SKY PEPPERED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24402, 13 September 1940, Page 5

SKY PEPPERED

LONDON’S DEFENCES A TERRIFIC BARRAGE RAIDERS TURNED BACK (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 11. Sirens sounded in London four times this afternoon, the last occasion being at 8.42. Soon after the second warning in 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. The thud of bombs was heard, and thousands of shells peppered the sky. It was one of the heaviest barrages of the war. Wave after wave of raiders broke against a wall of steel. The anti-aircraft guns suddenly ceased Spitfires then completed the dispersal of the raiders, after which “All clear” notified Londoners that the defence was again victorious. Tuesday Night’s Raids High explosives last night demolished a. five-storey working class apartment house, wrecking 50 flats. Five persons were killed, including three men forming a stirrup-pump team in a porchway. They were not intimidated by a bomb which fell a few minutes earlier. They were crushed under the building. Four persons were killed and several injured when a bomb hit a shelter accommodating 25,000 people. Bombs fell near three famous London museums, but the exhibits were little damaged. The underground railway services are now almost normal on all lines except one or two sections where the services were temporarily suspended. f A Terrible Hammering

The fires started in last night’s raids on London are still burning. A pall of smoke hung overhead as Londoners began another - day’s work. The City and East End again received a terrible hammering. Bombs well almost without intermission throughout the hours of darkness. The auxiliary and regular firemen were again the heroes of the night in wTestling with the outbreaks under the constant threat of further bombs.

Four high . explosive bombs followed incendiaries, which burst on the warehouse and business area in Central London, causing fires. Some buildings were seriously damaged, Firemen working in the street where the blaze was most intense clambered to the uoner floor of a slightlyburning building in order to direct hoses on premises more seriously threatened. A flaming bread-basket fell outside a shoo and burning oil spread along the street. Members'of the A.F.S. extinguished the flames while bombs were falling in the adjoining 'streets, in which houses were demolished. Blocks of Shops Destroyed An aerial torpedo completed the destruction of blocks of shops in an area where smaller bombs, caused damage on the previous night. It is feared that many men, women and children who were evacuated from their homes after Saturday’s raids were killed when an East End school was wrecked. The school was used as a refuge for about 500 homeless people.

Doctors and nurses worked with torches, treating the survivors rescued from under the debris, masonry, and girders which crumbled down on the refugees, who were sheltering bn-- the ground floor.

The rescuers found two babies, nine and six months old respectively, alive under the ruins. Dozens of streets in this area presented a scene of mass wreckage. Many people on emerging from the Anderson shelters found their homes denjolished.