BREACHED DAMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 June 1943, Page 4

BREACHED DAMS

EFFECT ON GERMAN CANALS SEVERE BLOW. IMPORTANCE TO INDUSTRY, In addition to its severity as a blow against the production of the Ruhr's great concentration of industries ,the Royal Air Force’s magnificently successful attack on the Mohne and Eder dams, which are built on rivers of these two names, is yet another smashing punch at Germany’s vital communications.

The strain which has been placed on these, especially as a result of the widely dispersed hammering which they have been receiving from British and American bombers, has been shown by the fact that Germany has been forced to use sea transport along her own and occupied coasts. .Now the R.A.F. has struck at a means of communication almost, if not just, as important as her rail and road systems—that is, her inland waterways. Of much significance in the report of the Mohne and Eder raid is the statement that these dams controlled the level of the canal system linking West Germany, the Ruhr and North Germany with Berlin and the Baltic.

EFFORTS TO IMPROVE SYSTEM. For the past 30 years Germany has made a great effort to modernise its canal systems to serve the requirements of industry, and as industry for a number of years has been concentrated on the production of war materials, it therefore follows that the dependence of industry generally on the canals automatically measures the dependence of Germany’s war production on the same waterways. The State took control of the inland waterways in 1921. Since then efforts to improve the system have been redoubled for the following main purposes:—(l) To reduce Rhenish and Westphalian dependence on the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp for waterborne traffic, and to provide direct communication with the North Sea ports of Emden, Bremen and Hamburg and with Baltic ports, especially Lubeck and Stettin; (2) to provide west and east links between the main river system for the encouragement and development of industry and trade in midland Germany and to connect the Silesian industry by water with its German and export markets, and the eastern grain-producing district with the industrial west. RELIEVING THE RAILWAYS. (3) To relieve the over-burdened railway system of heavy traffic, especially of grain, coal and ores; and (4) to link up the three groups of waterway systems, which were respectively those based on the Rhine, Ems and Weser; the Elbe, Oder and Vistula; and the Danube.

Strategic considerations of independence of foreign control of the mouths of the Rhine and of the creation of great industrial centres as far as possible from the frontiers had great weight in the schemes for construction of the northern and midland waterways. The degree to which they were important in peacetime—and they must be immeasurably more important now —is shown by the fact that in 1929 they carried 18.6 per cent of the combined rail and water traffic and in 1937 the figure was 21.6 per cent.

IMPORTANCE OF WATER LEVELS. When they are viewed on a ■ map, all the innumerable canals of Germany are shown to be interconnected. Thus, damage to some must impose an additional strain on others even if it does not put them out of commission. The system is particularly complicated and interdependent in the vast area where the water level is controlled by the two dams which have been breached. Upon the water level depends the navigability of the canals, so that if the R.A.F.s attack has done no more than lower the level of some of the canals which help to pour raw materials into the Ruhr and later send out the finished articles to the battlefronts, then the loss of the barges which cannot, be navigated in the new depths will impose a most unwelcome additional strain on the already greatly embarrassed rail and road systems. Moreover, the loss of depth in the canals is only a fraction of the damage which has been wrought. The storage capacity of the two breached dams is stated to be 336,000.000 tons, or 75,260,000,000 gallons of water.