LONDON SUFFERS

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1940, Page 7

LONDON SUFFERS

By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.

SEVERE ENEMY ATTACK WEST END AGAIN TARGET

Received 1.30 a.m. London, September la. TJEAVY casualties were caused by enemy raiders which gave London its longest alarm of the war to date during the night. The all-clear signal was sounded just before dawn after an alarm of nine hours 52 minutes. "It is feared that casualties during the night were heavier than in recent nights," said an Air Ministry communique this morning. "Raiders were over a wide area round London, central London, and, for the second night in succession, the West • End. Bombs are also reported to have been dropped on various other towns, including the Glasgow area. One Merseyside town had its heaviest raid of the war." Over London raiders appeared in quick succession. Many houses were destroyed in the east and south-east, and three famous* Oxford Street stores, Bourne and Hollingsworth, D. H. Evans and John Lewis, were damaged. Two bombs scored direct hits on the roof of Bourne and Hollingsworth, but spotters on the roof were unharmed. Havoc was also created in the famous Lambeth Walk market, where many shops and houses were demolished and many damaged. One bomb fell just outside a well known London hotel and damaged a subway.

The first hours of the night's raid were less lively than similar periods in the past three nights. The planes mostly came over singly and at intervals of five minutes, but groups of three and four occasionally approached, whereupon the anti-aircraft guns fired fierce bursts. Bombs were dropped in many different areas around the metropolis early this morning, in addition to central London and the West End. Fires broke out in the East End, but they were quickly controlled. Planes that came over a north-west district suddenly swooped low and dropped a large number of incendiary and high explosive bombs which caused many casualties. One plane machinegunned women and children who were making for cover. Several houses were demolished. Since the end of the night alarm just before dawn there have been five alarms in the London area, the first four of 15, 25. 40 and 10 minutes' duration and the fifth rather longer. Several high explosive bombs were dropped during the fifth alarm on a town on the Thames estuary. Considerable damage was done ■ and many families were rendered homeless, though casualties are reported to have been few. During the second alarm Londoners had an opportunity of seeing the whole anti-aircraft barrage at work in bright sunshine. Fighters flew out over a south-eastern town to encounter raiders who appeared from the east. but the enemy planes turned tail and disappeared. Already several raiders have been shot down this morning.- Most of the raiders were Messerschmitt 109 fighters, the type which can carry one bomb. It is suggested they are being used because Nazi bombers have recently received such a severe handling. It was revealed to-day in a recent raid a bomb fell on the lawn of Westminster Abbey. It made a huge crater in the lawn, but did no damage to the Abbey. The administrative headquarters of St. Dunstan's Hospital, Regent's Park, were badly damaged by a bomb in a recent raid. The hospital board chairman, Sir Ian Fraser, and his wife were uninjured. They were in a shelter 15 feet from where the bomb fell.