FLEET STREET FIRES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1941, Page 9

FLEET STREET FIRES

i DURING DECEMBER 20 AIR RAID I ; NEWSPAPER STAFFS CARRY ON. I PRODUCTION MUCH AS USUAL. 'British Official Wireless.- '. LONDON. Jtmuary 4. Ii :s now possible to give the first I comprehensive story of Fleet Street’s part in the devastating fire raid on , London on December 29. Hundreds of incendiary bombs fell on the street and on adjacent buildings and alleys. ■ Higli-explosive bombs were expected ■ to follow at any moment, but all the ; papers produced much as usual. ! Tremendous material damage was i done to the buildings ringing Fleet Street. There were few casualties in | the area, though a number of people lost their li.ves when fighting a lire in Shoe Lane. Newspaper men displayed groat gallantry. Messengers, disregarding their orders, rushed out to help the firemen, and sub-editors and reporters dropped their pencils and joined their me- ! chnnised stall's in saving threatened ‘ buildings. They then went back to | their jobs. Ihe Cheshire Cheese Inn twellknown resort of newspaper staffs') was at one tune gravely endangered by a big lire. Among the places that narrowly escaped destruction in the St. Bride’s ( hutch fire. and still threatened throughout Monday, was Reuter’s Building, in which the Australian Associated Press and other Dominion news services have their offices. One floor w;ts evacuated due to the heat, and it was also feared that the spire of St. Bride’s might crash. .-N portion of the “Daily Telegraph's’ offices was burnt out. Members of the staff of the Associated Press of Great Britain continued cabling news while fumes choked then nostrils and water swished round their, tinkles, but they were eventually obliged to evacuate their building in Tudor Street. A crime reporter of the "Daily Express" removed a dangerous fire-bomb from the roof of the Press Club. The journal Aeroplane." commenting on the raid, said: “Again, the Germans have revealed that their aim is destruction irrespective of the effect on our war effort. We have been as loth to subscribe to the theory of pure frightfulness as to believe that any air force would deliberately waste its substance on non-military objectives. This attack on a business quarter seems t< leave no further room for doubt."