LETTERS FROM ENGLAND

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 42, 13 November 1940, Page 4

LETTERS FROM ENGLAND

Wellington Girl Tells Of Bombing Roids Air raids over that part of the Jlnglish countryside where she is living have been described by a AAellingtou girl in letters received by her parents. She is Airs. Oliver Chapman, only daughter of Air. and Mrs. A. Longmore, and she relates bow the inconveniences and discomforts attending the raids are accepted philosophically by everyone. In the following extracts she tells of recent experiences:— ■•There is plenty to remind us that we are at war. We have almost icgti larly three sirens a day; rather like our* eight o’clock whistle the ’all clear is. The alarm warbles and is really almost as alarming as the actual sound of the fighting, fire other day 1 was our with friends house hunting, and two bombs fell in an adjoining field while we lay crouching in a ditch. All rather alarming at the time, but as soon as the danger is pasesd. rather like an adventure. In spite of the fact that, according to Germany we are a muss of ruins, I hare seen only one demolished bouse so far. I occasionally go to a shelter if the planes are directly overhead, but usually we just sit indoors, drinking vast quantities of tea and coffee.” She goes on to describe how a bomb fell with a dull thud in the hospital grounds nearby, where her husband is resident doctor. The bomb narrowly missed the hospital, shattering the windows and scattering earth all about. Dr. Chapman and a group of soldiers later succeeded in digging out the bomb where it bad lodged 15 feet below the surface. Mrs. Chapman tells bow her husband had to have till patients evacuated from the hospital and arrange for an emergency operating theatre in a coal cellar, where casualties received attention. "We have often watched these dir battles, and it is a marvellous sight to see our fighters ‘hoe’ into the German formations and scatter them,” she continues. “The noise is terrific at. times. If Hitler thinks he is going to break the morale of the British people he will just have to keep on persevering and hoping, as really they are amazing. If things are ’hot’ they, the English, just go off with a thermos flask of tea and their knitting to the nearest shelter and wait placidly for the ‘raiders past’ signal, and then out they tramp and carry on as if they had just been to an afternoon tea party.” At the time of writing there was a German air gunner. 19 years old, a patient at, the hospital. He had been told that if he ever landed in England, injured, he would be. left to die. and looked terrified when brought in, but later was thoroughly enjoying himself, Airs. Chapman said.