FEW CHILDREN EVACUATED

Southland Times, Issue 24231, 14 September 1940, Page 5

FEW CHILDREN EVACUATED

Official Expresses Disappointment

(United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright)

(Received September 13, 9 p.m.) LONDON, September 12.

The Daily Telegraph says that in spite of nearly a week of intensive bombing London’s working-class mothers are still reluctant to co-operate with the Government’s evacuation scheme.

An official declared: “We expected that a very large jump in registrations would follow the mass air raids, but we are frankly disappointed. It is true that registrations have risen from a few hundred weekly to 1000 daily, but the figure is far less than anticipated, because a scheme was ready for the evacuation of 250,000 within a few days.”

Serious problems are arising from the use of public air raid shelters hi the outlying districts of London as nightly dormitories by people living in the severely bombed eastern areas. Thousands from the East End, also the inner eastern suburbs, flock every evening into London’s green belt, taking blankets, mattresses and food and fill the shelters when the sirens sound. They sleep as best they can and then go home in the morning.

Many of these shelters were intended primarily for pedestrians who were caught in the street and not for all night use. Similar problems have arisen in the West End. Members of Air Raid Precaution squads say that persons tour the shelters in daytime and select the most comfortable. "

After touring the metropolitan districts, Mr Wyndham Mcßane, Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Home Security, in a broadcast, paid a striking tribute to London’s fire defence units. He said that blackened men with bloodshot eyes were manning hose among the dying flames, scorning relief which they knew was not available, and V’omen and ambulance. drivers were waiting to take away casualties while fire threatened to cut off their retreat.

“Men work on in the presence of a time bomb until it explodes, causing deaths among them—these things are woven in the tapestry of the country’s heroism, men and women working by the light of fire with death at their elbow,”- he said.