CURTAIN OF FIRE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 244, 12 September 1940, Page 7

CURTAIN OF FIRE

ENEMY DRIVEN BACK. HEAVY LOSS INFLICTED. (Rec. 11.5 a.m.) LONDON, Sept 11. The sirens sounded in London tour times this afternoon, the last occasion being at-8.42 p.m. Soon after the second warning in the mid-afternoon heavy anti-aircraft batteries went into action against a large number of German planes flying extremely high over London. Big forces tried to penetrate the defences and the thud of bombs was heard. Thousands of shells peppered tbo sky.

It was one of the heaviest barrages of the war as wave after wave of°raidors broke against the wall of fire.

The anti-aircraft guns suddenly ceased and Spitfires then completed the dispersal of the raiders, after which the all clear signal notified Londoners that the defence had been again victorious.

It is stated officially that at 9 o’clock 73 enemy aircraft had been destroyed to-day by R.A.F. fighters. Seventeen of our fighters had been lost, but the pilots of three were safe. These figures were contained in reports up to 7.30 p.m. FIREMEN THE HEROES.

The fires started by last night’s raids on London are still burning and a smoke pall hung overhead as Londoners began another day ; s work in the city. . The East End again received a terrible hammering as bombs fell almost without intermission throughout the hours of darkness.

Auxiliary and regular firemen were again the heroes of the night, wrestling with outbreaks under the constant threat of further bombs. Four high-explosives followed by incendiaries burst in the warehouse and business area in Central London, .causing fires. Some buildings were seriously damaged.

Firemen working in a street where the blaze was most intense clambered to the upper floor of a slightly burning building in order to direct. their hoses on premises more seriously threatened. A “flaming bread-basket’’ fell outside a shop and burning oil spread along the street, hut members of. the Auxfliary Fire Service extinguished the flames while bombs were falling in adjoining streets, in which houses were demolished. • , • An aerial torpedo completed the destruction of blocks of shops in an area where smaller bombs caused damage the previous night. It is feared that many men, women and children evacuated from their homes after Saturday’s raids were killed when an East End school was wrecked. It was used as a refuge for about 500 homeless persons. Doctors and nurses worked with torches, treating the survivors rescued from under tons of debris, masonry, and girders which crumbled down on refugees who were sheltering on the ground floor. Rescuers found two babies of nine and six months, respectively, alive under the ruins.

Dozens of streets in this area presented a scene of mass wreckago Many people emerging from the Anderson shelters found their homes demolished.

' SCORES OF BOMBS. The raiders attacked one area with utmost determination. Here were concentrated scores of bombs in a small space. Several delayed-action bombs in the same district went off during thq night, damaging several houses. There were some casualties when a bomb hit a hospital in the central district. A Roman Catholic Church was demolished in Central Loudon. Valuable music manuscripts and antique furniture were destroyed when the home of a well-known woman pianist was damaged. Dropping from the clouds despite fierce anti-aircraft fire a Dornier unloaded its bomb cargo against a train en route to the. coast from London. A bomb fell through the roof of an empty carriage causing a fire which was quickly extinguished.

REPRISALS IN GERMANY. While London ivas receiving its nightly dose of German air brutality, Berlin, according to neutral correspondents, was given a strong taste of its own medicine when'the R.A.I. penetrated the capital s defences and bombed Central Berlin. A thermite bomb crashed through the roof of the Reichstag and smouldered in the hall before being extinguished. The Reichstag is not used at present and is still undergoing reconstruction alter the 1933 fire. , . Other bombs fell in this district which contains Government offices. Incendiary bombs peppered the area around the United States Embassy near which a 5001 b bomb fell. A high-explosive dropped near the Ministry of the Interior, smashing the ground floor and windows in a building occupied by the- American News Service. A heavy bomb landed in the centre of the Avenue of Splendour, which is Hitler’s particular pride.