GREAT FIRES IN LONDON

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21215, 11 September 1940, Page 7

GREAT FIRES IN LONDON

HAVOC BY NAZI SAVAGERY CALMNESS OF LONDONERS SINGING IN SHELTERS (United Press Asn. —Elec. Tel. Copyright) LONDON, Sept. 10 “Great fires burning in the East End are making a mockery of London’s black-out,” stated Mr William Forrest in a broadcast last night. The raid was still in progress when Mr Forrest broadcast, and he said that in spite of the havoc wrought by Nazi savagery Londoners retained their calmness and confidence. Mr Forrest said that, dodging bomb splinters and taking refuge in shelters here and there, it had taken him two hours to cover the last mile and a-half to Broadcasting House. He came all the way on foot and was breathless when he first spoke. In one shelter in which he took refuge there were about 200 people, and they were all singing well-known songs, except three men and a woman who were engaged in a very serious game of bridge. They were all waiting for the all-clear, which would signal the end of the German cold-blooded terror. They had already been in the shelter seven hours. Until midnight he had watched the raids from the roof of a newspaper office in Fleet Street. All the newspapers had watchers on the roofs of their offices, whose duty it was to give a warning when the raiders came dangerously close. There were 13 such warnings in the few hours that he was in this particular office. “The heart of the great Empire on this night of its great ordeal is beating hard and strong,” Mr Forrest concluded.