Some interest is being taken in instructed quarters in the
destruction of five German bombers in the raid on Sunday night—the last to be reported as I write. Five is not a large number, but it was not an extensive raid ; so the percentage of loss may have been ro per cent. This may have been chance, or it may mean that progress is at last being made in coping with the night-bomber. In view of the disappointment of con- fident hopes that this was being achieved some months ago any tendency to undue optimism must be checked. But, as Sir Archibald Sinclair has said, the best brains available are working ceaselessly on the problem, and progress has undoubtedly been made, not in the way of devising a single panacea, but in developing a variety of counter-measures which in mass may become increasingly effective. Effectiveness may, of course, be measured as much in terms of prevention as of the destruc- tion of the bombers. There is good reason to believe that the defensive devices are being developed to some purpose. The test of that will be both the number of enemy machines destroyed and the degree of success that the raiders achieve in their next few attacks.
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