TRAIN ATTACKED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 November 1940, Page 2

TRAIN ATTACKED

RAKED BY MACHINE-GUNS. ESCAPE OF THE PASSENGERS. First-hand stories of the machinegunning and bombing of an express train from Euston by a Nazi bomber were told by passengers on their arrival at a north-west town. A London woman heard the rattle of machine-guns and immediately threw her coat over her little girl. A moment later splinters of glass fell on the coat. The mother flung her child under the table of the dining car in which they were sitting and threw herself on the little one to shelter her from harm. The train had left Euston early in the afternoon and was attacked after passing through a small Midland town. “It all happened very quickly,” a woman passenger said. “We had a warning, and then someone went through the corridor shouting that we were being attacked. “The next thing I heard was a sudden rattle on the windows, and I saw passengers throwing themselves under the tables.

“Glass was flying all over the place, and I think we all crouched on the floor, but everybody behaved very well and there was no panic.” The woman had had shielded her child said that directly after the warning was given she heard a sound she knew only too well —the rattle of machine-guns. "I took cover under the table with my little girl as fast as I could,” she said. “The raider was following the train on the left side, and all the windows on that side were smashed. Some of the bullets went clean through the coach.” Mr R. Robinson, who was in another coach, said: “I was asleep when the attack started, and a bullet came through the window within 6in of my head and struck the side of the compartment. “The aeroplane flew up and down the line and, in addition to the ma-chine-gunning, it dropped several bombs before flying off. “When we got to the next large town the three slightly wounded passengers received hospital treatment.”