THE AIR RAIDS.

Taranaki Daily News, 19 March 1921, Page 9

THE AIR RAIDS.

DAMAGE IN ENGLAND. _ OFFICIAL VEIL LIFTED. BIG EXODUS FROM LONDON. , ®,„ It has been noted that a great many of the American visitors to London this year have been especially desirous to see what traces remain of the air raids, says a London message to the New York Evening' Post. A guide who specialised in organising tours of the stricken districts might have made a comfortable income. It would not have been difficult to plan such an itinerary, for building of all kinds has been so slow that there are many demolished houses yet to be reconstructed. There are other effects of the raids not so easily displayed before the eyes of the chance visitor. One cannot, for instance, exhibit to him the migration of London residents which, at certain periods took place on quite a considerable scale. The attempt to escape the terror by night led to a redistribution of the population, which produced an unwonted congestion in several areas believed to be immune from the invader. Even remote Cornwall received so many fugitives that it won the sobriquet of “cowards’ corner.” Nearer resorts — notably Brighton—were still more popular as a shelter. Many persons, no doubt, whose business affairs would not allow a prolonged absence from London, have since returned, but in other cases, where there was no urgent reason compelling residence in one place rather than another, the change of abode has been permanent, especially as the shortage of housing accommodation has made any one- with a roof above his head think twice before surrendering a sure domicile. EFFECTS OF NERVOUS STRAIN. Not, again, is it possible for the stranger to be shown anything that would make him realise the injurious effect of the raids upon the health and the nerves of the people who suffered not only from the shock of frequent alarms, but from the wearing apprehension .of attacks often for several nights in succession at times when the weather conditions favored the raiders. Delicate children, in particular, who were hustled out of bed again and again in the middle of the night to flee for shelter to a tube station, will bear marks of the ordeal far on into their adult years. • There is, indirect psychological consequence of the raids that, while not definitely calculable, is bound to count for a good deal in the near future—namely, the widespread disbelief in the veracity of the public authorities that resulted from the character of the official bulletins of the amount of damage done. It was presumably considered all-important to keep up the morale of the community by minimising the effects of the raids. Those whose homes were in the neighborhood of the spots where the bombs fell could judge for themselves how far these .statements came short of the facts. Others had a general impression at the time that nothing like the full story was being told.

This impression is now confirmed by a series of articles that appeared last week in the Times —“the first authentic account,” says the paper, “that has been published from our side.” These articles consisted largely of accounts of the movements of the raiders, with details of the course they followed, but partleufars were also given in many instances of the effect of their attacks. It is instructive to compare the information now supplied with the War Office communiques issued at the time. GREAT DAMAGE EARLY IN THE WAR. One of the earliest raids of any consequence was on 15th June, 1915, when, as we now learn, munition works on the Tyne suffered rather badly, including Palmer’s works at Jarrow and the Marine Engineering Works at Walsend, the latter having £30,000 worth of damage done to its machinery. In the contemporary official statement all we were told of this damage was that “some fires were started but have, been overcome.” It is now revealed that even more-ma-terial damage had been done in a raid on Hull on 6th June. The official statement announced no damage beyond that from fires started by incendiary and explosive bombs, and reported that “the principal fires were in a drapery establishment, a timber yard, and a terrace of small houses.” On Bth September of the same year there occurred an extensive raid on London, in which bombs dropped between Noble-street and Alder - manbury started fires which caused the heaviest material damage suffered in the whole series of raids. The total damage, it is now said, amounted to £500,000. In the official bulletins published at the time nothing whatever was said of any material damage. In 1916 there was an attack on 31st January on certain midland towns. Somehow or other, the number of bombs dropped on that occasion has increased in the interval from 220 to more than 360, and the casualties from 121 to 183. We now read that on 23rd September the Midland Railway freight station at Nottingham “suffered severely.” One certainly would not have suspected as much from official statements which reported: “Some damage wjis caused at a railway station. The damage done by the raiding airships was slight.” AMMUNITION STORE BLOWN UP. There was nothing in the official announcements to indicate the seriousness of the mid-day raid on London on 13th June, 1917. Neither does the statement, concerning a raid ( of 16th June, that “some damage was done, and a fire broke out in a coast town,” prepare one for learning that an airship blew up the ammunition store at Ramsgate by a direct hit. Of other raids in the same year, which it would be tedious to specify in detail, there was a considerable under-state-ment of the damage they caused, both to property and to life and limb. So, too, with regard to a London raid on 7th March, 1918, the report that “a certain amount of damage. 5a jjjyiiS caused to residential property ’ m London, several houses having been demolished,” makes much less impression than the statement now made that one bomb alone wrecked most of a street. On 19th May “a few dozen bombs,” according to the bulletin issued, at the time, “were dropped promiscuously in certain parts of the London district, doing, in a few cases only, no inconsiderable damage to small dwelling house property.” Unimportant as this property may have been, the damage done to it turns out to have amounted to £>133.000. Of an inland raid in the pre-

vious month it was said that most of the bombs were dropped in- the open country, and, apart from the dqiholitioii of four houses at one the damage reported was inconsiderable. This statement, it appears, covered the bombing of the important industrial centre of Wigan and of blast furnaces at Ince. It is, of course, on the official communiques that the various year-books have depended for material in compiling their summaries. Thus, Hazeli’s Annual published in its 1919 edition a table of the results of air raids throughout the war, in which we find such an item as “some fires” as a complete record of the material damage done by the raid of Bth September, 1915. AIR RAIDS IN FUTURE WARS. Some very interesting general conclusions are drawn by the Times from the particulars it is now in a position to publish. They tend, on the whole, to confirm the apprehensions of those who believe that in any future war the destruction done by air raids, outside what is technically called the war zone, will be of an appalling character. In the first place, the airship—which started the series of raids on England, but gave way later to the airplane—was beaten not by the guns but by the incendiary bullet. If there can be discovered a non-in-flammable gas of the lifting power requireed, the Airship will not be an out-of-date weapon, but will become “a very grave menace.” In the second place, we are warned that, against airplanes, it is by no means certain that, at the end of the war, the defence was gaining on the attack. The danger, in fact, grew progressively more grave toward the end of the war, but at that stage the Germans were so preoccupied in France, that they were never able to spare enough machines for a sufficient length of time to make the attack on London as formidable as it might have been. REALLY DECEIVED. ■While a war is actually in progress it is, of course, held to be perfectly legitimate to deceive either your enemies or your own people if military reasons counsel a suppression or evasion of the truth. In peace time commonly supposed desirable to resume the normal ethical standards. But a habit cultivated by four years of war cannot in practice, be shed as easily as a wornout garment, and we have had several instances of late to show that the skill in this branch of military science tends still to be exercised when it is thought inexpedient for the general community to be told too much.

But the acquiescence of the public in the issuing of disingenuous statements by the governing authorities does not necessarily mean that it is really taken "in by them. Experience has already taught people to allow a very liberal discount for the #ieeds of high policy. The war had not run many months before Canon Hannay (“George A. Birmingham”) predicted that one of its results would be a growth of scepticism—not in the sense that religious faith would be shaken, but that statements published in the Press or made by official authorities would not be so Teadily accepted. There would be a reaction, he foresaw, from the credulity which was at first so ready to swallow everything that got into print. By this time it is abundantly clear that Canon Hannay was a true prophet.