A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK T HERE is no mistaking the mood
of the public about Libya in general and Tobruk in particular. That, I believe, is discussed elsewhere in this issue, and I will add nothing here. But there is another question perturbing the public equally. What are the facts, and what the prospects, regarding intensive air-raids on Germany? For a flash-in-the-pan policy there is little to be said, and we are getting a lot of it. The two thousand-machine raids on Cologne and Essen took place on May 3oth and June 1st respectively, and the conclusion that this marked the beginning of a bombing-policy on a new scale was irresistible. Mr. Chin chill, whose tonic exuberance is not always quite fortunate, did, in fact, say as much. He told the House of Commons on June znd that the two raids "mark the introduction of a new phase in the British air-offensive against Germany," and he had already, in a message to Commander-in-Chief, Bomber Command, declared that the raids were "the herald of what 0.rmany will receive, city by city, from now on." More than three weeks have passed and th: new-scale raids have not once been repeated. It is not that the weather has prevented raiding at all, for of the old-scale raids there have been many. It is rarely wise in war to proclaim a new departure till it is clear that it can be maintained ; we found that with the tanks in the last war ; the thousand-machine raids raised high expectations in Russia and America no less than here. Disillusion in such cases is bad psychologically.
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