Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-09-15
Battle of Britain

Monotonous in its repetition, horrify-
ing in its unceasing savagery, this was
last weeks story of Europe's war.
All else was secondary-even the angry
and effective Commercials of British
flyers upon Berlin, upon Bremen, Ham,
burg, Nazi Channel ports, and other
strategic points, or the petulant clashes
of Italian and British units around the
African sector.
The war was being won or lost up this
Thames roadway, in the skies over Lon
don, in the souls of its defenders and
its civilians
Still giving no clue as to the time or
place of an attempted invasion, German
war chiefs began intense as
London saults upon British capital
Suffers last week end. Flight after
fight of raiders, many car
rying incendiary bombs, others loaded
with delayed action missiles, smashed
lndiscriminately at Londons docks, in
dustrial plants, residential quarters; de-
stroyed were museums and churches rich
in history, apartments and hospitals rich
In human victims.
BY Tuesday, death toll had exceeded
several hundred persons, property dam
age was incalculable, utility services were
disrupted and fires smouldered or
fared in nearly every quarter. On Tues
day, too, it was disclosed that delayed
action Nazi bomb had ripped way
through corner of Buckingham Palace
during week end, exploded 4S hours later
to demolish small portion of century old
royal residence
Later in week, five more hits were re-,
ported within palace grounds, one par
tally destroying private chapel of King
and Queen. Absent at time of first raid,
royal couple were in residence but in
bomb shelters when later hits were made
! Determined to share discomforts and
: risks of other Londoners, George and
Elizabeth several times toured damaged,
areas of city--took- refuge in same bomb
shelters with workers driven below
ground from their tasks.
Boosting of their extraordinary accu-
racy," Nazi bombers not only sniped sys-
tematically at riverside
Buckingham docks and industrial ia
Bombed cilities, and at Bucking
ham, but also at short
dead-end Downing street, where Ger
man-hated Prime Minister Churchill
lives. Damaged also was House of Lords,
and close to historic St. Pauls was
parked ominous delayed-action mis-
. sile
Reported to be directing weeks I'M
precedented aerial assault was Ger
manys Goering, second man only to
Hitler and supreme commander of
, Reich's air forces.
But despite this "all OUT effort against
+. British capital, whatever gruesome scores
can be kept in such unholy and inhuman
competition would not entirely favor
Nazi cause.
Outnumbered from beginning, placed
at severe disadvantage by scattered loca-
tons and greater distances of enemy
objectives, Royal Air Force has earned
its keep throughout war. Last week it
replied to offenses against London by
spectacular attack upon Berlin, scoring
hits on Reichstag building, Potsdam sta
ton, Tiergarten Park, Brandenburg gate
and along such famous German streets
as Inter den Linden Probably of
greater value, however, were fires set by
bombs in port cities of Bremen and
Hamburg partial destruction of dock
and railroad facilities in Calais, Bou-
logne, Ostend
Perhaps of significance, too, at mid
week was initiation by defenders of Lon
don of aerial barrage-
Anti-Aircroft veritable curtain of lead
borrooe and steel hurled high in
air around entire city to
force invaders back or too high for &C
curate bombing. Military observers spec
ulated in connection with this shift in
British tactics that new plane detector
might have been perfected-perhaps on
principle of spotting Nazi planes by
infra-red content of exhausts.
In fact, British seem to be displaying
surprising amount of ingenuity in form
of new weapons, Germans complaining
bitterly at use of Self-igniting chemically
treated cardboard leaves which r. A. F.
flyers have been distributing in rural and
wooded areas of Reich. Berlin also COM
planned that British were releasing great
paper bags full of potato bugs-enemies
Of Germanys principal agricultural crop.
On both sides, however, imminent use
of one known weapon-gas-is causing
more concern than all new devices yet
displayed. That both Germans and
British have quantities of deadly gases
and are prepared to use them when vic
tory or defeat seems close at hand has
been known for months. Many observers
are of opinion that this time is near-the
most likely German strategy seeming to
be use of gas to break down civilian
morale, that of British to loose it against
any invading forces.
Possibilities of actual invasion efforts,
incidentally, seemed close at hand on
Wednesday when terrific
Artillery exchanges of artillery fire
Exchange along narrow English
Channel coasts marked
movements of Nazi ships in lee of what
was once French shore After British
land guns had centered fire on German
convoy across Channel R. A. F. planes
roared across narrow passage to beat at
SNazi batteries and troop concentrations.
Speaking not only to his fortress ma