THE ZEPPELIN RAIDS OVER THE MIDLANDS.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVII, Issue 30, 4 February 1916, Page 5

THE ZEPPELIN RAIDS OVER THE MIDLANDS.

HOUSES DEMOLISHED AND FACTORIES DAMAGED. BOMB FALLS OK BOOF OF A THEATRE. ', (Received 10.25 ajn.) LONDON, February 3. The Zeppelin raiders caused much loss of life and damage to property in the thickly populated suburhe of some of the Staffordshire towns. Ten houses were blown to pieces. A bomb killed sir persons -walking within a radius of thirty yards in Leicestershire. The aircraft hovered over a Derbyshire town on Monday from eight until midnight, occasionally dropping bombs, causing gome casualties. Another Zeppelin hovered over a Staffordshire town and dropped nineteen incendiary bombs in half-an-hcrar, two near picture theatres, and a third near a theatre. Another set fire to a brewery. One bomb wrecked a mission room. A Zeppelin, over a. Leicestershire town from eight to ten thirty dropped four bombs, killing and injuring Eeveral, and damaging a number of houses. The "Daily Chronicle" says that in a small area in Staffordshire 26 were killed, and 10 injured. Two separate visits were paid here, and the who!-; district reverberated to the explosions. As a Tesult of one explosion, 13 people were killed. One bomb made a hole in a road 7ft deep and 10ft wide. A family of five were killed in one house, which was reduced to a heap of bricks and mortar. AJI the tenements in this street had their windows smashed. A number of people state that the Zeppelins were flying very low. An incendiary bomb, which, fell on the roof of a theatre in Staffordshire, rolled into the street. The audience huddled in the darkness until the danger was pest, and sang the National Anthem. A lady lecturer in a parish hall was killed, and also two women in the audience. Another bomb wrecked a billiard room, killing a player, his opponent escaping uninjured. Three Zeppelins crossed the Norfolk coast at a leisurely speed. They dropped twenty bombs, and wrecked a farmhouse without loss of life. A small town in Lincolnshire was damaged. One bomb fell in a Derbyshire town, killing three men. Other missiles fell harmlessly in the open country. The War Office reports that in Monday's raid* thirty-three men, twenty women, and six children were killed, while fifty-one men, forty-eight women, and two children were injured. One church and a Congregational chapel were badly damaged. A parish room was wrecked, and fourteen houses were demolished, while a great number were less seriously damaged, some not seriously. Damage was done to railway property in two places, and only two factories, neither of military importance, and a brewery was badly damaged. Two or three other factories were slightly damaged. The total bombs discovered numbrr>?d 300, many falling in rural districts

without doin£ harm.