NAVAL RUSE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 3, Issue 213, 16 September 1940, Page 8

NAVAL RUSE

HUN AIRMEN BAFFLED KITES FLOWN FROM SHIPS "Picture 20 steamers proceeding in stately convoy clown the English Channel, each flying ■.a . kite as Targe as this room. Visualise, if you can, a tlive bomber attack 011 anyone of those so strangely protected ships, and' you will realise why this, convoy business: is so relatively safe for even the slowest of merchant ships.*' Thus a seaman visiting New Ply mouth described an impression of a convoy in the English Channel, says the Taranaki Daily News, To have any chance of success, he said, a bomber had to attack victim from a fore and aft position. Should an attack be maple at right angles to the course cJf the ship, the chances of a hit were so negligible as to be discounted in practical naval or air warfare. Hence the huge kites, trailing 5000 ft overhead and directly astern of the -vessels presented .a very real obstacle to enemy dive bombers. Some ships preferred a ball'oon to the kite, but nowadays most merchantmen flew some device as soon as they reached dan" gerous waters. "They present a weird, a wonderful and a truly amazing sight" he said, "but represent just another of the clever dodges devised by the Navy tc worry old Hitler."