THE AIR RAID.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 June 1917, Page 9

THE AIR RAID.

HIDEOUS DEATH SCENES. WOMEN AND CHILDREN KILLED. SOME REMARKABLE ESCAPES. The following details of the raid by German aircraft on the south-east of England on May 25 are published in Australian journals:— From the time when the first dovelike scout was seen approaching, a short interval elapsed before the first line of the raiders' formation waß discerned. They were (flying in perfect alignment, and resembled silver specks in the sunshine. Their origin and mission was by now unmistakable from the distant noise of the exploding bombs in the western part of the town. The oncomcrs swerved slightly, when Aver the town, to the southwards of the railway line. The second line sweeping into sight went straight on, keeping northward of the railway before turning, and converging towards the forerunners. Both groups were flying with audacious precision. The first explosions were isolated, but they became more frequent as the raiders were nearly overhead. The bombs Were ' not the incendiary kind, hence tho absence of fires.

Ejoplosioi? after explosion crashed out. echoing back from the surrounding hills until the dazed townsfolk scarcely knew in what direction to look for tho impending peril. The din became more terrific as the raiders were flying seaWard.

CUSTOMERS KILLED IN SHOPS. A dozen 'bombs dropped in an area 200 yards square through which a street ran. It was as if the whole cargo of bombs had been released here. The sight was heartrending. Women and children were tying about, some dead, and others screaming in agony. Two high explosive bombs wrecked a butcher's and a drap r er's shop, which were facing each other. The death roll was very heavy in the intervening space. The butcher's shop, which was of ancient build, and constructed principally of wood, completely collapsed, burying the assistants and customers, together with bystanders, who had sought shelter there. One of the heads of the firm was killed instantly, and a. female assistant on the first floor was hurled twenty feet into the shop uninjured.

The proprietor of a, wine shop adjoining the draper's shop, who was talking to a friend, invited him to take & glass of wine. He went to feteh the wine from an inner room, and, returning, found his fripnd lying covered with blood, bis head having Ibeen severed from his body by a fragment of a bomb. The mortality among the customers of the draper's stoop was terrible, and here again a head of the firm was among the Victims. Some of the seriously 1 injured have undergone two operations, and it Is doubtful if they will survive. In these two shops, and in the'vicinity, thirty persona were killed and twenty others died after being taken to hospital.' A sea captain, formerly a commodore in the Cross Channel fleet, was sitting in a garden in the west end of the town When a bomb burst in the garden and pitted the wall around the spot where he was seated, and cut a clothes line Into six pieces. The captain escaped Unscathed. AERIAL TORPEDO MISSES CHILD. In the grounds of a theatre an aerial torpedo fell without exploding. It dug Its way many feet into the soft earth. A four-year-old child, playing four yards from the spot, was not hurt. The propellor of the torpedo was found fast buried in the turf ten yards away. A bomb in the centre of the town demolished two bui[dings ; killing two men in the street. Three other passersby were frightfully injured, and succumbed. '( A naval pensioner employed at a private school was killed by a bomb exploding hundreds of yards away. A piece of guttering, wrenched from a roof, was hurled through the air, and almost tompletcly severed his head. Another aerial torpedo fell on a large hotel, and penetrated several floors before exploding. The tremendous power of tho explosive used was shown by the fact that a fragment, flying across the road, pierced three shops in succession. Nobody was injured here. In the west end of the town a bomb brought down a gable as if it had been sliced with a knife. A cook was buried in the wreckage, and another servant was slightly hurt. ENEMY ALIENS SUSPECTED. Many 'met their injuries and deatus In doorways. Two maid-servants, who took refuge in the cellar of a house, Were killed when it collapsed. A fireman who took the fire alarm call in one instance afterwards learned that his wife and mother and children had been buried in wreckage. Eye-witnesßes states that the raiders came in three lines of five each, and (hat they separated as soon as the kombing began.

The evidence at one inquest showed that a girl* was killed by a fragment of time shrapnel similar to that used against troops. The explosion of the fatal bomb was described as resembling a wheel of Are.

The regular police, special police, the firo brigade, and voluntary workers were prompt in making rescues, regardless of the danger. The municipality has condoled with the sufferers, and carried a resolution declaring that the town is insufficiently defended from air raids, and that the secret service should foe strengthened against danger from enemy aliens.

