OVER GERMANY

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20063, 9 October 1939, Page 8

OVER GERMANY

BRITISH PLANES

SIEGFRIED LINES SEEN HEIGHT OF 100 FEET PUZZLING BEHAVIOUR LACK OF PROTECTION

(Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Oct. 9, 1 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 8. Throe Royal Air Force planes surveyed nearly 20 miles of the Siegfried Line from a height, rarely exceeding 100 ft., encountering fire only once. The leader of the formation said that the line obviously was unfinished and was absurdly easy to pick out. “We passed over many villages, but saw no civilians,” he said. "We were mystified about many things, including large barns of exactly the same pattern. There were peculiar experiments in camouflage, concrete turrets being among huddles of ancient roofs and complete dummy. villages.” Speaking in a Royal Air Force mess, the leader of the formation, a young lieutenant, told “Eyewitness” of astonishing tilings he had seen. “Most of all I was impressed by the obviously unfinished state of the Siegfried Line,” he said. "It was absurdly easy to pick out, because the grass has not vet had time to grow again over the scarred earth. In many places we saw mounds of frcshly-thrown-up earth and white patches where they had been burrowing in crumbly soil. Big Gun Camouflaged “At the same time, however, we saw no one actually at work on it. In one place we flew right over a huge gun which a group of men were camouflaging. We could distinctly see them gaping up at us with their paint pots in their hands, apparently unable to move. “Only when wc were right past them did they seem to recover from their astonishment. Then some of them waved their hands and went racing back to nearby huts. It was just after this that we were fired on by a machine-gun. “In another place we flew over a camp. Men came crowding out of the huts and here too it looked as though they were waving at us, though of course they might have been shaking their fists. “We passed many villages, but I did not sec a single civilian inhabitant. Nearly always the streets were quite deserted, though sometimes soldiers were strolling about looking up at us.” The leader said that not once was an anti-aircraft gun fired at them and no single German plane appeared to molest them. British airmen can offer no explanation of this strange reluctance on. the part of the Germans to protect the secrets of their line.