ROBOT DAMAGE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 64, Issue 212, 19 June 1944, Page 4

ROBOT DAMAGE

COLLAPSE OF A CHURCH. HOSPITAL ALSO DEMOLISHED. HEROIC RESCUE WORKERS. (N.Z. Press Association— Copyright.) (Rec. 10.40 a.m.) LONDON, June 18. Pilotless planes were over Southern England intermittently all day to-day. The Press Association to-night stated that there was an indication of success rewarding the combined efforts of anti-aircraft batteries and fighters to bring down robots over the sea and country. The morning service had not long begun in one church when a pilotless plane crashed in through the roof. The church collapsed, only the wall being left standing, reports the “Daily Express.” A number of worshippers were killed. Rescue workers, stripped to vest and . trousers, worked under the last remaining arch, which was cracked and unsteady, to reach those entombed, some of whom had already been taken out and sent to hospital. All hut a small wing of a hospital in Southern England was demolished when a pilotless plane exploded early this morning, says the “Daily Tele graph.” Some patients were killed, and one nurse was killed, three being missing. British, American and Canadian soldiers hurried to the scene and began assisting the civil defence workers in digging among the wreckage.

A night nurse said: “The patients were wonderfully calm. Morphia was given to many. Four women were buried alive under a wall, but were extricated after two hours’ digging. Five more women were dug out from a far corner.”

Tfie nurse, pointing to the wreckage, said: “That black, twisted little monster, which is the remains of the pilotless plane, is now mixed up with our X-ray equipment.”