South Yorkshire Times, June 24, 1944
Secret Weapons
Reprisals for allied bombing attacks on Germany have been long promised. This was one of the hopes used to sustain morale within the Reich when its cities were being scourged in a manner more dreadful than the ordeal of any other country involved in the war. Germany’s towns have been pounded and gutted with a thoroughness which long ago put Goering’s ariel Blitzkrieg in the shade. All that either Hitler or Goering could do about it was to promise terrible revenge and, on these promises, Goebbels went to work, striving to explain why no mass raids were launched in retaliation.
It now seems that part of the reason for the comparative inactivity of the Luftwaffe was the concentration of the resources of the German aeroplane making industry on the manufacture of pilotless planes. These robots, now thrown into the battle at what Hitler considers an opportune time, are one of the least unexpected secret weapons in the Fuhrer’s armoury. Months ago, Mr. Churchill foreshadowed their use, and the result is that the belatedness of their appearance is the most surprising thing about them. Thanks to the alertness of our air reconnaissance formations, and no doubt to the efficiency of our Secret Service, we were able to see this little pilot developing and a good deal of its effectiveness Was neutralised before the Wellsian missiles could be brought into use. Nevertheless, though we were forewarned we could not be completely forearmed.
Our watchfulness has spared us the full weight of the blow, but not all the pain and anguish which it is capable of causing. While it is proper that we should be thankful that so much has been averted, there is no virtue in brushing aside this new development as of no account. On the ultimate course of the war, it can hardly have a serious effect. At full strength, as it was originally intended, it might well have made things very awkward for our invasion forces gathered in the South, but this time it is to the Germans that the stricture “too little and too late” must be applied. Militarily the chief asset of this new weapon at the moment is that it is drawing off fairly large numbers of our bombers and fighters which might otherwise give more positive support to our invading army. Obviously, these robot projectiles are also blazing a haphazard trail of death and destruction across our southern countryside and its towns, but such a fortuitous bombardment can do little to save the Germans from their fate unless it is made immeasurably heavier.
A positive howl of exultation had been drawn from the German propaganda machine by the unleashing of these “hellhounds and dynamite meteors” as they have been variously termed by Dr. Goebbels’ henchmen. But this immoderate display of fiendish delight can recoil on those who invoke it. In hysterical exaggeration it exceeds all previous campaigns of calculated lies launched in Hitler’s name. Its inaccuracies may be exposed sober than the Nazis think, and by methods which no amount of propaganda can disguise. Wednesday’s devastating daylight attack on Berlin by American bombers was something on account. Heavier blows will come and they will be delivered at closer quarters.
The Germans may gloat over the aimless slaughter temporarily achieved by their jet-propelled automations; they are only adding to an already long score. This latest sample of frightfulness will not be forgotten on the final day of reckoning. In the meantime, we in the North should keep in mind the sufferings of the South which cannot be inconsiderable under this unpredictable form of attack. Not for the first time we are spared (for the time being at any rate), one of the effects of the enemy’s dangerous propinquity. Whatever we can do to make good even the slightest interference with the war effort entailed by this persecution is the least of the ways in which we can show our admiration of south country steadiness.