Damnable Thing

From the start London knew the robot bomb for what it was--a new weapon of terrible power. It was never something to be shrugged off with British humor and contempt for the bloody Nazis. It was a weapon which struck again & again & again, 18 hours at a stretch. Even its sound-effects were potent: a throaty roar, then a sudden silence when the jet motor stopped and the bomb dived; then the blast. It kept thousands of Londoners in deep shelters. It drove other thousands to the country. It kept thousands, at work aboveground, in a state of sustained apprehension which the Great Blitz never matched. As inaccurate as it was impersonal, it was a weapon precisely designed for sprawling London, precisely calculated to raise havoc with civilian life.

Last week Londoners got a form of relief: the world was told what they were putting up with. Winston Churchill partially cracked the censorship, ended the myth of "Southern England," told all that security allowed.

The Invisible War. For a full year, said Churchill, the authorities had known that the robots might come. From what he told, Britons got an eerie glimpse of an invisible war--enemy technicians racing to perfect their new destroyer, Allied technicians piecing together jigsaws of information and racing to contrive countermeasures.

In that year the Allies had dropped 50,000 tons of bombs on laboratories in Germany, on launching ramps in France. But the Germans surmounted this drenching attack by devising easily moved, easily hidden ramps. Churchill indirectly confirmed what Londoners suspected: even with advance knowledge Britain had been unable to rig more than a makeshift defense.

The Visible War. In the first four weeks, the robots killed 2,752, injured 8,000. Still, the robot's power to disrupt was greater than its power to kill; the rate of casualties during the worst periods of the 1940-41 blitz was twice as high.

Said Churchill: "In my opinion . . . between 100 and 150 flying bombs are being discharged daily from firing points in France. . . . A large proportion have been shot down or destroyed. . . .

"Everyone must go about his business . . . and when the long day is done seek the safest shelter he can find. . . . This House will be affronted if any suggestion is made that it should change its venue.

. . . We are not discouraging people who have no essential work from leaving London. . . . Children are already being sent out of the danger areas. This battle may be a somewhat lengthy affair . . . but I am sure of one thing--that London will never be conquered and will never fail, and that her renown, triumphing over every ordeal, will long shine among men."

The People's War. On London streets dignified Britons forgot their dignity. Sir Kenneth Clark, director of the National Gallery, was standing in a bus queue when he heard the roar, felt the silence.

Unashamedly he ran, threw himself in a doorway. The queue was wiped out.

In their homes, Britons pulled table like, steel-legged Morrison shelters into living rooms, broke off conversations to dive under them at every roar. In pubs and cafes, chatter stilled while diners and drinkers ducked under tables.

A toothless old man, clenching a gnarled, rheumatic hand, entered a pub. Said he:

"I've lost everything--family's gone--give me a mild and bitter." He drank quickly, went out.

A bewildered citizen watched a shower of bright green particles falling from the sky. "Looks like bloody confetti," he said.

It was a rain of shredded leaves, blasted from trees in the next block.

The Government opened eight new shelters, 100 feet underground. Special trains evacuated 15,000 children a day.

In the West End, 24 shows closed.

Ten remained open. Said the manager of one: "There's no comparison between this and the old blitz. Then we saved shows by playing all matinees. But there's no telling when one of these bombs will fall, and people simply don't like exposing themselves."

Names of some of the dead were news worthy: retired, 78-year-old Major Gen eral Sir Arthur Scott, decorated in the Boer War and World War I; Sir Percy Alden, 75, educator and social worker; U.S. Colonel G. B. Guenther, of the Army's psychological warfare branch.

Famous landmarks had been hit: the Bankruptcy Court in the already blitzed Temple area; the Guards Chapel in Bird cage Walk, near Buckingham Palace. On Sunday morning, June 18, the Rev. Dr. Leslie Owen was conducting a service for officers of the famed Brigade of Guards when a robot roared overhead, silence fell, and the bomb burst through the roof. Outside, 86 Guards standing at attention did not flinch. They were unhurt.

So was Dr. Owen. But many were killed in the chapel. Among them : Lieut. Colonel Lord Edward Hay, of an old Guards family; the Guards chaplain, the Rev. Ralph Henry Whitrow, and blond, gracious Kay Garland, known to every correspondent in London for her friendly labors in Britain's Ministry of Information.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the robot a "damnable thing," added: "From the German's point of view, the flying bomb gives him a cheap air force. Even his bomber attacks are wild. . . . The flying bomb is just as effective--and a damned sight cheaper."

The Unseen Future. Londoners pondered Churchill's frank, unanswered warning: "Will rocket bombs come? Will improved explosives come with greater ranges, vaster speed, larger warheads? I can give no guarantee that any of these evils will be prevented before the time comes, as come it will, when the soil from which these attacks are launched has been finally liberated from the enemy's grip."

Not since the blitz had Londoners hated the Germans so intensely.

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