GANG BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 May 1938, Page 10

GANG BATTLE

RIVAL’S TERRITORY INVADED TUMBLERS AS AMMUNITION With swords, iron bars, broken glasses, and hatchets, two gangs battled in City road, Finsbury, London, on the night of Sunday, March 13. Gangsters from Soho “invaded” another gang's territory in retaliation for an attack on one of its members. Police were unable to stop the fight until reinforcements had been brought up. The Soho gang, some of them in evening dress, drove into the district in two large cars on the Saturday night for a preliminary survey. They turned up again at 1 p.m. next day and the fight started. The big battle came just as the local public houses were about to shut. For the third time the big cars drove up, and eight men got out. Four walked into the saloon bar of a neighbouring hotel, took a look around, then went out. As they did, a man ran out to a telephone to call up the defenders. “There were nearly 20 men fighting furiously soon after that,” an eyewitness told the “Daily Herald” representative. “They were using swords, hatchets, bars of iron, and glass rods. One man ran into the bar of a public house, scooped up an armful of tumblers, and used them as ammunition. “Another threw a glass at a rival, which missed, smashing against the side of a passing tram. An iron bar went through the plateglass window of another public house. “I saw men with bleeding faces. One man had his cut to ribbons. Two policeman arrived a few minutes after it had started, but they were powerless.” When police reinforcements arrived, the attackers drove off in their cars, and the defenders dispersed. The battlefield was strewn with scores of broken glasses, iron bars, and swords, one shaped like a scimitar. Three men were later taken to St Leonard’s Hospital, in Bethnal Green, one in a serious condition. Criminal Investigation Department officers waited while their wounds were being dressed, and later accompanied them to Shepherdess Walk Police Station. Police took records of the numbers of the attackers’ cars.