TERRIBLE ONSLAUGHTS

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21221, 18 September 1940, Page 8

TERRIBLE ONSLAUGHTS

HEROISM IN DOCKLAND TRIBUTE BY MINISTER (OlTlcial Wireless) (Received Sept. 13. 3.15 p.m.) RUGBY, Sept. 17 The Minister of Shipping, broadcasting, described a visit to London decks and paid tribute to the dwellers in dockland. “A few days ago,” he said, ‘‘l made a tour of the Port of London, which has been the main target of the German raiders. You will have read about the terrible onslaughts. Hundreds of German aeroplanes have rained high explosive bombs and incendiary bombs on the docks and a good deal of damage has been done. “Great fires have lit up the skies at night, and we have wondered whether anything could possibly survive them. What was the true extent of the damage the Germans are no doubt wondering too, and you will not expect me to satisfy their curiosity. “Our fire-fighting men have been wonderful. I have seen them, tired cut, still working on their hoses. “I have seen them going home In their tenders, utterly worn, filthy dirty, sleepily seeming to prop each other up, but still full of grim cheerfulness, reaay to crack a joke with passengers in any car that might overtake them, and more than ready to start off again at any moment needed.” “Alter days and nights of horror end bombs and flames, thanks to the wonderful air raid shelter organisation of the Port of London authorities there has been only one man. killed by enemy action within the limit of the docks, and he was in a tin cabin # which by sheer bad luck got a direct hit. “But outside the docks the story is very different and there is a strange sight in miles of firemen’s hoses running the length of street after street. Huns' Wicked Havoc “London’s docks are surrounded by a densely-crowded area. There are many miles of small streets, where hundreds of thousands of London’s poorest people live, tiny houses, mostly weakly built. “To their everlasting shame the Huns poured a deluge of destruction on these unlucky folk. I saw then wicked havoc. I saw mangled wreckages of these little homes, hundreds upon hundreds of them. “I saw sights to bring tears to your eyes. I came back home wondering how man could be so foul and also how man could be so brave, but knowing well that here in London, here in England, here in our Empire, is the spirit that must and shall conquer the powers of evil.”