The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-11-10
BIRMINGHAM AGEHERA1D SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 1o 1918

coasts and 1t could, therefore, b.
 bombed with thousands of bombs ever,
 night carrying from 250 to 2OOO pounds
 of high explosives. Experience ha
 shown that there is no adequate de
 Tense against such night attacks, ant this for the simple reason that enem, planes can seldom be seen at night il
 time to prevent them dropping theii
 bombs The situation may perhaps b,
 made clear by the statement that i
 the Germans should turn over Heligo
 land to the allies with all of it's bat
 teries and defenses, the allies could no use it as base for any of their ship. ping, airplanes, etc, because the ship. ping and planes would promptly be
 bombed out of existence. Moreover lthey could not even maintain their per sonnel on the island, because every square yard of it could be bombed with. in a short time.
 Of course. the material reply Is that | if the Germans could bomb the allies
 out of Heligoland so easily, the latter should be able to bomb the Germans | out, though perhaps not so easily. The allies would be glad to do so, and |. would do so were 1t not that the de- velopment of bombing planes Is not yet such as to permit sending them | such great distance with any consid- erable weight of bombs-and getting them back again. It is about 10 times as far from Dunkirk or England to Heligoland as it is from Germany to Heligoland.
 By reason of the conditions described l above it is recognized by military au- thorities that properly defended naval port cannot be taken without an attack from the land. If the German | armies are driven back into Germany so as to uncover the German naval ports the latter will fall into our hands. When the German lines are driven back from Ostend and Zee brugge these ports will also come into the possession of the allies. Even the very gallant attack on these ports from the sea succeeded in maintaining landing only for an hour or so, and blocking the ports so that they could not be used for a few weeks.
 Question--why is 1t that, if it is not possible to "dig the rats out of their holes,' they cannot be blocked in by mines?
 Answer--It would take too long to explain such matetr in detail, but it may be, made clear by a few state- ments.
 mine field could be placed before an enemy's port which would prevent any enemy vessel coming out of the port on pain of being blown up. Tho difficulty is to keep the mine field in place. In a few hours the enemy's through the mine field and in a few days they can sweep up all the mines of field of very considerable area. Therefore a. mine field is of no use un- less it can be continuously defended to keep the enemy from destroying t. tance from the eenmy's port is inprac- ticable. because the defending vessels would be subject to continuous night attack by torpedo craft etc. It is we'll known that the Heligoland Eight for 1e0 miles out Is pretty well filled witli mines. Some of these are German mines to embarrass the allied opera tions in the Eight, and some are allied mines to similarly embarrass the Ger mans. There is a war of mine, laying and mine dragging that has been go- ing in on both sides in this area since shortly after the beginning of the war. Tn this warfare many vessels have been lost on both sides, Sometimes exits from various channels have been opened by the Germans and closed again by the British, but 1t is imprac- ticable for the Germans to keep their channels continuously open or for the British to keep them continuously closed. It may be taken for granted that If either operation were prac- ticable it would have been carried out long ago.
 There has been published in the press within the past few months the fact that a mine barrage is being laid from the coast of Norway to the Ork- ney islands. The position of this mine field was given at the time that the area was publicly declared. The at- tack or defense of mine field in this position is quite a different matter