Back to the Tube

An American, driving a famed British scientist homeward through the London blackout, asked about the quality of bombs the Germans are using in their renewed "little blitz."

"Really, I'm disappointed," said the explosives expert. "They are not nearly as good as they should be." But when the air-raid sirens began to wail at that moment, he ordered the car to stop, jumped into the safety of an underground station without pausing to say good night.

Last week the "little blitz" on England waned--at least temporarily. In one raid two Nazi planes were shot down, in another five of an estimated 100 (only a half dozen reached London). This brought to about 75 German losses in a fortnight--some 7% of the attacking forces. Damage and casualties were still closely guarded secrets, but Home Secretary Herbert Morrison let slip that one of the "episodes" (presumably the previous week) had been "as bad as the worst single incident" of the 1940-41 blitz.

Mr. Morrison also pointed out how much British civilians had had to take: 50,324 had been killed, only 23,153 fewer deaths than Britain's armed forces suffered in the war's first three years.

Whether the Germans intended the little blitz as a strategic move, propaganda to bolster the Reich home front, or as a demonstration that there are still anti-invasion bombers, London was again becoming blitz-minded. Dinner guests took along their helmets, began to refer to the 1940-41 bombings as "the last war."

Tables at steel and concrete structures like the Ritz and Dorchester were at a premium, though there was an unaccustomed amount of foot room around the bars of the less durable pubs. Long before dark, queues of mothers and children waited outside tube entrances, carrying bundles of food and bedding. For U.S. soldiers, waiting in shelters was a new experience, but the kids' underground question was no different from the street-level question: "Got any gum, Yank?"

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