BRIEF BUT INTENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 December 1940, Page 7

BRIEF BUT INTENSIVE

RAID ON BIRMINGHAM CONVENT SHELTER STRUCK IN LONDON. NUMBER OF PEOPLE KILLED OR INJURED. (By Telegraph—Press Associaiton —Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, December’ 4. An intensive but comparatively short attack was made on Birmingham last night by a considerable force of raiders. Casualties were surprisingly low. The majority of the damage was confined to dwellings and shops.

Explosive bombs last night struck a London convent where 100 persons were sheltering. Several people were killed or seriously injured. A.R.P. workers, after working all night, were still extricating people from the debris. Eleven nuns, who went into a chapel, were unhurt. A thirteen-year-old girl, who left the convent shelter to buy hex- parents’ supper, heard the bombs and rushed back to see her father dug out seriously injured. Her mothex’ is still buri’ed. Another bomb demolished the rear of a block of flats, opposite the convent, killing a woman and injuring a number of other people. A raider, believed to be an last night dropped three bombs on a south-east coast town, damaging snops and a hotel but causing no casualties. According to an official announcement, London anti-aircraft guns have shot down more than 400 enemy planes to date. The total of enemy raiders brought down ovex- Britain has reached 3000. The British losses are 350 planes. Some 2,500 concrete houses, with air raid shelters, are already under construction at Coventry.