MUCH DAMAGE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 61, Issue 9, 22 October 1940, Page 5

MUCH DAMAGE

- RAIDS OVER BRITAIN.

SIXTEEN DISTRICTS VISITED.

DEATHS AT Y.M.C.A. BUILDING

(United Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received This Day, 11.20 a.m.) LONDON, October 21

Heavy gunfire from the outer defences kept many raiders from the Inner London zone last night. A bomb killed four and injured a number of others when it demolished two shops and two houses.

Thirty policemen were in a canteen when bombs struck a London police station. The canteen and gymnasium were practically wrecked. !he policemen were rescued from the debris. Only five were injured. A time-bomb fell near two shelters, from which 50 people were evacuated. Time-bombs also fell in three localities in the Midlands, causing evacuati ms.

One thousand people in a London shelter escaped mihurt when a bomb landed on the entrance to a belter, which was blocked. Six explosives dropped on an institution and an emergency hospital in a Midlands town, affecting two wings, and also the nurses’ home,' causing casualties, one fatal. Many bombs fell harmlessly in country districts. , .

Raiders were reported over many parts of the country this morning. Five workmen were killed in a south coast town. Anti-aircraft fire shot down a raider near_ Ipswich. A number of houses were damaged and a water main was burst when three bombs fell in the London area this afternoon. By midafternoon the raiders had bombed 16 districts in Britain, of which II were in London.

Ten people were fatally injured when the greater part of the Y.M.C.A. headquarters were rendered uninhabitable by bombs. Those killed and . injured were mostly in the reading-room. Five hundred members were sheltering in the gymnasium and were not hurt. A time-bomb fell near the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in a recent raid, and exploded later, smashing the windows.

German guns fired across the Straits of Dover this afternoon.