Evening star., 1943-07-11

contest, the outcome OF which will shape
the future course of the world, but the
hundred and one harassments of war
time living.
The latter weigh more heavily now
that Britons no longer have the least
doubt as to the outcome Of the struggle.
They look back at the perilous year from
June of 1910 to June of 1941 with some
thing like amazement. How, they ask,
did we ever come through when we were
completely defenseless. The best answer
I heard was this:
I'VE simply didn't have imagination
enough to know that we were beaten and
so we went on behaving as though we
were still strong and secure"
And yet there are many who look back
at that miraculous year with almost
kind of longing. That time, when bombs
were raining down, was the high pitch
of heroism and adventure. For every
man, woman and child the blitz was a
personal challenge.
With the spur of immediate danger
gone it has been far more difficult to
sustain the essential wartime urgency.
OF course, there still is danger. Eight
to nine hundred civilians month are
killed or injured by German bombs. But
this is not to be compared with the big
Axis air offensives when that many and
more were killed every night.
Indifferent Toward Raids.
Today the British take the bombings
as a tiresome nuisance. They ignore
them insofar as possible. In London
air-raid alerts sound every other night
on the average, but almost no one goes
to the shelters. The guns go of If
planes actually get over the city. The
big guns make a thunderous noise.
Sleep is broken but if the barrage sub
sides the average person turns over ana
goes to sleep again. The unlucky casual
ties are most often those who are out
in the street and get in the way OF
shell fragment.
The fact is that German flyers sent
over England today are either very
young-l7 even-with limited training
or they are pilots who have made so
many missions that their one objective
is to get the job over with and get back.
The result is that they dump their bomb
load without regard TO possible targets.
Nazi airmen over Britain have made as
many as 200 missions.
spent week end in Rye, an ancient
town on Englands southeast coast. Un-
til early March, Rye had been bombed
or strafed every other day for many
months. The joke was that when Nazl
pilots completed their training they were
required to come and drop bomb on
Rye in order to get diploma. Only
to minutes by fast plane from Nazi
fighter bomber fields, often low-fying
plane was machinery cunning the thou
sand-year -old streets of Rye before the
siren sounded.
Yet the town was carrying on as 1t
always had. was there on Trinity Sum
day, and following an immemorial GUS
tom the Mayor and the Council in full
robes went to special service in the
church. The reredos behind the altar
had been somewhat damaged but other
wise the church looked as it might have
on Trinity Sunday 500 years before, and
the clock in the steeple, the oldest going
clock in England chimed the quarter
hours and the hour.
Have Postwar Plans.
Rye has an excellent Women's Volun-
teer Service which functions immedi-
ately a raid occurs. Members of the
WIS take considerable pride In the
fact that recently when another town
on England's battered southeast coast
was hit, they were able to stage rescue
party. Rye is thinking, too, of after the
war. Mayor E. G.. WAGE, a retired briga-
dier general, has a plan for developing
a postwar community center and COM
munity services which has caught the
Imagination of this old, conservative
town.
When Britons are asked which Of all
the wartime restrictions they would
most gladly be rid Of they reply almost
universally; The blackout. For four years
now the lights have been out. In the
summer it is not bad. With double
daylight time darkness does not come
In June or July until IL o'clock or later.
Even If you have been at a late dinner,
or at the theater which begins at 6:15
and ends between $3.50 and 9, it is still
possible to get home in the long summer
twilight before blackout time. The sneak
raids do not occur until after dark so
the hazards of being abroad are negh-
gible.
But in the winter, the British agree,
1t is hell. You come out of work at
$50 or 6 into pitch blackness and only
those who have experienced the black
out can appreciate its density. The odds
are it will be raining. And the odds
are you will wait Is minutes to half an
hour in a queue for a bus. No friendly
gleam shines out When the lights go
on again, the British will give thanks
for an end to one of the most onerous
burdens.
Motor accidents have been on the in
crease, partly because of the blackout,
even though private cars are almost nom
existent. Doctors still have cars. So
pie living in the country with number
of children to take to distant school
have been allowed to keep the family
car in return for a signed pledge that
a great many more motor vehicles In
existence and it would seem that due to
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