Secret

When, 17 months ago, foreign correspondents reported that the strategically unimportant holy Basque city of Guernica had been ruthlessly destroyed by German bombers in the service of Rightist Spain, ace French Newscommentator "Pertinax" (Andre Geraud) had a ready explanation. According to him, Air Marshal Hermann Goering of Germany ordered the bombing as an experiment of the effectiveness of the air attack.

For three days last March, Barcelona was bombed systematically at intervals of every three hours. The loss of life was more than half of London's air-raid toll during the entire World War. Reputedly used for the first time was a new bomb, the gas expansion of which killed people an eighth of a mile away from the explosion, stunned those a quarter of a mile away. Although Barcelona's morale showed signs of cracking, the heavy raids ceased suddenly.

Last week, reports from U. S. Army circles in Washington gave credence to contentions that the Barcelona raids had also been experimental. The new bomb, it was said, was a closely guarded German military secret. All that foreign military attaches in Leftist Spain had learned from a study of its fragments was that it was filled with exploding liquid air, was made of a material more durable and lighter than aluminum.

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