Compressed Winter

“Radio National,” a German station which pretends to broadcast from within Britain, cooled the air waves last week with a tall story of a new Nazi secret weapon, this time a projectile loaded with a chemical which freezes everything within 500 yards by a temperature of 332° below zero Fahrenheit. The effect modestly claimed for the gadget: “To kill every living creature within range, and make steel and concrete structures so brittle they collapse at a touch.”

The broadcast added that recent trials of the weapon had mystified the British by suddenly causing large icebergs to appear in the Channel. British authorities took the whole bloodcurdling tale with icy calm. Remarked one naval officer:

“There hasn’t been an iceberg seen in the Channel . . . since the Ice Age.”