48 KNOWN KILLED

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 101, 23 January 1943, Page 5

48 KNOWN KILLED

Search Continues In Bombed School NO HOPE FOR MISSING (By Telegraph.-—Press Assu.—Copyright.) LONDON, January 21. Forty-eight children and teachers are known to have been killed in the London school which was wrecked by u bomb in yesterday’s daylight raid on the capital. Fifty persons from the school have been detained in hospital and 20 children whose ages range from seven to 14 are missing. Five out of eight teachers in the junior section were killed. The search for the missing continues, but there is no hope that any will be found alive. An attempt at tunnelling during the night had to be abandoned because of escaping gas. Part of London’s balloon barrage was unprepared for yesterday’s raid. Die ‘‘Daily Express” says that some balloons were not raised in time and theretoie the German fighter-bombers were abie to slip through and make low-level attacks. A preliminary inquiry has been held, adds the “Daily Express Sir William 11. Davidson, in the House of Commons, asjeed the Minister ot Home Security, Mr. Morrison, if he was aware that many people were unable to get into shelters during yesterday’s air raid on London because they were locked. lie also asked the Minister if he would give instructions that shelters must, always be available, specially for protection from splinters from our own shells. Minister’s Dilemma, Mr. Morrison said that the maintenance of shelters was a matter for the Minister of Health, who was in a great dilemma because of the scandalous misuse aud damage of shelters by citizens. Wardens were instructed to open the shelters when a warning sounded, but often there was little time between the sirens and the bombs. The London evening papers all carry a tragic picture on their front pages. It .is a photograph of the damage to the wrecked children’s school. In front stand a long line of people who have been waiting since midday yesterday for news of the children still buried in the wreck- ' parties are still-at work where a dangerous wall is threatening to collapse. Other photographs show bow they have been struggling for nearly

two days aud a night to drag away heavy masonry and clear the rubble. ■ work has never stopped, and even when the sirens sounded last night no flares were extinguished. Children who escaped came along today, many of them in bandages, to help check up on exactly who was present yesterday. Some of the children in hospital are seriously ill. Others, escaped with cuts, bruises, and shock. The headmistress, who looked after injured children for hours after being hurt herself, told today how the bomb hit the part of the school used for the very small children. She climbed through ~a window and brought some of them out. Two enemy aircraft were destroyed in attacks on this country last night. In the early part of the night there was. a little enemy activity in the coastal districts of south and south-east England and East Anglia, and a few aircraft flew in as far as the Home Counties.

Bombs were dropped at a few places. Only slight damage was done and there are no reports of any casualties.