SULPHUROUS GLOWS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 254, 24 September 1940, Page 7

SULPHUROUS GLOWS

SPECTACLE IN LONDON

LONDON, Sept. 23. Ghastly sulphurous glows filling the sky in quick succession have added a new feature to the-terrifying spectacles over London. The glows appeared too prolonged for shell bursts _ and too short for flares, although they illuminated big areas. Both plane and anti-aircraft activity was exceptionally slight in the first two hours of the night alarm this evening, which sounded earlier than usual. J-heii the raiders attacked in groups of threes and fours, and the barrage opened its thunderous roll. There was not a moment’s peace for over an hour, and high-explosives were dropped m the south-east and north-west. Heavy rainstorms descended on the Straits of Dover and a strong southwesterly kept the seas comfortably high for those on this side of the Channel The Civil Defences North Regional Commissioner has warned the public to resume carrying gas masks, saying that if an invasion comes from the sea gas will most probably be used. The Air Ministry announced that air activity in daylight was confined to isolated raids. A Kentish church was shattered by bombs. This was the district’s fourth church to be demolished by bombs. The raiders caused further casualties in south-east towns in the afternoon. While a spotter watched for raiders, hundreds of shop girls in Oxford Street spent Saturday and Sunday clearing the bomb wreckage and arranging improvised counters’ for opening on Monday. “Bomb sales” will bo features in Oxford Street this autumn. Work has begun for converting the Holborn-Aldwych section of the Piccadilly tube into a deep shelter. It is intended to instal bunks, but the shelter’s .use is bein'; limited to those unable to obtain comparative safety. “THAT MAN AGAIN!”

Londoners faced their sixteenth successive night raid when German bombers appeared over the capital on Sunday night (states a British Official Wireless message). A German broadcast, gloating that “Londoners are allowed to spend the night in the underground stations” and that “it is now learned that during the last 46 hours Londoners have had to spend lo in the air-raid shelters,” shows an utter lack of understanding of the spirit m which such “cover” is taken. The adaptation of Londoners t; 0 '-no new night life necessitated by the threat of murder from the sky is glowingly praised by neutral correspondents, one of whom suggests that the Germans are far from the mark if they are mistaking the Cockney common sense for panic and fear. The attitude of Londoners is summed up by a catch phrase that is continually heard with comic emphasis when the sirens sound: “It’s that man again!”