London, Dec. 9.
The British press carries detailed reports today of a recent visit of British and foreign journalists to a modern aircraft factory which produces Blenheim borobers.
The factory, the reports state, started production at the end of 1937 and completed its first machine in the summer of 1939. It is planned, they add, as a self-contained unit, with its own power-plant, hospital, fire-engines, and housing estate. It produces the entire aircraft, except for engines, instruments and armaments, taking in materials at one end of the main building and turning out complete machines at the other end, which is a quarter of a mile away.
An aircraft, the reports continue, contains 252,000 rivets, the object being to spread stress and to produce a machine which will stand up against severe strain. Another characteristic feature of the Blenheim bomber, they say, is its light weight, being six tons fully loaded, which gives it a published speed of nearly 300 miles an hour. The whole complicated mechanism of the factory, the reports conclude, suggests that the manufacture of an aircraft has become a mass production industry, comparable to that of the motor car Generous Contributions From Indian Rulers Reuter's correspondent interviewed five Russian prisoners. One was a peasant from Smolensk, who said he had deserted after his officers had trained a machine-gun against him. Another, who was the pilot of bomber, said that all Soviet pilots had strict orders not to bomb civi-ans, but that the order was difficult io obey when attacking the military objectives of towns, because exact aim was impossible.
Reuter's correspondent saw very few mechanized units. Most of the transport units consisted of horse-drawn. sledges. They were whitewashed as a camouflage, while the troops wore white hoods, jackets and trousers over their uniforms, Despite the fact that 30 aeroplanes bombed Viipuri a few days ego, the town looked fairy-like as the, rays of the sunset silhouetted its picturesque snow-covered buildings The raid had destroyed fifteen buildings. Casualties are reported to have been 40 persons killed and 80 wounded. Of the wounded, only one is said to have been a soldier.—Reuter.
Mr. Hull Warns U.S.S.R, "Washington, Dec, 8.
Mr, Cordell Hull Secretary of State, said today the United States' Government would hold the US.S.R. responsible for any damage or juries to Americans or American interests as a result of the Russian blockade of Finland.—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.