World Battlefronts: Do-Nothings Spanked

In the dying days of 1941 the R.A.F. swung hard at two of its favorite targets: the Nazi battleships Gneisenau andScharnhorst. Still under repair at Brest for bomb-raid damage last summer, the 26,000-tonners have absorbed more wallops than they have dealt in World War II. Last week the R.A.F. indicated that it had made sure they would be laid up still longer.

Once by day, four times by night, R.A.F. bombers smeared the dry docks that cuddle the two Nazi do-nothings. From photographs taken in the day raid the Air Ministry concluded that the Scharnhorst had been struck fairly amidships by a bomb that penetrated her deck. Another bomb smashed the dry-dock gate. Two others landed between the ships and the dry-dock wall; damage unknown.