Peeping Planes

Afraid to trust loose-tongued civilian labor, the French General Staff last week had French and Senegalese soldiers at work completing la patrie's chain of super-secret frontier defense works among the forests of Alsace and the Moselle. Just as the new secrets seemed to be keeping nicely, pairs of Germans in light sport planes began coasting across the frontier, flying low over France's defenses and snapping photographs. When this had happened four times in the week, tempers snapped at the French General Staff and Germany received fair warning that any more peeping planes would be dealt with as follows:

First, anti-aircraft batteries would fire blank shots. If these were disregarded, French combat planes would take the air, surround the German peepers and try to shoo them back into Germany, "making every effort to avoid collision and in no case pursuing beyond the frontier."

To the General Staff this order seemed the acme of moderation, sheer leaning over backward, but the French cabinet saw it as increasing the risk of a war-provoking incident. In Paris, German Air Minister Goring is feared capable of any madness, and Realmleader Hitler's head is rated hot. On orders from French Premier Pierre Etienne Flandin, himself a wartime aviator, the General Staff order was suspended and "for the present" French frontier guards will write down a description of each German peeping plane which will then be solemnly protested by French Ambassador Andre Franc,ois-Poncet at Berlin while Nazis laugh up their brown sleeves.

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