HOW IT FEELS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 224, 20 September 1940, Page 5

HOW IT FEELS.

LONDON IN BLACK-OUT THUNDEROUS CRASHES. Hitler, in hie bestial air attacks, has taken hundreds of innocent lives, and turned some of London's landmarks — famous all over the world, and known to every Australian visitor —wholly or partly to ruins. Yet words cannot adequately express the fortitude with which the people of London and other British cities are standing, up to their ordeal (cabled a London representative of the Sydney "Sun.")

At times all ihell seems suddenly to break loose. The explosion of great bombs and the crash of the barrages shake 'the sturdiest buildings to their foundations, and the concussion can be felt in the deepest shelters.

Through all this terrible pounding the people remain superbly calm. It would be foolish to say that nobody was nervous. None of us pretends that the bombing is at times anything but terrifying; but, so far as one can judge at the moment, from:personal experience and from conversations with others who have had their "dose" (which means almost everyone), there is no-panic. An American journalist is pretty close to the mark when he writes: "One simply cannot praise the average man too highly. From history and the environment of these past thousand years he has inherited a quality of courage which is a true inspiration." Listening For the Crash. Immured behind black-out curtains, one can feel and hear the raids. Thunderous ' crashes break in on the general confusion of sounds, and one's ears are strained to catch the cautionary warning ihowl of the next bomb, -» '

Sometimes there is a single impact that makee the air quiver, and sometimes there are three or four within a second or two as the assassin somewhere "up there" in the murky night,twiddles hie bomb selector-gear and presses the release button.

There is a constant accompaniment from the thudding motors, sometimes dying away into the distance, but soon back overhead as another long raid drags on and the Londoners under it await the dawn.

Transport difficulties and the unwillingness of people to risk being forced to etay away from home all night have abruptly changed the social life which was being reestablished in London after its dislocation early in the war.

Few etir from their homes if they can avoid it, but some plan outings to places where the shelters are comfortable.

Five plays came off in the West End on Saturday after playing to niea-ne ■houses during raids. °