NAZI TECHNIQUE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 243, 11 September 1940, Page 7

NAZI TECHNIQUE

INDISCRIMINATE ATTACKS. CONTRAST WITH R.A.F. (United Press Association—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (Rec. 9 a.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 10. The newspapers to-day give a considered opinion as to the reasons for and the effect, of the indiscriminate bombing to which London has been subjected on Sunday and Monday nights.

“Nobody who saw yesterday where bombs had fallen on London could believe the Germans tried to confine their aim to military objectives,” states the Daily Herald. The Times says there is every reason to suppose these attacks will continue nightlv for some time, and the civil population of London must steel itsell to endure a repetition and perhaps even an intensification of the ordeals it has already undergone. After drawing attentmn to the ditforencc between the British and Geiman raids, and tho fact that the British objectives have been military, targets, tlie Times says the German air force have failed altogether, to leveal the precision of the British Air Force.

Their attempts to find their targets in the davlight raids have been hurled back with such devastating loss that those tactics seem to have been very largely suspended. Instead, they have flown over London at such great heights that, whatever their orders or intentions, nothing like a systematic bombardment of military targets is attainable. TRANSPORT HAMPERED. The Ministry of Transport announces that the violent and indiscriminate bombing of the past two or three days has naturally caused some temporary dislocation of travelling facilities. In order to enable repairs to proceed with the least possible delay, the public are asked to refrain from unnecessary travel to and from the London area. Although the recent German bombings hear all the marks of indiscriminate attacks, authoritative quarters m London take the view that the. enemy is trying to smash our communications in the night raids. The raiders cruis’d over the Metropolis seeking some indication of a target, and scattered bombs at random when they failed to locate their objectives. RESTRAINED BRITISH POLICY. The air attack on London is presented in tii-o German wireless broadcasts as a great and exhilarating event, and the terrorist quality of the raids is, by implication, constantly emphasised. 't here has boon no disposition here to minimise the .serious nature of the civilian casualties caused, but the R.A.F. will not be deflected at this from its declared purpose of confining its attacks on Germany and Germanoccupied territory to military objectives.

Tho Reich’s propaganda office to-day attempted in wireless broadcasts to demonstrate how ineffective are the British air attacks by the publication of casualty figures. It declared that between May 10 and August 31 the total casualties inflicted during the British air raids on German territory were 78 persons killed, 29 gravely wounded, and 22 slightly wounded. These figures, if any confidence could be placed in Nazi statistics, would be received here with nothing but satisfaction, since it is no part of British strategy to kill and maim civilians or destroy their homes, and would at the same time manifestly serve. to underline the accuracy of the aim of R.A.F. pilots, since the scale and intensity of tho attacks on military objectives in Gel-many during past months by tho R.A.F. is widely (known. R.A.F. CAMPAIGN. Apart altogether from the attacks on military objectives in German-occu-pied territory, and the bombing of troop concentrations, naval and military formations, and dumps in Germany itself, the R.A.F. have, during the period mentioned in tho German wireless, carried out 139 raids on aerodromes, 54 on aircraft works, 57 on munition works and chemical or supply depots, 139 on oil plants or depots, 13 on blast furnaces, 18 on power stations and 25 oil miscellaneous targets.

The comment is further, made in London that casualties so slight as these given by the German wireless seem hardly to' warrant the many angry fulminations about the British bombing of civilian objectives, nor indeed the present loudlyproclaimed reprisal policy.