DAMAGE IN BRITAIN

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21189, 12 August 1940, Page 7

DAMAGE IN BRITAIN

EFFECT OF GERMAN RAIDS SEVERAL PEOPLE KILLED NUMBER OF HOUSES WRECKED (United Press Assn.—Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Aug. 11 There was little air activity over Britain on Saturday night. An Air Ministry communique this morning says enemy aircraft confined their attentions almost entirely to the south-west of England. Bombs were dropped on a town in the Bristol area and fell on houses. Four persons were killed and a number injured as the result of a raid on a north-western coastal town on Saturday. A German raider machine-gunned workmen engaged on a building in a south-eastern village on Saturday. They dropped 12 bombs before they were driven off. There were several casualties and some material damage was done.

Many persons had narrow escapes when five bombs fell in another south-eastern town yesterday. One directly hit a house, in which the owner’s wife was buried beneath the debris. Firemen extricated the woman, who was suffering only from shock. Woman Blown Through Door Eombs fell in a pathway in the garden of another house, blowing a woman through an open door. Fifteen or 20 houses were damaged. Several houses were partially wrecked and two streets littered with shattered woodwork and broken glass when a bomb was dropped in a north-east coast town. There no casualties, but a number of remarkable escapes* A bomb made a 20ft crater in a garden where a family was taking refuge five yards away in an air-raid shelter, and they survived unscathed. Bombs were also dropped in the residential district of a south-west coastal town, severely damaging a number of houses. Raiders in the south-eastern area were driven out to sea by British fighters, most of their bombs dropping in open country. Bombs were also dropped in Wales but there were no casualties. Germans Mine English Coast The Germans are nightly bombing and laying mines by air along the Ulster, English and Scottish west coasts, but Britain's western gates remain open for ships from all parts of the world. A typical west coast port now regards an air raid as a normal feature of the night. Some of the residents sleep in their shelters the whole night, while others have transferred their bedrooms from the upper to the lower floors, and leave their beds only “when things begin to drop.’ Children hare become used to raids. Bombs hitherto have not caused great damage.