RAIN & MIST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 October 1940, Page 6

RAIN & MIST

CURTAIN DRAWN OVER CHANNEL GERMAN AIR ACTIVITY RESTRICTED. SOME ISOLATED RAIDS. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, October 3. Heavy rain and dense mist, reducing visibility to a few hundred yards, drew a curtain over the English Channel this morning and reduced German aerial activity to that of isolated raiders, which appeared in the vicinity of the Midlands and also over north-east and south-west towns. A solitary bomber, flying low over a Midlands town, released a row of explosive and incendiary bombs and damaged a factory and a large school. There were a number of casualties. A.R.P. squads rescued many children and factory workers from beneath the wreckage. A raider bombed and machine-gun-ned a main line train from London as it was passing a small Midlands town. Three persons were sent to hospital. Bombing indiscriminately, a small number of raiders kept the London anti-aircraft defences in action for the longest period since the outbreak of war, road traffic and pedestrians carrying on as usual. Some bombs were dropped in a south-east district. Daylight raiders alos dropped bombs near south-east England and East London hospitals, shattering windows and wrecking shops and houses. A German bomber was shot down in the afternoon near Hertford. Four members of the crew surrendered to farm hands. The plane narrowly missed woods and crashed through a hedge into a field.

RANDOM BOMBING DAMAGE IN LONDON & OTHER AREAS. CASUALTIES IN HOME COUNTY TOWNS. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 12.15 p.m.) RUGBY, October 3. Once again today enemy attacks have taken the form of visits by single aircraft. These are described in the following Air Ministry and Ministry of Home Security communique: “Reports' received up to 5 p.m., BST, indicate that bombs w'ere dropped at random in a number of London boroughs and that several houses were demolished, but it is not expected that casualties will be heavy. Elsewhere bombs were dropped at various points in the Thames Valley, Essex, Kent and Cornwall, but there was ho serious damage and no fatal casualties are reported in any of these districts. A number of casualties, including a few fatalities were caused in a city in the Midlands and in another small Midland town, where a number of houses were demolished, but little other damage is reported. “A train was machine-gunned and a few persons were slightly injured. A single enemy aircraft was shot down in an attack on a town in the Home Counties, where a number of persons were killed and seriously injured by bombs and machine-gun bullets.”

TOUR OF LONDON MADE BY PROVINCIAL JOURNALISTS. DAMAGE NOT AS BAD AS WAS EXPECTED. (Received This Day, 11.55 a.m.) LONDON, October 3. To combat exaggerated stories of London’s ordeal which evacuees had carried to the provinces, the Government took a party of journalists from all parts of the United Kingdom on a tour of the worst bombed areas in the capital. The journalists were unanimous that the devastation was bad enough in places, but on the whole not nearly as bad as they had thought. The worst sight was in Dockland, where there are lines of shattered bricks and rubble which once were streets of houses.

GERMAN REPORTS (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, October 3. The Bremen radio alleges that 13,000 persons have been killed or injured in London, “since the reprisal attacks began.” A German communique claims that aid raids against London and numerous military objectives in the south of England and the Midlands caused heavy damage. The communique says several enemy planes penetrated the northern and western frontier regions of Germany. Occupied territory was also bombed, without causing damage to objectives of military or war economic importance.