South Yorkshire Times – Saturday 06 June 1942
City by City
From Leaflet Raids to the visitation which smote Cologne last week-end is a far step. The wheel has come full circle with a vengeance. For some time now the Germans have been receiving a taste of the horrors which they have gloatingly inflicted on the cities of other nations, our own in particular. Now something of the awful interest with which this debt is to be repaid must be dawning upon their minds. The nation which boasted of the feats of its Luftwaffe is now being taught a stern lesson in aerial warfare.
If the onslaughts of the Luftwaffe during those trying days of last winter were on the grand scale the reply of the R.A.F. is staggering in the immensity of its conception. And worse is promised the German nation. “City by city,” said the Prime Minister and the promise will be as faithfully carried out as all Mr. Churchill’s pledges. Apart from all other considerations of a second front in Europe. Hitler is now faced with a problem which will test to the utmost the strength of the internal network of trained thugs whose job it is to persuade the people on the home front to take their medicine with a smile. Himmler has been switched over to control A.R.P. personnel, but though this suggests uncertainty about the service under extreme pressure it is hard to believe it will do much to better the situation. As well try to dam Niagara. Five thousand tons of bombs in two nights are not brushed aside by such gestures as this.
Retaliation on the same scale is almost certainly beyond the Luftwaffe now if it was ever within the scope of its capabilities. Heavy raids the Germans can and may make, but to do so they must draw off strength from another front, and they are deeply committed on the East and embroiled In a struggle in the Mediterranean which saps more of their air strength than they can afford to lose.
Even if serious reprisals were undertaken, these would relieve the Germans of not a whit of the anguish which is their inevitable lot. Hull, Coventry, Plymouth, Liverpool, Sheffield, all these and other British cities bore the brunt of Hunnish savagery while the German star was in the ascendant. Now the boot is on the other foot, and Cologne and Essen reek and smoulder as the R.A.F. begins to mete out justice in full. London contemplates its scars; Berlin’s turn will come.
As yet the R.A.F. operates alone in this mighty offensive. But American bombing fleets are on the way, and as they swing into action from this island base the weight and tempo of this aerial punishment will develop with grinding intensity. The longer nights of autumn and winter can present nothing but a prospect of dread and despair to the German people.
At long last the war is being brought home to them. Its horrors will press nearer yet until the lesson that armed aggression does not pay been taught put misunderstanding.