GERMAN RAIDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1940, Page 5

GERMAN RAIDS

ALARMS IN MANY ENGLISH COUNTIES COAST TOWN SPRAYED WITH BULLETS. LITTLE MATERIAL DAMAGE DONE. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright, LONDON, June 9. The Germans’ first terror raid against England occurred before midnight last night over a south-coast town when an enemy plane swept along the seafront. Empty cartridges were heard falling on

rooftops and in the streets, t and it seemed that the raider was actually .spraying the roofs and chimney pots.

He even potted at a small group of men talking in a street, and several saved themselves by flopping to the pavement while others ran for cover. The raider was engaged by machinegun fire from the ground. This raider also machine-gunned a lifeboat crew who had been called out to find a missing yacht, but only one or two bullets struck the boat’s rudder. Raiders were over a number of other parts of England. Air-raid warnings were sounded in Cambridge, Norfolk, Suffolk, Northumberland, Yorkshire and Durham. The “all-clear” signal was mostly given within 30 minutes. Many explosions were heard. NAZI BOMBER CRASHES. The Air Ministry announced that a German bomber crashed in East Suffolk shortly before midnight. An air-raid warning was also sounded on the south-coast. Gunfire was heard on the Essex coast shortly before midnight. Two bodies were recovered from the Heinkel bomber which crashed near art old rectory in Suffolk. A third man, who was over six feet high, was taken prisoner. He had an automatic revolver which was fully loaded and another eight rounds in a spare magazine. ’He struggled violently as he was taken to hospital, declaring that he wanted to continue to fight. It is believed he left the machine before the crash in a parachute. A police inspector who first reached the crashed bomber says that the German tried to draw his revolver, but was overpowered. The German had one leg broken. A house was badly damaged by the bomber in its crash. YORKSHIRE WOMAN DIES. Kent. Hertfordshire and the North Midlands also had alarms during last night. A Yorkshire women aged 61 collapsed and died in an air-raid shelter during an alarm early this morning, and a man aged 60 died while taking refuge in a neighbour’s shelter on the east coast. Enemy planes raided Lincolnshire for the third successive night and dropped high-explosive bombs, many of them of small calibre. Windows were blown out. Bombs fell in a street of a Northamptonshire town, shattering all the windows on either side. Another fell near a swimming pool and a third in gardens. There were no casualties. For the most part the raiders flew at a great height. The Air Ministry. states: “During last night and early this morning enemy aeroplanes crossed the coast. Some bombs were dropped, but little material damage was caused. There were no casualties.”

The German High Command states: “In the course of armed air reconnaissances against the east and south coasts of Britain bombs were dropped on English aerodromes and also the port of Dover.”