TERRIBLE ORDEAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 December 1940, Page 6

TERRIBLE ORDEAL

ENDURED GALLANTLY IN SOUTHAMPTON CENTRE OF TOWN BECOMES INFERNO. SPIRIT OF PEOPLE UNBROKEN. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This ’Day, 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, December 1. A ceaseless succession of raiders, using Coventry tactics —incendiary bombs followed by explosives—last night wrought havoc in the central aiea of Southampton, which suffered its worst raid since the outbreak of war. It was impossible to walk far in the town in the morning without finding traces of the night’s hideous destruction, which was largely caused by fires. Acrid fumes still fouled the air and dozens of noble buildings lay smouldering in ruins, including many churches. A theatre, newspaper office, library and scores of shops were also demolished. At the height of the raid the whole centre of the town was transformed into an inferno, with flames leaping under a black sky, jets of water hissing from hundreds of hoses and ear-splitting crashes as high explosive bombs rained down'. The personnel of volunteer services worked magnificently throughout the terrible ordeal. A blast from one bomb blew one of the girl drivers of an ambulance on to the footpath. She jumped from the driving seat and found three injured men lying in the roadway. The girl, unaided, picked up the men and drove them to hospital.

After the hospital had been made uninhabitable by bombing, seventy of the patients, during the most severe part of the raid, were evacuated to another building without any casualties. The nurses’ quarters adjoining the hospital were gutted. Nuns were not injured when a convent was burned. A priest worked untiringly in order to prevent the spread of the Are. Sixty people had a remarkable escape when a publichouse from which they had just departed was destroyed. Another sixty got away safely from a big store, under which they had been sheltering, and which was gutted. Hundreds of people were seen in the morning collecting what belongings were undamaged from the wrecked houses and trying to find accommodation in the surrounding districts, but everyone was calm and there was no panic. Their attitude may be summed up by a newspaper placard which read: “Hitler comes, Hitler goes. We go on forever.”