoped and which they anticipated just at the' moment when it came—the moment of the invasion. Many Germans may have doubted Dr Goebbels’s statement that the coming retaliation was not a mere propaganda bluff, but a military reality. The German leaders, however, did not allow themselves to be influenced by considerations other than the use of at least one of the results of the genius of German inventors.