TERRIFIC INTENSITY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 249, 18 September 1940, Page 7

TERRIFIC INTENSITY.

ANTI-AIRCRAFT BARRAGE.

MORE BOMBS ON LONDON'.

LONDON, Sept. 17. Monday night’s raid was the fiercest Central London has yet experienced. The Germans came over non-stop, flying among the clouds and regularly dropping high-explosive bombs. The anti-aircraft barrage was of terrific intensity, but did not prevent the raiders diving to the very limits of the balloon barrage. Thousands of persons during the night indulged in a new night-time pastime—“door-hopping” to escape flying shrapnel as they scurried homewards. The use of underground stations for shelters is discouraged, but to-night thousands of people stayed on the platforms when shrapnel made the streets death traps. Many snatched a few hours of sleep, despite the clattering of trains.

The first air-raid warning to-day was sounded shortly before 3 a.m. Bombs were dropped in the Central London area, whore the raiders concentrated, and intensive gunfire was heard. Tho all-clear was given after 1 hour 34 minutes. , .

A fireman tackling an incendiary bomb in an upper room in the London area was killed when the raider returned and dropped a high-explosive bomb.

BALLOON CABLE FOULED

During a Midlands raid, in which high-expiosivcs and incendiaries were scattered over widely-separated areas, an enemy bomber fouled a balloon cable and crashed. Onp member of the crew was captured. Bom us were dropped in a denselypopulated area in a north-west England town; also near a Welsh town. It is officially stated that small groups of enemy aircraft last . night again concentrated on London, many parts of which were bombed. A numuer of fires wore started and speedily extinguished. Houses and commercial buildings were damaged, also a hospital, where there were no casualties. Bombs were dropped in rural areas in the Home Counties, but no damage was caused. Towns in the Midlands. Wales and north-east and north-west England were attacked and some damage and some casualties arc reported. Bombs fell on two famous West End squares, also a world-famous shopping street,, during London’s fifth raid, which lasted 6 hours 33 minutes.

At an inquest on a railwayman, Daniel Dunsden. it was revealed that the trailing cable of a breakaway barrage balloon lassooed him around tlie waist, lifting him up and crashing his head against a telephone box and breaking his neck. The balloon drifted off to sea. The air liaison officer at New Zealand House, who evacuated his family Irom a flat before it was demolished by a direct hit, was Wing-Commander S. W. Wallingford.