Evening star., 1939-10-26
Europe's Queer War
May Quickly Become
Grim Page in History
British Airmen Chomping
At Bit to Get at
German Foe
By WALTER DURANTY.

BY WALTER DURANTY.
AT BRITISH HEADQUARTERS
IN FRANCE, Oct. 26 (N.A.N.AD.-
ITS a queer of a war"-"Cest une
drole de guerre"-say the French,
and never were Gallo brevity and
accuracy more felicitously applied,
The British Army uses the word that
= rhymes with muddy, and that is ap-
propriate, too. because mud is one Of
the primary characteristic of North
ern France in the autumn.
In Rome, a few weeks ago, they
told me, 1T is stupid, this war of
yours-why don't you call it OFF,"
And it is not beyond the bounds of
possibility that Chancellor Hitler,
who started it, might now make a
similar remark. Long agO-in peace
time-last summer, people called it
a war of nerves." and there was
once a Japanese general named
Kuroki who said. "In battle with
relatively equal forces, victory goes
to the side which has the strongest
nerves in the final IS minutes" In
3erlin, not many days past, they
had an air raid alarm, and. when 1t
was all over. German military au-
thorities announced they had shot
down one of their own planes which
somehow had been where it
shouldn't.
A certain, but discreetly unspeci-
fed, number of miles from my type
writer there is an unmentioned
number of British fighter and
bomber pilots literally biting their
nails to have a smack at any Ger
man. I mean no sinister Huns who
might try to raid Paris or London
and hope to get home alive, but any
who would try over here to put his
head in the lions mouth.
No Bombs Dropped.
This morning the air raid sirens
walled on that strange lugubrlouS
note that would put terror into the
hearts of any nation less courageous
than the French. They used the
same note in the last war. too, and,
DCllSNt lllC, ~ pQto lilC 1hliS ~ OohoiA
heart in ones boots, SO mournful
does it sound. Then we heard guns
banging and waited for the heavier
'crump- Whoomf" of bombs. I heard
1t lots of times in little French towns
behind the front in the last war, and
! assure you il is most unpleasant
noise. But no bombs were dropped.
two months of war, no bombs have
been dropped in Germany, France or
England except on naval bases,
where, even so. not a single civilian
has been wounded? Does this mean
that the Germans will keep the war
clean?
If that is true, no one will be more
pleased than the British air force,
which is burning to smash the Ger
man troops, but hates the idea of
killing kids and women. But it
wouldn't mind smashing factories,
and it is willing to admit that even
the best-aimed bomb may sometimes
miss its mark. Meaning slaughter of
the civil population, which may not
be ruthlessnesS or intended. but be-
comes indiscriminate and horrible.
And, you see, while I write like
this and while these air force young
sters talk like this. we have present
in our minds what happened lately
to Poland-by Hitler's order. We
know that this queer war" may be-
come tonight or tomorrow one of the
grlmmest pages in human history
that this mornings harmless raid
may be something entirely different,
that flaming death from the sky
may interrupt our present chit-chat
and wondering about what is what.
1t is not so light to think that
this fair-haired youngster who talks
gaily OF what his plane can do may
be burnt to a crisp next Sunday
have seen them burnt to crisp
young Frenchmen 1 laughed and
talked with the day beforehand it
is sight do not like to remember
and now know that I must see it
again or something like it.
No War Wanted Less.
: In short, it makes me sick and, I
suppose, with my sense and ex-
perience, should echo the Italians
and say, Call off your stupid war"
But I am not italian and, anyway,
am not here to write about my
self, but about the British air force
men. What they say is roughly
this, Hitler started it, but we shall
finish it."
I suppose there never was a war
which any one wanted less. The
Germans thought they could smack
down Poland as they smacked down
Austria and the Czechs and get
away with it. But the people of
England and France grew tired of
the way Hitler was acting-that's
really all it comes to, in the simplest
terms.
So, behind all the speeches and
propaganda and stuff in the news
papers or on the radio, you get
what one of these British pilots
said to me last night, "We are fight
ing to make the world safe so that
people can 60 about their business
without having lot of Germans
and secret police and so forth CIV
ing orders and ordering them
about"
That is what England is fighting
for and France, too, and in America
also, I imagine, there are plenty
to agree that they don't want any
one ordering them about"