HAVOC IN ENGLISH TOWN

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 180, 31 July 1940, Page 6

HAVOC IN ENGLISH TOWN

FIRST RAID.

RAIN OF BOMBS.

SAVAGE ONSLAUGHT.

STOIC CALM OF VICTIMS.

MANY 'PLANES SHOT DOWN. (Special—By Air MaiL) LOXDOX, June 20. The Germans opened the battle for Britain on a terrace of small workingclass houses in a town in Cambridgeshire yesterday. Eight houses in the row were smashed into a heap of brick and twisted furniture. Xine people, including six children, were killed. Ten were injured. The terrace is in the middle of a town that has been declared a reception area. The bomb went through Xo. 5, wiping out an entire family sleeping there. And the people who by some miracle had survived wore standing round the street, rescuing their chairs and family portraits, saying in a pathetic, bewildered way. "Why our street?" It was the simple faith that these people had in their own innocence that kept them in their beds when the sirens went. They could not believe that their life had any importance, so they went on sleeping. Xearly all the people who went downstairs were saved. It was the tiny children who suffered most. They had no chance under the heavy wreckage. Family Wiped Out.

Heather Dear, a baby of four months, was killed in her mother's arms, but the mother, though badly injured, survived.

At Xo. 5 an entire family was wiped out. Mr. and Mrs. Beresford and their son Michael died under their collapsed home, but an evacuee staying with them, Lily Itzcovitch, is alive.

It was almost mercy that not one of the Beresfords remained to live alone, for the unhappiest man, wandering round the ruin of his home in a dazed, unreal way, was Mr. Palmer, of Xo. 8. His two children, Molly and Leonard, were dead. His wife is seriously injured, both legs broken.

"They were crushed at my side. My wife was in an armchair, and we had to lift our children off her to get her out. .She was so quiet, so patient . . ."

That is true of the whote terrace. The air faid wardens said they were superb ... no panic, no screaming.

First on the scene was Senior Warden relling, who climbed on the wreckage and saw a girl's head poking out of the top. She just said: "Could you please help me, sir ?"

Her whole body was trapped under brick and beam. She was badly injured, but she made no sound as Pelling began to work the brick off her. She just kept saying, "That's better." Then suddenly the pile of brick broke under them, and they both fell into a deep pit.

Mr. Pelling*s tin hat saved his head. He began calling, and soldiers who had rushed round drew them both out.

Behaviour Inspiring.

So that is how English people behaved under their first bomb.

The vicar climbed over the wrecked vicarage gate and bepan to work a stirrup pump. The woman in the end house that was still intact, lit the fire and made tea for people who survived.

The rescue party of builders and masons began to dig and the people of the street stood by quietly so that the A.R.P. workers could trace the calls of the injured still buried.

People who were shocked and slightly injured refused to take the ambulances until the severely injured had been taken first.

The vicar said he was inspired by the way the people behaved . . . "So calm, so determined. I was proud of my race."

The miracle happened for the Unwin family. Their house was in the middle of the debris, but thev were all saved — mother, father, two sons and daughter.

Yet it may not have been such a miracle. They had all pone downstairs and waited near the front door. The fireplace fell, but the staircase held, and they erawlcd out intact.

That is common sense. "Unloaded." An air raid warden told me Tie had seen the 'plane caught in the searchlights just over the town. Caught, ho had dropped his bombs into the heart of a town and on a terrace. That lightened his load, but he d'd not escape our fighters. They chased him, and the people in the streets cheercd as he was brought down in flames. The first bomb hit a garden. There was broken glass, and a great hole in the lawn. That was all. Others hit smack into the terrace. Xine people died under it. The rouses round had held. It was only the terrace under the direct hit that suffered so acutelv. I have seen street* in other countries smashed by bombs, but never such complete demolition as this. They were old houses built to keep out the wind avd rain, but not a bomb. They had collapsed completely, leaving a perfect and huge crater in the middle. In all this misery there was a lesson to be learned. A woman who was tidily sweeping the dust and stones off hex 6tcp said she had not left her home for a shelter nearby because the Government had told them to stay where they were when the Germans came. She had misread the Government's evacuation order. That order to stay put referred to land invasion, XOT air raids. Gave Germans Tea. Cotta.r-s near a village in Cambridgeshire, w.-kened at dawn by the eound cf a low-fn .'ng 'plane, looked out of tlic>r windows to see two German airmen standing in the road.

They had come from a German bomber which had taken part in the raid in which the short terrace of houses had been destroyed and nine people killed. Their own bomber, shot down by our fighters, crashed in flames in a field" rear these cottages. The four membors of the crew baled out with parachutes. One was wounded in the leg. and was ca.ptured. A second was killed outright. The other two came across to thei*c cottages and asked for food. "We didn't quite know what to do," said Mrs. Blanche Dockerell, one of t.ie cottagers. to a. "Daily Express" reporter. "But we felt we ought to keep thfin there till we could pet help. So Mrs. Hi!)=. my next-door neighbour, made ih:-i;i a cup of tea while we sent off to tlw IV-- -Ws, who were stationed ju.-t up the load. Bit Anxious About Fate. "One of the (iermans, a yoiirg sergeant, could speak English fairly w?'L "We talked about the weather, ind he said it was much hotter in Germany, and tho corn was farther ahead than our corn.

"Then our Parashots came up witn their rifles, but the airmen made no figLt at all. They handed over their revolvers and their flying helmets. "They seemed a bit anxious about what would be done to th«m, but one rr our men said they'd be all right, and they went off quite happily." As the 'plane came down, units of the L.D.V.'s put up a good volley at ;t and at the airmen who came down by paiachute. "They blazed away like anything.." one old firm worker, an A.R.P. warden, who was -watching told me. "And they nine* have hit them because the 'plane WJ6 very low by then." Two Births. Bombs which fell near a village in Essex broke windows in farmhouse buildings. Shell splinters penetrated, the roofs of several houses, but there were no injuries and only very slight damage. Two babies were born during the raid, and both are doing well. An unoccupied house in Essex received a direct hit. Next door, Mr. and Mrs. T. A. H. Bond and their daughter were sheltering in a room which had its board" !. All the glass -was blown outwards and they escaped without a scratch. Mr. Bond was actually lying on a couch underneath the window. Mrs. Bond said the concussion was very bad, and that they could not see across the room for smoke.

In an adjoining road. Mr. and Mrs. W. Studd and Mies M. Barber were sheltering under a table when a bomb dropped only 25 yards away. Nearly every window in the house was smashed.

Escape of Girls' Hostel. A hostel in an Essex town full of girls evacuated from Dr. Barnado's Homes escaped by only a few yards when one of the Nazi bombers crashed in the garden. "The children were in their cellar dugout," the matron told the "Daiiv Herald," "and they behaved remarkably well." This l>omber. in a duel with a British liter at. 14,000 feet, had its tail shot away and propellers blown off. The only meml>er of the crew of four to escape was a Tad of 17. who nude a !>araehute jump and was found injured and taken to hospital. None of his companion* was older than 20.