FURY OF BOMBING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1940, Page 6

FURY OF BOMBING

AIONDAY NIGHT’S RAID ON SOUTHAMPTON BUSINESS AREA THE MAIN OBJECTIVE. SUBURBS ALSO ASSAILED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright i (Received This Day, 11.50 a.m.) LONDON, December 2. Detailed reports of the raid on Southampton on Monday night indicate that the Germans repeated their previous night’s tactics with undiminished violence. Wave after wave of raiders attacked the town, continuing their mission of brutality (till early in the morning and leaving large areas of the town in ruins. The business area was again the main objective, but the suburbs also were assailed. Emergency measures were taken immediately to minimise the dislocation of food supplies. Temporary accommodation was found for the thousands rendered homeless. Hundreds of workers arrived at their places of employment in the morning and found them destroyed. Some residents of Southampton were killed, but the casualties are believed to have- been fewer than on Saturday night. Not a single house in one road escaped damage. One half of them were set on fire. Some streets are impassable. Hundreds of steel-helmeted pioneers tackling demolition work, are causing the- town to rock frequently today, as masonry and timber fall. Most of the casualties probably were concentrated in a communal underground shelter which was directly hit by a heavy bomb. Rescuers are still extricating bodies. A German communique refers to a second raid on Southampton and other localities last night, but gives no details. It claims that sixty large fires and numerous small fires started on the previous night in Southampton merged into a huge sea of fire. The communique says British planes at dawn bombed residential districts in the German coastal area. TOTAL CASUALTIES ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY NIGHTS. (Received This Day, 12.5 p.m.) LONDON, December 2. The Air Ministry announced that 370 persons were killed' or seriously injured in the Southampton raids on Saturday and Sunday nights.