FLIGHT FROM EUROPE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 161, 7 June 1940, Page 2

FLIGHT FROM EUROPE

REFUGEES’ PLIGHTTERROR ON LOWLAND ROADS. LONDON, May 18. . Belgian, Dutch, and British refugees are now arriving by the thousand from the Nazi-ravaged Lowlands. This weekend train after train is being met at London stations by voluntary workers. Local authorities all over the Home Counties are making arrangements for shelter. Canteens, interpreters, doctors and nurses have been organised ready to go to any station receiving a tragic trainload. Each of these victims of war has had tragic personal expencuees. BurneQ into the memory of each will be pictures such as those sketched the Doily Herald correspondent, Giovanni Giglio, who, with liis five children and other refugees, arrived at a British port. v " It was seven days ago, dawn in Brussels, when I was awakened by the sound of bombs and anti-aircraft fire. The explosions sounded terribly close to us. In fact, I found later, eight houses were destroyed within a few hundred yards of my home. Within an hour, having been advised to leave at once, my household of ten had packed a few belongings into a hired car. We squeezed in: with them. We even managed to take with us the perambulator foi three-months-old Charles, my grandson. . , Halfway to the coast we again met the bombers, near a bridge. There were one nr two other cars travelling with us. Everybody got out and sheltered. The bombs exploded two hundred yards away. No damage, except for two ruined cottages. No casualties. We hurried on. All along the road were columns of motorised units going to tire front. Crowds of people stood cheering them—cheering all the time. The spirit of the Belgian population, in fact, was amazing. Even when the air-raid sirens vent, they lined the main roads to fling flowers at the troons. , The port ,is full of thousands o refugees, mostly elderly people and children, each with a bundle or a suitcase. Every road into the town is iammerl with newcomers. It is altei midnight before my family—ten people in all—can find anv accommodation. Spies, we are told, are everywhere. Fifth Column activities are feared. Trie slrp we are to travel in is largelv filled with British refugees, and it seems that someone lias informed the Nazis about it, because at 9.30 p.m. on the following evening, just as we have gone aboard, the bombing starts. One bomb explodes on the quay 100 yards away, and- two more astern or the ship. PARACHUTIST ON QUAY.

I see a parachute soldier drop on the quay and disappear behind some wareuouses. Later he is caught by soldiers and killed. There is no panic at all iu the ship. Wonderful English women take charge ot all the chiluren. My little Charles is upset only because his milk is cold, and unsweetened.. " Despite the noise of bombing and shooting, many pSople sleep. A friend of mine snores, a packet of sandwiches clasped in-liis hand. Myself, I cannot sleep. What is happening back there, where the fighting is? Next morning we are told to leave the ship because of the danger and to re-embark Jater. A big air raid is expected. Back we go to our hotels and lodgings, or to the British Consulate. Thirty' volunteers are called for, to transfer all the baggage to another ship.. And all the time the bombs were roaring . . . . At il a.m., soon after we have all left the ship, the Germans come back and bombard it again, for an even longer period than before. By now I begin to hear some of my fellow-trav-ellers’ 6tories. Most of us are British subjects who have been living in Belgium. There are nine Irish clerical students front Limbourg. They got across the Albert Canal just before the Belgians blew up the bridges. They passed damaged houses, dead bodies, dead animals, and. eventually got in a train for Louvain. Before long, however, they had to leave the train because waves of German aeroplanes came oyer and tried to destroy it. They tramped on, taking cover every few minutes. In one place, about thirty civilians liad been killed. “It was the. saddest experience of my life,” says one student, pity still in his eyes. ••■■■■. THE NEW TERROR.

We hear, from weary newcomers, that even refugee trains are being bombed. A party of English and .Irish priests returning from Tournai have been mistaken for parachute men because of their clerical attire. Once they were arrested, their difficulties being increased because one spoke Flemish with a German accent. Women, travelling with their children, tell how thev crouched Over them in ditches to protect them from bombs and machine-gun fire. Many have had to make their way to the quay on foot. A Cardiff woman who lias lived for many years in Brussels arrives; with her sixteen-year-old daughter. She says that a parachutist came down in the garden of a neighbouring' house. Many other refugees tell of parachute landings—the new terror. At last we sail, still relating to each other tales of tragedy. Even on the voyage death follows us. Doctors and nurses are called; to a woman who gives birth to twins. All three, they say. are dead. Some of the saddest of our passengers are nuns who had to flee from their convents. They say that ■ from two convents 170 nuns were evacuated, including sick and dying, together with some hundreds of civilians who had taken refuge. One of these was a woman of 86, who was brought in a wheelbarrow. She died in the arms of a nun. One of the most touching sights at this convent was a mother who arrived with three little children tied to a bicycle which she had pushed along the crowded roads.

We reach England 1 At Victoria station six-year-old. Maurice Doktorczyk is sitting wearing a soldier’s forage cap on his head and eating a jammy doughnut. He says he got the cap somewhere near Brussels. He and liis laughing young sister, and a few other children, are the only happy passengers. Another family party of four children is sitting on the platform. A railway- porter has got six bars of chocolate from a slot machine and handed them round. He has vanished before the children can murmur their thanks. -