QUEEN HELPS POORER PEOPLE

Southland Times, Issue 24235, 19 September 1940, Page 7

QUEEN HELPS POORER PEOPLE

London had six air raid alarms between 8.30 a.m. and 8.10 p.m. on Tuesday. A few minutes before the third warning railway passengers standing outside a station in the London area heard a plane above the, clouds. An anti-aircraft gun fired one round and the engine stopped. A terrific crash and an explosion followed. Soon after the fourth warning gunfire was heard. An enemy machine was engaged over London, and the pilot was seen to bale out.

A solitary raider bombed a southeast town this morning, hitting the principal shopping centre and several private houses. There was considerable damage and a number of casualties. It is authoritatively stated that the places damaged on Monday night in addition to well-known West End streets include the Royal Arcade, Burlington Arcade, St. Dunstan’s headquarters, and Radnor House, Twickenham. The Peruvian Legation in Cadogan Square, recently hit by eight incendiary bombs, was seriously damaged by fire and has become unusable. It has been necessary to demolish the upper part of the building.

STORES DAMAGED Two big West End departmental stores • were damaged, also a subway. Several houses in a London suburb were demolished and a school was damaged. Incendiary and high explosive bombs were dropped in a south-west Scottish town and a northwest of England town. Bombs were dropped on many different areas around London early on Tuesday morning, in addition to central London and the West End. A number of fires broke out in the East End, but were quickly controlled. Fifty German raiders, the majority of which were fighters, crossed the south-east coast at a great height in the afternoon. Accurate anti-aircraft fire rapidly broke up the formations.

The Queen is sending a number of suites of furniture from Windsor Castle to help to refurnish damaged East End homes. >

The first hours of Tuesday night’s raid were less lively than similar periods of the past three nights. The planes mostly came over singly, at intervals of five minutes, but groups of three and four occasionally approached. The anti-aircraft guns fired fierce bursts.

The administrative headquarters of St. Dunstan’s Hospital in Regent’s Park were badly damaged by a bomb in a recent raid. Sir lan Fraser and his wife were not injured. They Were in a shelter 15 feet from where the bomb fell. BATTLES IN GALES The Air Ministry News Service states that after having their bomber squadrons cut to rags and tatters in Sunday’s fights over London, the Germans on Tuesday afternoon sent more than 200 fighters across the Channel. Battles were fought in a 100-mile-an-hour gale over Kent, Sussex, Surrey and the Thames estuary. Although our fighter pilots were handicapped by heavy clouds when searching for the enemy, they destroyed four aircraft. Gunners on the south-east coast also shot down two. The first formation of Messerschmitts approached the coast at 3 p.m. They continued to come over in waves of 20 and 30 for the next half hour. At 25,000 feet, over Maidstone, 12 Spitfires routed a formation of Messerschmitts. Although these famous Fighter Command auxiliary pilots do not claim to have definitely destroyed any German machines the pilots, when they landed, said: “One was swaying in a dive with white smoke pouring from the fuselage, a second was flying very slowly at 1000 feet and a third was spinning out of control.” .