THE BOMBING OF CIVILIANS

Air Raid. By John Langdon-Davies. (Routledge. zs. 6d.) A.R.P. Lessons from Barcelona. By N. de P. Macroberts. (Eyre and Spottiswoode. 6d.) Air Attack on Cities. By J. Thorburn Muirhead. (G. Allen and Unwin. 4s. 6d.) Breathe Freely ! By Professor James Kendall. (Bell. 3s. 6d.) On Guard Against Gas. By H. A. Sisson. (Hutchinson. 2s.)

" MARCH 16th, I7th, Ath in Barcelona made most A.R.P. literature obsolete." Hundreds of thousands of voluntary

workers are sacrificing their time to learning how to give practical effect to the teaching contained in the official manuals, and, while it is probable that by now the officials in Horseferry Road are enured to the contempt of a certain class of critic whom nothing short of complete protection against simul- taneous direct hits by high explosive, gas and incendiary bombs will satisfy, Mr. Langdon-Davies's book is important in that it is based, not on stupid scaremongering, but on an intelligent analysis of concrete examples.

His case, shortly, is that by means of gliding from great heights the attacking bomber can take the defence completely off its guard, that the first alarm is given at the same time as the first bomb falls, and that by constant repetition of attacks using this technique the life of a great city can be brought to a

standstill, in part through the mental strain on the inhabitants, in part through damage to the streets, and gas and water mains. "I was unable," he writes, " to find anyone who• did

not frankly admit that he was reduced to a state of impotent terror by the end of the period, and careful observers went so far as to suggest that had the technique been used for another forty-eight hours there would have been a total paralysis of the life of the city and of the power to resist."

The validity of Mr. Langdon-Davies's case turns- on two questions. Is his picture of conditions in Barcelona in March an accurate one ? Is the technique of attack which he describes capable of application elsewhere, and, in particular, could it be applied to London ?

On both these questions it is interesting to compare Mr. Langdon-Davies's account with that published by Major

N. de P. Macroberts, the A.R.P. Officer for the Metropolitan Borough of St. Pancras, in a pamphlet entitled A.R.P. Lessons from Barcelona. After describing some of the horrors of the

March raids, Major Macroberts writes : " And yet, in spite of the terrible strain to which the whole population of the city had to submit for such an extended period of time, it must be openly and frankly testified that mass panic and hysteria had little general effect."

. And, of the maintenance of essential services, he says : " There was no cutting of communications either by rail or road, no arrest of internal traffic save for the period of the raids, and no serious interruption of'the essential services of light, water and gas which could not be repaired in a short time."

Further, Major Macroberts is at pains to emphasise the deficiencies of the defence in aeroplanes, in anti-aircraft guns and in ground organisation—deficiencies which, even in the present imperfect state of our preparations, it is impossible to contemplate in London.

There is no real conflict of evidence between the two writers, neither of whom, incidentally, appears to have had first-hand experience of these raids, though both of them were in Bar- celona shortly after them. But their conclusions are clearly. different. Mr. Langdon-Davies thinks that Barcelona could not have endured another forty-eight hours. Major Macroberts thinks that it could.

We are in the realm of conjecture on the answer to our first question. To our second, it seems easier to find an answer, even if not a final one. Unless in a future struggle with Germany we again make her a present of the Belgian coast, German raiders will have to traverse a distance of some 300 miles before reaching London. Over the greater part of that distance they certainly cannot shut off their engines, and with sound-detectors by sea and land some warning of the presence of an enemy formation may be expected ; and without surprise the technique of Silent Approach, as Mr.

Langdon-Davies calls it, is a futility.

By way of summary, it may be fair to say that Mr. Langdon- Davies has given us cause for anxiety, but that he has not really made out his case. His book contains excellent illus- trations of the havoc caused by high-explosive, certain very good and some rather. far-fetched suggestions for A.R.P.,

and some fine specimens of muddled neo-Clausewitziar-thinking which might almost become museum pieces. This is a book to be read, indeed, but read critically, and not always taken too seriously.

Mr. Muirhead is a constructional engineer, and his book, which deals mainly With questions of construction, the best types of shelter for various purposes and the best methods of adapting existing buildings for air-raid 'purposei, is probably rather too technical for the general public. It is none the less interesting, and its particular merit is that it faces squarely the problem that different types of danger require different types of protection, and that the best shelter against gas, for example, may be unsuitable in view of the danger of high- explosives. The book should be of interest to all those engaged in the constructional side of A.R.P.

Professor Kendall's book deserves a longer notice than it is possible here to give it. It should be read, marked, learned and inwardly digested by all those who are disquieted by rumours about deadly new super-gases, and by all those who fear that the piesent Home Office precautions against gas are inadequate-. Following Professor Haldane, he argues that gas is the most humane type of warfare ; he further contends that none .the less it is an outrage against civilisation, and—which may appear over-optimistic until his arguments are carefully considered—that it is not likely to play an important part in a future war. The only serious criticism to make about Professor Kendall's book is that its sometimes rather flippant style will tend to make dull people think that he is not in earnest.

Major Sisson's book is a simple and readable supplement to the official anti-gas publications, and it is written with the authority of a man with great experience of gas warfare. In common with the other authors whose books are' reviewed in this article, he emphasises that panic is the principal danger against which the authorities and the citizen alike have to