CIVILIAN TARGETS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 163, 10 June 1940, Page 2

CIVILIAN TARGETS

AIR RAIDS ON ENGLAND. RAIDER’S TERROR TACTICS. (United Press Association —By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) LONDON, June 9. The Germans’first terror raid against England occurred before midnight last night over a South-Coast town when an enemy ’plane swept along the seafront. Empty cartridges were heard falling on rooftops and in the streets, and it seemed that the raider was actually spraying the roofs and chimney pots He even potted at a small group of' men talking in a street and several saved themselves by flopping to the pavement while others ran for cover. The raider was engaged by machine-gun fire from the ground. This raider also . machine-gunned a lifeboat crew who had been called out to find a missing yacht, but only one or two bullets styuck the boat's rudder.

Raiders were also over a number of other parts of England. Air-raid warnings were sounded in Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Durham. The “all-clear” signal was mostly given within 30 minutes. Many explosions were heard. The Air Ministry announces that a German bomber crashed in East [Suffolk shortly before midnight. An airraid warning was also sounded on the South Coast. Gunfire was heard on the Essex coast shortly before midnight. VIOLENT PRISONER. Two bodies were recovered from the Heinkel bomber which crashed near an old rectory in Sultolk. A third man, who was over 6ft. tall, was taken prisoner. He had an automatic revolver which was fully loaded and another eight rounds in a spare magazine. He struggled violently as he was taken to hospital, declaring that he wanted to continue to fight. it is believed he leit the machine before the crash in a parachute.. A police inspector who first reached the crashed bomber says that the • German tried to draw his revolver, but was overpowered. The German had one leg broken. A house was badly damaged by the bomber in its crash. Rent, Hertfordshire and the North Midlands also liad alarms during last night. A Yorkshire woman aged 61 collapsed and died in an air-raid shelter during an alarm early this morning, and a man aged 60 died while taking refuge in a neighbour’s shelter on the East Coast. Enemy ’planes raided Lincolnshire for the third successive night and dropped high-explosive bombs, many of them of small calibre. Windows were blown out. , Bombs fell in a street of a Northamptonshire town, shattering all the windows on either side. Another fell near a'swimming pool and a third in gardens. There were no casualties. For the most part the raiders flew at a great height. . The Air Ministry states: During last night and early this morning enemy aeroplanes crossed the coast. Some bombs were dropped, but little material damage was caused. There were no casualties.” . The German High Command states: “In the course, of armed air reconnaissances against the East and South coasts of Britain bombs were dropped on aerodromes’ and also the port of Dover.’-’ It is- authoritatively learned that Belgium has succeeded in transferring to France not only sonic of her infantry divisions and a cadre of officers, but also, what is more important at'a time when the air arm is playing a decisive role, nine-tenths of her njing personnel and the technical stairs ol her air force, which at the of the invasion included 250 first-line aircraft; The crews are equipped chiefly with British material. All the Belgian pilots now in France have been placed at the disposal of the British and French Air Forces. - ' . The enemy’s numerical superiority has utterly failed to impair the excellent morale of the Belgian Air Force which is now convinced that British and American machines and/equipment are better than the German, also that its own fighting method? are more effective. . ". V' ', A It is also revealed,that at 4.30 a.m. on May 10 the Belgian airmen were not on their home aerodromes wherethe enemy expected to destroy them, but in the sky. They attribute thensuccesses in aerial combat gained in. the face of great numerical superiority not to any lack of the enemy’s courage, but to his inexperience. The pilots now in France are eagerly awaiting an opportunity- to start again.