HEAVY BARRAGE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 12 September 1940, Page 6

HEAVY BARRAGE

AGAINST HIGHFLYING RAIDERS FORMATIONS BREAK AGAINST WALL OF FIRE. DISPERSAL COMPLETED BY SPITFIRES. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) • LONDON, September 11. Sirens sounded in London four times this afternoon, on the last occasion at 8.42 p.m. Soon after the second warning in the middle of the afternoon, heavy anti-air-craft batteries went into action against a large number of German planes flying extremely high over London. Big forces tried to penetrate the defences. The thud of bombs was heard and thousands of shells peppered the sky. It was one of the heaviest barrages of the war. Wave after wave of raiders broke against the wall of fire. The anti-aircraft guns suddenly ceased and Spitfires then completed the dispersal of the raiders, after which the all clear signal notified Londoners that the defence again had been victorious. High-explosive bombs last night demolished a five-storey working class apartment house, wrecking fifty flats. Five persons were killed, including three men forming a stirrup pump team in a porchway. They were not intimidated by a bomb which fell a few minutes earlier. They were crushed under the building. Four persons were killed and several injured when a bomb hit a shelter accommodating 25,600 people. Bombs fell near three famous London museums. The exhibits were little damaged. Underground railway services are now almost normal on all lines except one or two sections where services are temporarily suspended. *