ZEPPELIN RAIDS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2641, 11 December 1915, Page 14

ZEPPELIN RAIDS

* ' A NEW ZEALANDER'S IMPRESSIONS MR. F. M. B, FISHER IN LONDON • ■ i In the course of a letter from London, 1 Mr. F. M. B. Fislier discusses in an ' interesting manner the Zeppelin raids ' and the atfcitudo of Londoners thereto. ' ''The 'Zeps,'" Mr. Fisher says, "have ' completely transformed London. At ' night now the streets aro in inky dark- i ness. All the kerbs are whitewashed I in order to guide the traffic, Accidents 1 are numerous. , Many people at once 1 make a rush for the underground rail- 1 way as 6oon as the Zeps appear, and ' there they stay until tie raid is over. I Although 1 a raid has its horrors, yet ] there is something both wonderful and ] fascinating about it. , Usually we get ' word of their approach some hours in J advance, either from Holland or from ; our Channel patrols or coast defences. Then about 8 p.m. the Heavens are ' illuminated with tho rays of our power- ' 'ful searchlights, great numbers of which 1 are located on all the high buildings. 1 Soon one of .thoso enormous monsters •' appears, looking exactly like a huge ' silver cigar floating through 6pace. 1 Then millions of caudle-power from our < several lights is concentrated lipun it, : and the anti-aircraft guns begin , to 1 boom. All round and about the Zeps ' one can see the quick flashes of bursting shells, but it glides on its way, so ' far as one can tell, entirely unscathed' 1 and still dealing out death and fire in 1 its course. Soon, 'with a rush and a ' roar and the loud clanging of gongs, ' the fire brigade dashes along to where ' some incendiary bomb has accomplished ' its purpose.. Suddenly a sullen, muf- ' (led roar is heard, and immediately a 1 great reflection appears in the sky. Tho 1 bomb has penetrated and fired a huge gas main in the middle of the street. Then the gas is turned off., and insgle and out dense darkness prevails, whilst the inhabitants wait in their basements for what may. follow. Special police aro out in hundreds; ambulances are in readiness, 'and every preparation made for instantly dealing with all emergencies. "And yet the uncanny fascination of it all holds one spellbound. At times the Zep. will disappear in the clouds and the searchlights play incessantly l in their endeavour to again locate it. Suddenly, there it is. Boom, boom, go ike-guns. Every 'eye is straiued, looking for a hit. But the great silver cigar seems to bear a charmed life, and soars along on its way. Our guns cannot find the rauge Our aeroplanes aro up, but they, too, got lost in the ' clouds, and cannot locate tho enemy ' at all. And now the noise of the guns 1 has ceased. The searchlights are ! stopped. _ The sky is as black as ink. 1 ■The raid is over.. The air is filled with 1 rumour. The streets are crowded. The ' nervous people emerge from their safety ' zone in the underground. Listen to ! ;what they are saying. The Strand The- j atre has been hit.' Two hundred people 1 have been killed! A bomb dropped right ' on top of a bus and blew tho bus and everybody in it into smithereens. An? cthor just missed St. Paul's. These and ' a hundred and one other stories pass from mouth to' mouth. Many aro untrue, many are exaggerated, but there is ground for some. "Away down in tho city an urea is kept clear by tho police. A curious and excited crowd presses close for a ' view or at least some information. The brigade has surpressed the fire. On either hand the fronts of the buildings j are shattered. You can hear the crunch-' 1 ing of broken glass as the helpers move about in the prescribed area. A, Iran- c dred yards away a dim lantern-light reveals a stretcher being carried between two bearers. Some poor innocent victim suddenly smudged out, without warning, without provocation. Men are busy removing debris, which hag overwhelmed a mother and her two children. The mother and elder child are dead.- The baby, by. some miracle, is' untouched. The crowd • watches and waits. It sees but little, and hears only ah occasional scrap of gossip from some person who is homing out with a few fragments folded close in his arms. All that is left of homo. Such a scene is not alone, in. this spot. A littlefurther ofE is another scene of desola.tion, and yet another and'another. Aid what does it all mean? Perhaps the lives of 100 innocent men, women, and children, a few tens of thousands pounds of damages in property, and an enormous stimulus to the determination of the people to, in the long run, make Germany pay. for these oruel evidences of her policy of. hate and murder. : People hore now talk of reprisals, of bombing German towns and giving them a taste ; of their own medicine. \ hope to God that England -will not stain her hands - with murder—the blood of innocent women and children. The gain to us would be nil. We should be merely placing ourselves in the dock beside that German murderer, - and our sole defence would be, 'You began it.' In other words, -we should say, 'You are a niur- ' derer. I too am a murderer. But I did not commit murder until you had set tho example.' What judgment aro : -we to expect from posterity by placing ourselves in. such a position? Let us gas German soldiers by all means. That }s a form of reprisal ivhioh is sound and sensible, for there you are making the perpetrator of his deeds himself pay the penalty. But to kill women and children and old men for deeds which they were powerless to control, and perhaps in their hearts abhorred, would be 2 to descend to a level which would make i every decent Englishman ashamed of his country. This war will probably go on 1 for years. The judges and critics of our J actions may not yet bo born. The theatre 2 of war is so vast, its ramifications so extensive, its vast campaigns so com- rj plicated and interlaced, thfit probably j no "adequate history of this war will be 5 written for'fifty years. Then tho his- X torian, will be balancing the moral in- £ flucncos involved. Wo sny we went into this war to preserve our honour, which I became involved by the treaty with I Belgium. Honour being the basic cause of our entry, we as a nation must keep J it intact. We hold our honour as a i nation in trust for thoso who come after us. Let us not therefore drag it through'the blood of innoconts. There must be no reprisals which will spill ' the blood of innocent women and children in whoso interests wo are fighting this groat war. "To-night as I WTite tho searchlights are playing all over tho heaver.B. It is foggy, and the clouds are low down, a There is not much chance of Zeps, as 3 the air navigation is v.ery difficult when n the fogs aro about. From' Hyde Park u corner, tho sight' is very fine when things b aro busy. You really cannot imagino s tho frightful force of these explosions, nor some of the extraordinary results. Where a bomb lands on the top of a building like the Wairarapa Farmers' in ii Lambton Quay, for instance, it just I .shatters the whole building from roof C to basement. Floors are destroyed, and i the four outer walls aro cracked and- " riven in all directions. Where a bomb lands in an open street it makes a liolo ], about five feet deep, and fifteen to s twenty feet in diameter. All the metal and concrete displaced flies in all direc- 11 tions with most terrific force, and of courso the scattering fragments of the bomb itself aro not as soft as cottonwool. Under the wood-paved streets of London is a bed of concrete. A bomb smashed'through tho concrete bed and / blew a piece woighing nearly 100 pounds right over the adjoining house, where it dropped harmlessly in a back yard."