BOMB CRATER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 5

BOMB CRATER.

R.A.F. SAMARITANS. WAR'S PITIFUL FRAGMENTS. CHAMPAGNE TOWN SCENE. (By MARGARET GILRUTH.) A Town in the CHAMPAGNE (France), May 17. When I first arrived in this town in the heart of the Champagne district it was sleeping peacefully in the warm spring sunshine. The Nazi "Blitzkrieg" seemed still just a figment of Hitler's imagination. There was little to do but drink champagne, doze and see the sights like a good tourist. Then we heard that the Royal Air Force was in a state of "readiness." There was talk of the "Blitzkrieg," after aIL It was the vague sort of talk to which we have become so well accustomed ever since the war began. I went to bed thinking—well, this may be the centre of the war zone, but who would believe it? The next morning, as the sun rose, there was the howl of air-raid sirens. It was this town's first alarm since early in September. It was followed by the deep booming of anti-aircraft guns, then by the pumping of machine guns and the thud of a couple of bombs. Pathetic Gleanings. A house had been hit instead of the aerodrome. It was. just a little house, comfortable, cosy and pretty as they could make it. But three heavy bombs came down to scatter it and leave a crater in its place. Three persons were killed, including a school girl of 12. When I climbed about the wreclige an hour after the disaster I saw rabbit hutches at the end of the backyard, with rabbits still placidly munching their lettuce leaves. In the debris I found the arm of a little girl's doll flung far from its frame. Right under some fallen raftere was an enlarged picture of the victims' soldier son, now serving with,!

the French Army. It was unharmed. When I handed it over to tie old grandmother who was taking away such bits as she could find, she wept. Bombings seem to be like this. People can be killed and yet odd fragments of comparatively worthless belongings come through without damage. With the first siren the townsfolk behaved as they do in England. They went out into the streets and stared at the sky. After the bombing the next raid alarms sent them running hard for their shelters. There is nothing more pitiful than a crowded cellar shelter during a raid. One in which I was sheltered consists of some of the largest cellars in all France. Arm after arm stretches far underground, making a remarkable total of about sixteen miles. About 3000 men, women and children crowded into it after one alarm. Helping the Refugees. The R.A.F. men have been using one wing good-naturedly to help the refugees escape from the Nazi bombers with their babies, prams, dogs and even their sheep. They carried children down the steps, shooed the sheep on halters, into the gloom a hundred feet below ground. Some carried mattresses for the children, a wise precaution, for often the raids last four or five hours. Refugees in this immense cellar shelter find a good friend with a cheerful word and a warm drink for their babies. She is one of France's most famous titled women, but I cannot give her name. She has a flat in Paris and a chateau in a much safer part of France. But she stays here because she refuses to forsake her friends, the peasants. Such is the spirit of the women of France to-day.—(N.A.N.A.)