SEVERE STRAIN

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 August 1940, Page 5

SEVERE STRAIN

INFLICTED ON GERMAN NERVES RESULTS OF BRITISH BOMBING. RELUCTANT ADMISSIONS. I By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, August 2. A correspondent of the Associated Press who has been allowed to travel through part of industrial western Germany, states that in one portion of the industrial region of the Ruhr air-raid alarms every night for two weeks had kept the population within the shelters till 3 o'clock in the morning. German officials wore at some pains to explain that no British bombs had fallen on any military objectives. When the correspondent asked if not even one bomb had struck military objectives the Germans gave no reply. The Germans have carefully noted the number of incendiary and other bombs which have been dropped in Germany, the buildings damaged and the civilian casualties. No factories are included in this list. It has been admitted, however, that an ammunition dump was hit. In one centre 17 persons had been killed. One official admitted that the losses had been higher in other districts.

These modest German admissions conflict with a statement made by General von Schroeder, head of the German A.R.P. organisation. In a twocolumn newspaper interview he commented on the destructive power of the British bombs, and remarked that such air attacks as Germany had already faced had inflicted a heavy strain on the nerves of the people.