One of the factors in putting this kind of pressure on the reluctant Hun is the failnro of liis iU boat operations. Right from the beginning of the war Germany has regarded her submarines as a block-ade-breaking weapon. And their first failure in this capacity did not destroy licr faith in their ability eventually to do what she. wanted of them. The Hun is tenacious Once an idea gets Into his head it sticks ihcrc. finding that his earlier 17 boats were unequal to the task of loosening our grip upon the North Sea, he set about equipping himself with underwater craft of it much more efficient type. These he built in considerable numbers and on a standardised system of construction, which enables the supply to be kept up. Possibly it may not for long prove equal to replacing the wastage. GERMAN BOATS. It certainly will not if the profit and loss account continues to work out as at present. With these new 'U boats and plenty of them Cermany expected she would be able to make the narrow seas so unsafe for our battleships and cruisers that they would be afraid to move far from their bases, as the risk of serious losses would be too grave for us to fasc. With a great part of our fleet thus penned in, and a paralysing attack in progress upon our sea-borne trade, Germany 'believed, she would bo able to make a gap in our blockade sufficiently wide to enable some of her own merchant vessels, or other vessels carrying goods for her, to slip through, especially if they had a protective screen of U boats around them. All the world knows that in neither of these respects has her plans succeeded. Having thus failed in her purpose by one means Germany must cither try to accomplish it by another or give it up altogether—and this she cannot afford to do without at least making the attempt, as such action on her part would be equivalent to a declaration of unconditional surrender. Public opinion may not count for much in the Fatherland, but it is not such a negligible quantity there that the War Lords caii ignore it altogether, and the German people have in the past been told so many boastful things about what their fleet would do to the hated English when jt got the chanco that there will be big trouble made for the Kaiser ai\d his entourago if the fleet ends up by doing nothing, not even getting itself smashed up again. Already the German populace are beginning to ask with increasing emphasis when the vaunting promises made for the navy that has cost them so much good money are going to be justified by deeds. HINDENBURG'S POWER. And Hindenburg ranks with the malcontents. It is no secret that for a long time past he has been expressing himself strongly about the ineptitude of the High Seas Fleet. At first sight it may not appear that Hindenburg has any control of naval policy. But lie is the Power (and that with a very 'big P) at tho moment in Germany, and whenever Hindenburg decides that the situation demands naval action this will have to be taken. , Any day that Hindenburg says th* fleet must go out and fight (and he may say this any day), out it will have to go. Every set-back to Germany's arms on land also brings nearer the time when she can no longer avoid making a definite move on sea. As she is forced back on the Western front and elsewhere tho effect will be to cause a "bulge" in another direction, and there exists only one in which it can occur. The cumulative effect of these variouß factors must be to force that naval action for which Germany has been assiduously preparing. That she has been, and even now continues, preparing iwitlv all her might to make the strongest possible showing at sea when she becomes obliged to hazard her last throw there admits of no doubt. One cannot say to what extent her fleet has been strengthened since Jutland. But her shipbuilding resources are much greater than the majority of the British people realise, and one must not underrate her energy by assuming that she has not made full use of them. NEW GERMAN SHIPS. Germany possesses approximately thirty large shipbuilding establishments, besides many smaller ones, and quite a host of factories in which contributory work tan be done. We know the systematic prmciple upon which she has organised her plants for turning out submarines in quantities. If she lias in the same manner co-ordinated her other resources to "speed up" larger construction there ia no reason why she should not have had somewhere about twentyfive battleships or cruisers building at the one time. About twelve of her yards are so well equipped that they can build large warships complete. Others are capable of turning out smaller craft quickly. Tho Schicau Yard at Elbing specialises in destroyers, being able to Construct some fifty of these complete in a year. Under war pressure the yard may have done even better than this. While it remains uncertain what additions in capital ships Germany has made to her fleet, it is known that she has placed a number of new small fast cruistrs in it. One may fairly assume also that when the German Fleet does venture out there will be in it new ships of large displacement, carrying heavy guns and possessing high speed. And the probabilities are that no great time will elapse before we hear of the reorganised German Fleet in action.