NIGHT RAIDS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 297, 14 December 1940, Page 14

NIGHT RAIDS.

TERRIFIC NOISE. "ALL HELL LET LOOSE' (0.C.) (iISBORXE. day. A vivid word picture of the life and reactions of Londoners under the daily and nightly air blitz is contained in a letter from a former <»i«borne resident. Miss Xui Lunn, to relatives here. "Life here at present is a queer piecemeal affair, lived from day to day through raid.-, ruins and rationing, but ntill we are making out very well on the whole and everybody is remarkably cheerful. I'erhaps all the alarms and excursions help to keep us alive even though they may at times do us to death."' writes Miss Lunn. "Their (laylight raid is 011 now as I write. This is the fourth or fifth to-day. I hear planes overhead but they fly so high they cannot often be seen, though frequently we see tlveir white vapour trails in the sky as they turn and twist, or hear the gunfire rattling behind the clouds. When thing* first got bad all business used to stop and shops to clo«e immediately the siren went, and everybody rushed hell for leather for shelter; but now. unless things are popping too close immediately overhead nobody takes much notice. When dusk comes and you do your black-out, you know it will only be half an hour or so before the siren announcers the beginning of the nightly raid, which will probably la--t until dawn. Presently there is the droiie of the engine above and then all hell is let loose as anti-aireraft guns go into action. A pause, and the drone goes on; more guns, and perhaps the thud of a bomb far off or uncomfortably elefse, and so on and so on for meet of the night. It is nerve-racking, to say the least, and the bombing is so indiscriminate that you don't know whether you will toe tlie next victim or not. Our closest shave was the night "before last When an oil bomib fell in the little square of grass and trees round which these flats are built. Thank goodness* that it was in soft soil that it fell, burying itself. These oil bombs hold about live gallons of crude oil, which they* broadcast when they strike, and have an inner metal cylinder which eontains a detonator and an explosive. Another night -we had a shower of small calcium flares, and as they fell they glowed into the room through the blinds and heavy curtains. \V T e rushed downstairs, not knowing what might follow, and found the men already putting the flares out with buckets of sand."

Closing her letter on the night raid. Miss Lunn said: "The dops have lx-en loose again since about 7.30; anti-air-craft puns have been roaring and barking. The best way I can describe the noise is to say to imagine dozens and dozens of chained dogs, all sizes and type*?, barking at once—from yapping terriers to deep-baving hounds and growling mastiffs, and then multiply the whole noise hundreds of times. The din i« terrific. These guns put up a wonderful barrage and often bring down German machines, break up formations, and divert the course of the enemy planes. Even so f lots of single planes get through, and it seems as if a constant succession parses overhead, one following on another's tail. Drone, drone, bang, ban»-, then an extra heavy crash means that another building lias collapsed in ruins or gone up in flames. It is a ghastly business, but the people are standing up to it wonderfully well.

"What everybody seems to be dissatisfied about is that we are not doing as much and more to Germany. The demand for reprisals is very strong, but however much one would like to give them a taste of their own medicine, I cannot think that to retaliate with the sn|me indiscriminate destruction and slaughter would do us any good. Reading this over it sounds as though life is a rather grim affair, and so it jolly welt is for a lot of people. However, here's hoping.''