'FIGHTERS' SUCCESS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 144, 20 August 1941, Page 5

'FIGHTERS' SUCCESS

NEW LONDON RAID SPIRIT

The success of their night-fighter planes had given British people a new sense of security in recent months, Mr 11. A. Bland said recently. Mr Bland, official secretary of the New South Wales Government t.*ffice in London, has just returned to advise the New T South Waies Government on air-raid precautions. Mr Bland added: "Opinion in Britain is. that Nazi bombing will never regain the peak intensity of (ast December. "London had not had an air-raid tor a fortnight before I left three weeks ago. "But Americans I met on the way )ut told me that R.A.F. bombing Was seriously affecting German war production in the Ruhr districts." Mr Bland said that blast furn•ices at British steelworks were enclosed by galvanised iron structures to hide them from Nazi airmen.. Screening of furnace glare cost £186,000 at one British steelworks diout the size of B.H.P.'s Newcastle plant. "Men working blast furnaces iniide the iron enclosures must endure terrific heat —but they prefer Lhis to being bombed,'" Mr Bland said. "British steel-workers have their ;wn vigilance committees to check black-outs. A chink in a blast furdace screen would send out a beam

like a searchlight.

"Hooded stoking appliances * arcused to hide the glare from coke.rvens of British steelworks. "On locomotives, canvas hoods ind flaps stop glare from the boilers."