NOT SO HARMLESS

Taranaki Daily News, 12 September 1940, Page 7

NOT SO HARMLESS

British Official Wireless.

NEW BRITISH LEAFLETS FIRES START IN GERMANY

Rugby, Sept. 10. It is learned from an authoritative source to-night that the Royal Air Force is using a form of incendiary weapon which could be described as a self-igniting leaf. It is designed to set fire, for example, to military stores standing in the open, an arsenal or ammunition dump, or engineers' stores in a field, military supplies in open trucks in marshalling yards or parks of military lorries and other similar objectives. It would also set light under suitable conditions to a wood in which military units or a depot or ammunition plant was concealed. It is known that the enemy has concealed such targets in woods. Accusations made by the Germans that the "leaves" cause poisoning is false. The leaf is not poisonous but if handled would, of course, cause burns, just as every other incendiary bomb would. Authorised circles at Berlin are reported to have stated that the Royal Air Force has dropped a million self-ignit-ing celluloid cards on Germany in the past four weeks and set fire to crops, barns and schools in Westphalia, Hanover and the Harz Mountains, and southern and central Germany. One plane could carry 250,000 cards, which are two inches square.