RAIDS ON LONDON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 April 1941, Page 7

RAIDS ON LONDON

j NEW ZEALANDER’S EXPERIENCES. | PEOPLE’S GREAT FORTITUDE. I — I Experiences of the blitzkreig in I London are contained in a letter rei ceived by Mrs P. R. Cook, Masterton, from her son, Lieutenant L. G. Cook, j R.A.M.C. College, London. The foli lowing is an extract from the letter:— “As regards this blitz I can honestly and sincerely assure you that all you have heard about the people of London and other bombed cities is not only perfectly true but quite inadequate. They are unbelievable. The cheerful man in the bus will tell you he has lost a home, a business, ox- everything he possesses, but he’s not so worried about that as in his determination that we must and will win this war. They say they can take it. They can and do —and this is no propaganda. From your distance you can’t possibly have the remotest idea of what it’s like to have bombers ovex- practically every night and every whistle ox- high-pitched sound miglxt be a bomb. If it is you lie down but you don’t want to make any mistakes in public. You get used to it but it’s not pleasant. “The other night a couple of explosions shook this place and we barely had time to lie down. I went out to see what had happened, accompanied by my valet. We found that one of them had landed nearby in the ground floor- of some workmen’s flats. The people in the upper storeys usually went down to the ground floor- flats during a raid. Well, I pulled out five —a married couple and their child and an elderly couple—all dead. I was there fairly soon but the A.R.P. people were there before me. They are the heroes of this war, they and the firemen. You’ve got to be out to see them on the job to really appreciate what they are doing every night. By next morning 28 bodies had been recovered. I think that every man who won’t go to the war should be taken round to a job like that. It should cure him.”