Evening star., 1941-07-27
Moscow Anti.Aircraft
Robs German Flyers
OF Use Of Flares
! Nozi Pilots Are Forced
I: To Stoy Above Clouds
And Bomb at Rundom
Bv ERSKINE CALDWELL.

DN LnoENhANG >EhAD
Foreign Correspondent of The Star and PM.
MOSCOW, July Is Delayed) -
Having experienced three bombing
raids on three consecutive nights,
! now consider myself a seasoned
hand, regardless of what Londoners
might thing of such an upstart.
At II o'clock, the fireworks be-
ran in earnest. I was on rooftop.
There a good portion Of the city OF
Moscow was in view. German planes
soared overhead, invisible in the
clouds. Zenit (anti-aircraft guns
and searchlights poked at them with
alch conviction that the planes
nesitated for a long time to come
down. After a half hour of play
tnr hide and seek with the search
Nights, the Germans evidently de-
ejded that the risk was too great,
60 they dropped parachute flares
= The flares helped them next TO
not at all. For what seemed hours
they dropped flare after flare from
their elevation above the clouds.
Evidently they ran out of flares, for
they stopped dropping them with
out even waiting to see what tney
could see by the light
8 After two hours of this they prob
sblv decided it was best not to go
home with full bomb racks,
Apartment House Struck.
Floating overhead, still above the
clouds thev dropped their bombs
one by one for two hours more. 1t
was curious that they did not at
tempt to find their targets by the
light of their. flares, although they
did drop one good-siZed demolition
bomb on an apartment house about
d block and a half from where was
- a building in the city's residential
section.
- don't know to what school Of
psychology German pilots subscribe,
Gut they'd better change their lee
ture courses, their textbooks and
their professors if they expect to
subdue the Russians by dropping
demolition bombs on apartment
houses. Last nights exhibition Of
applied psychology was almost as
bad as on previous nights when they
dropped bombs on hospitals.
) While all this was going on I got
In a car with a chauffeur and We
started out on dash across town.
In the darkness we got tangled up
with an iron fence before we got
out of the driveway. and if you've
never tried to untangle an iron
fence from the running gear Of an
automobile in pitch black darkness
with an unknown quantity of sharp
mel from BENT guns pelting all
around you, that's something you've
got to look forward to.
The chauffeur is a good husky fell
low and I'm no weakling myself. but
we pulled and twisted at that fence
for nearly half an hour without
Sesults.
2 A militiaman finally came along
and helped but it was still no use.
We finally solved the problem by
lifting the car off the ground one
end at a time and so untangling it.
Doing 40 In Moscow Streets.
Then began a wild dash through
streets that were darker than pine
trees in Alabama before the moon
comes up. Every once in while
the dark form of a street car would
suddenly loom ahead and I would
grab the wheel and give 1t jerk
because I thought the chauffeur
didn't see it. The chauffeur said.
every time: You hold on, III do the
driving I always see street cars
before it's too late
4 We tore across the city without a
single light to see by. was holding
on to the seat. The chauffeur
pushed his nose against the wind
shield so that he could see the
street car. Doing 40 miles an hour
through Moscow streets is reckless
at high noon. but it's nothing COM
pared to the same speed at l o'clock
IN the morning while raid is on.
Aside from wondering how many
street cars there we're in Moscow,
the thing I thought most about was
bow many people might have been
taken with the same notion to Jump
into a car and race across town at
the same time I did.
! When you're in raid you think
tf lots of things you never thought
of before. One thing III always
Remember, though, is being there
when that demolition bomb fell on
On apartment house. There might