The Wilmington morning star., 1940-10-23
Aerial War
BY PAUL

BY PAUL MANNING
NEA Service Staff Correspondent
LONDON Two hours in Lon
don's Hyde Park and another hour
on the Thames embankment op-
posite the giant power station con-
vinces nj that the new anti-air-
craft defenses of this city ire still
woefully inadequate against tn e
German airplanes bombing London
by night.
From midnight to 3 in the
morning recently I watched the
ground artillery in Hyde Park and
along the Thames throw barrage
tempts either to hit or to drive
after barrage into the sky in at
off lone raiders.
In one instance, a German plane
was forced to veer from it's course,
but not for long. The pilot merely
executed a great circle and re-
turned to drop 20 incendiary
bombs. They landed near three
apartment buildings and along the
Parks edge, and they started fires
which became beacons, turning
the area almost to daylight bright
ness.
Before fast-working police and
firemen> could smother the flames
with sand, the light guided a Ger
man plane back to the spot. It
released a bomb which scored a
direct hit on one of the apartment
buildings. The force of the explo-
sion was so great that the six
story building villas demolished.
Windows were shattered for
blocks.
Standing in the shadow Of the
Marble Arch n could Judge the
general ineffectiveness of the anti
aircraft guns because it was easy
to spot single German planes as
they crisscrossed each others
path. They flew some $1,000 feet
n the sky, above the shell bursts
(Which resembled exploding stars)
that followed each plane in the
heavens from one end of the city
to the other.
The shells never quite seemed
to catch up with the planes.
Despite the use of more and big
ger guns and a system Of predict
ing a planes future position with
out searchlights, the number of
German planes brought down
during the hours I watched Was
zero.
earlier in the evening three planes
had been hit by the barrage.
1t va the same story down on
the thames embankment. Anti
aircraft guns threw tons of steel
into the sky from midnight to )
in the morning, yet this proved no
obstacle to a bomber which SUD-
denly dropped down in a quick
thrust and unloaded a large bomb.
Despite this general inability to
hit airplanes flying in broken
formations at night, London's
anti-aircraft barrage is valuable il
only for its effect on The popu!a-
ton.
Night after night, most of the
TO-, DOC, 900 people of this city hud-
die into air raid shelters while
German planes bomb the city.
And when the anti-aircraft guns
stopped firing for many hours or,
several recent nights because
searchlights could not pierce the
layers of heavy cloud to allow
gunners to draw a bead on the
planes overhead, something re-
sembling a wave of despair swept
over many people.
The Home Defense chiefs i'm
mediately regard the anti-air-
craft strategy of London. All
available guns in the London area
were ordered by commanding Off
GERS to fire what communique
and newspapers here later termed
a screen of lead"
"a HYMN OF
The reaction was spontaneous
throughout the city. Morale rose
to a new high.
And when 1 toured two repre-
S1lldtlVe puUllC dlI IdlQ SuellefS
to see if there was any reverting
back to the feeling of general help
lessness at England's inability to
strike back, I found morale still
good.
In one place, beneath a modern
department store, most People who
packed the shelter were of h e
opinion that the anti-aircraft guns
(which e firing the new screen
Of lead during the long night hours
were saving the day.
In another shelter, which dur
ing the day was a subway plat
form, ere men, women and chill
dren who had streamed there
from their bomb-torn homes in
London's East End. They had
brought their pitifully Few posses
sions.
Seeing the nights respite from
the high explosives which usually
continue to fall with deadly regu-
larity these nights, they called
London's hail of anti-aircraft
shells into the sky "a hymn of
blessed relief" 4
Daniel Defoe's Robinson CruSoe''