WRECKED HOUSES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 145, 20 June 1940, Page 7

WRECKED HOUSES.

OCCUPANTS , FATE. Row Of Dwellings Fall In Ruins. LITTLE MILITARY DAMAGE. United Press Association.—Copyright. {Received 1 p.m.) LONDON", June 19. Among the dead in the air raids last night were a baby girl, a husband and wife, and their two-year-old baby, an eight-year-old girl, an 11-year-old girl, and a father and son. Nine of those killed were in houses wrecked in the eastern counties. An entire family of seven, who occupied a wrecked house, escaped unhurt. The Air Ministry and the Ministry of Home Security announce that further reports confirm that, although large numbers of enemy aircraft were engaged and many bombs were dropped, little material damage was done, says a British official wireless message. Eight houses in a Cambridgeshire town were demolished, causing a number of civilian casualties. Houses in several villages were hit, also a school. Several R.A.I , ', j aerodromes were attacked without success, but some damage was done by a bomb which hit a pipeline leading to lan oil wharf on the Thames estuary, causing a fire, which was soon extinguished. There were seven casualties in the Thames estuary. A woman died of shock and a man died after admission to hospital. Scores of houses in this area are windowless and have big gaps in the roofs. Most of the casualties occurred in one locality, where bombs fell on a row of houses. No severe damage was done to any military objective. Bombs were droppeil in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Essex, anC some high explosive bombs fell in the Thames estuary. Air raid warnings were sounded in eight or nine counties, including Suffolk, where explosions were heard, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire. Antiaircraft guns and fighter aircraft went into intensive action. Some bombs fell near a village on the East Coast, demolishing an empty house and damaging other houses. Two bombers circled over a town in Yorkshire and were driven off by heavy anti-aircraft fire, hut they returned and dropped salvoes of bombs. Loud explosions were heard in a town on the North-east Coast, end towns on the Thames estuary also were severely shaken. A number of the bomliers flew so "high that they were beyoml the range of the searchlights. Others flew so low that they were fired on by machine-guns from the ground. One German bom7>er crashed in Essex after being engaged by British fighters. A second crashed on the coast of Norfolk after fighters had gone up, and a third came down in flames out at sea off the East Coast. A fourth was brought down in Cambridgeshire.