RAID EXPERIENCES

Waikato Times, Volume 128, Issue 21374, 19 March 1941, Page 7

RAID EXPERIENCES

MAN WHO KICKED BOMB “We don’t get so many day raids now since the R.A.F. got 103 planes down two days running, and if they do come over they are so high up they look like butterflies,” writes Mrs Claude Donnelly from Essex to her cousin, Mrs C. J. Brooke, of Newstead. “We had three very bad raids here recently. The first one did most damage and completely destroyed three streets; left them looking as though there had been an earthquake [Mrs Donnelly was in the Napier earthquake.—C.J.B.]. Houses collapsed just like a pack of cards. It was quite close to us but fortunately the blast went the other way. “In the second raid a delayedaction mine was dropped in a field by the church. A farmer had two valuable horses grazing there and went and got them out. A sentry was put on guard at the gate to see that no one went near it. “Meanwhile the old Essex horsekeeper. a typical old hayseed with a white beard down to his trousers, came in through the back of the field to look for his horses. Of course he couldn’t find them, so he said to the sentry, ‘Have yer seen two haarses about? I can’t find ’em. There’s something lying in the middle of the field there. I jus’ give it a kick but it didn’t move.’ “Of course, a mine is as big as a man, and lying there half covered with the parachute he mistook it for a German! “Did I tell you how one of the Home Guards challenged the first bomb? It was 9.30 p.m. and getting dark and of course the bomb looked just like a parachutist. He was blown through a door when his challenge was answered and had bath ins legs broker