New-York tribune., 1918-04-21

Concerning GERMANY.
Earnest Effort to Ac.
complish Big Things in
Her Air Raids on I.on-
don-Also an Imnor
tant English Reaction
<<T%HE German has seldom II,
played anything approacb;ns @
u genius in his methods oe

rying on war in the air h..
his display Of sound common sense ~
been truly remarkable" observes = -'sS
Grey, editor of "The Aeroplane." wr;t;s
in 1.-The Illustrated London News" Cos
may fairly say that, lacking origiral;,,,
of any kind, the German has gen;u, ss
the obvious" And he continues: ~
when Zeppelins raided England earl, ;.
the war there were no anti-aircraft defos. ~
OF any kind, and the Germans knew !. ~.
fectly we'll. There were no guns. no nh.
flying aeroplanes and no ammunition 81.
able Tor use against airships. Therefaro ~.
German did the obvious thing. and rs;sas
London at will. The really SURPRISING th;s1
is that he was so long thinking about Il \.
fore he started. And it is still more sns ~
prlslng to lind how little damage he did
"Then, when the London anti-a;rcr.f. ;.
fences began to develop and he BEGAN :.
lose few airships, he gave London m =.
bad job and took to wandering about .s
country seeking for any big town on yh;.s
to drop bombs.
"Then, when the anti-aircraft defa,...
became we'll developed all over the conntr,.
the German left England alone for ner;os
The airships which he then possessed cons
not rise above 10000 to 10000 feet. whs,.
they were easily reached by aeroplanes .ns
comparatively easily seen by gunners ~
the ground Therefore, the German did M
obvious thing and used his Zeppelins q,
scouting at sea and for raiding undefenaoa
places in the Eastern war area. snch .,
Bucharest and places with impossible namo.
in Russia. A''
Meantime he turned his genius for tbs
obvious on to the task of building new tvns,
of Zeppelin which would fly faster and r;,e
higher.
when the German had produced half
dozen OR so of such machines he waited for
a suitable night, SO misty that it was i'm.
possible to use searchlights, and he sent
them over to bomb London. Unfortunately
for the German, the mist was particularly
thlck IN the vicinity of London and he
tailed to find his objective The general
ofhcer commanding London aircraft defence
area, having a genius for the unobyious.
instead Of turning on vain searchnghts and
Illuminating the fog for the benefit of the
German, or letting his guns fire at the
sound of engines, and thus disclose the no.
sltlon of London, acted like the gentleman
III Mr.. Kipling's story and LAY powerful
doggo,' SO that the German failed to find
London at all-all except one of him who
drlfted across by sheer luck and dropped
three fairly innocuous bombs.
Meantime all the airshps cruised about
and burned much petrol. AS they returned
they were chased up high by gunfire and
aeroplanes near the coast, where the air
was clearer. There the ships ran into
strong wind from the north, which drove
them down to the centre of France. For
various good reasons their drectonal wire
less apparatus failed there so most OF them
Kept on steering east and drifting south till
at daybreak they had used all their fuel
and found themselves still over France
Whereupon the lost ships landed and all
except one were destroyed by their crews
Two OR three of the whole fleet only es-
capped with difficulty back to Germany
This was another lesson to the German
who is always anxious to learn So now he
seems to have worked out new plan of
campaign. 1t seems that his idea is to
cruise over the North Sea at nght-a dark
night for preference-and make li.tle
dashes at coast towns which he believes to
be only lightly defended, or which have
been left IN peace so long that their defend
ers may have gone to sleep. Having dropped
few bombs, and thus having lightened
himself considerably SO that he can go up
high, he proceeds to wander about the
country at considerable altitude, where
he may be heard and not seen, hoping to
terrorize munition centres
From the Germans point of view the
scheme is obviously sensible and he prob
ably will keep it up till he loses few Of
his nice new high level airships Through
their meeting aeroplanes which can fy
higher still
incidentally, the German airship pilot
is fulfilling useful purpose by impressing
on provincial England the actual existencs
OF great war, which some people in well
paid, unraided industrial districts are apt
to forget, and by demonstrating the singu-
lar unamiability of the type of man who
would descend on England if the English
people ever permitted their home grown
but German inspired Bolsheviks to produce
the state of anarchy which has placed Rus
STA under the heel of the Hun. Wherein
the German demonstrates his bad judgment