New Frightfulness?

Heavy air blows on the "rocket-gun coast" made Nazi threats of retaliation seem very real.

Retaliation with What? The popular story--and the only specific one passed by London censors--was that the Nazis had a nest of long-range rocket guns emplaced near Calais. German propagandists had been sedulously plugging the story, last week let out a picture of the gun in action. But responsible sources in London had heard the story from non-German informants, and British authorities were in no mood to laugh it off (TIME, Nov. 15).

Guesses at the rocket's length ran from 25 to 80 ft. Launching mechanisms might be as much as 200 ft. long, mounted on mobile railway trucks. The range might be 100 miles or more--certainly, if the weapon exists at all and is effective, it can reach London, 90 miles away. In essence, it would have to be nothing more than an elaboration of rocket weapons already in use by both sides. A published fact: the U.S. has at least two experts (Drs. Theodore von Karman and Frank J. Malina) working on rocket propulsion.

Something Else? Censorship rigidly blankets most developments in new explosives, both Allied and German. But a few facts have been published:

--The British recently bombed an island in the Baltic Sea where, said Intelligence reports, a secret plant was making some new weapon.

-- U.S. precision bombers recently turned from their usual runs, attacked a hush-hush plant at Rjukan, Norway, where German chemists were supposed to be fashioning a new superexplosive.

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