BIGGEST DAYLIGHT RAID.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 August 1917, Page 6

BIGGEST DAYLIGHT RAID.

SAD SCENES AT FOLKESTONE. BOMBS IN CROWDED: STREETS. London, Ist. June. Seventy-six people were killed, and one hundred and eighty injured in the raid made by sixteen German aeroplanes over Folkestone and another-town last Friday afternoon. Nearlythe whole of the deaths and damage -occurred in Folkestone, which place the-iP'ress Bureau permitted to he mentioned- four days later. Tho German communique claimed that bombs were dropped on Dover and Folkestone.

This_ is the worst raid that has taken, place in England, and the news, which was not made public until the next afternoon, created great consternation and indignation. The attacking squadron chose its time well. It was a glorious evening, the sun declining towards the west in a blaze of splendour. Very high up there hung just a suspicion of mist. These weather conditions, coupled with the position of the sun at that time of day, are important to bear in mind. The greater part of the population was enjoying the open air, either strolling or doing their week-end shopping. Civilians in Folkestone seem to have caught their first glimpse of the 1 aiders at 0 p.m., and very soon the bombs began to fall. Curiosity yielded to dismay, and people bolted for cover. The hubbub was tremendous, Roar after roar awoke the echoes of hills and cliffs, and as bomb after bomb wrought death and devastation, crash followed craah with even greater speed. A TRAGIC INCIDENT. But for one deeply, mourned incident the raid would have been a much less j '-errible affair. The worst seemed to be over when a bomb fell in the middle of one of the principal shopping streets patronised by the poorer inhabitants. Friday is payday for a great many. It was between 0.20 and (1.25, and hundreds of housewives were doing their shopping for the week, perhaps a trifle more elaborately than usual on account of it being Whitsuntide. Many of them had taken their children, some had brought out perambulators for the parcels as well as for the baby. In front of a popular greengrocer's shop, more of an open-air booth than a building, a particularly large crowd was gathered. Some liacd been alarmed by the explosions further off, and had run for shelter to the shops, but the majority were standing about in frightened groups. The bomb fell in front of the greengrocer's. There was only one explosion, but 32 people, nearly all women and children, were killed on the spot. Nearly the whole staff of , the greengrocer's lost their lives; one of the partners was killed by a falling beam, and his brother was injured. Several score were more or less severely wounded, and a number died in hospital. The scene was as horrible and heart-rending as anything in this war.

REMARKABLE ACCOUNTS. One shopkeeper in this street who suffered from a weak heart fell dead on his own doorstep without being touched. A habv was killed as it lay in its perambulator. But a girl shop assistant i.who was blown through a skvlisht and fell nearly 20 feet into the room below, escaped with hardly a scratch. An old lady went into a shop leaving her two grand-children outside; she rushed out on hearing an explosion, cnlv to pick up their mutilated bodies from the pavement. Three bombs fell in a well-to-do residential district, but all failed to explode. Had they done so the result must have beqn appalling. One fell in a field where a number of boys were playing cricket. All escaped uninjured. but a girl in the garden of a girls' school two hundred yards away was killed where she stood. Two horses bolted on hearing the explosions. Both iverc blown to pieces as they were galloping, and a. man who was piucldiy trying to stop tiiem was' also killed. A 'radetman shouted to his wife to get behind the big safe in the shop; she did so, and he followed. A moment later the shop was shattered, aiid a heavy cash register hurled from one end of the premises to the other. Both the man and his wife were saved by the safe. Another remarkable escape* was that of an old bedridden lady, her daughter, and grandchild. The house collapsed but all three crawled out of the ruins safe and well. Two servant; who took refuge in a. cellar lost their lives by being buried. In another district a prominent citizei was killed in his own house by a bomb which fell in the back garden. A man asked a friend to have a glass of wine, and went into the house to get get; when he came out again the friend was lying dead on tlie road. '

I REMOVING THE DEAD. By a fortunate coincidence a party of, men belonging to an ambulance corps was passing through the town just at the time, and was in close proximity to the spot whore the worst casualties occurred. The work of recovering the many people who hail been buried in the ruined shops was made more difficult by the great quantity, of wreckage that had been blown over the road.