DANCERS PERISH

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 88, 15 April 1941, Page 4

DANCERS PERISH

BOMB ON CABARET.

A NIGHT OF TRAGEDY. HEARTRENDING SCENES. LONDON, March 10. lianiinir couples—iriiiny of them wellknown people—and the leader of a .-uln;* (i.ind were killed when a London n'-i,iiinint was bombed 011 Saturday, rlic manager and a nmnlicr of his regular patron* wen- victims. states a "D.iilv .Mail'' reporter. The '«mib crashed through the dome rm: ri'jlil on to (he da nee floor. It u a- a Saturday e\ ening crowd. .Men and \\ <»1111■ 71 in iMiiforin and evcuin*: <i re [•a' ked t !ie Hour. Show girls about to take part in the eaburet were in the make-up room already dressed. "Suddenly,(-aid one of the injured ye.-terday, "there was a flash, like the fusing ot a great electric cable. "'['lieu in the darkness, masoniy and lumps of pla.-ter could be heard crashing to the ground. "[ was blown off my feet, but the sensation was that of being pressed down bv a great hand. No One Stood. "Several people switched ou torches. Others struck petrol lighters. I could see people lying on the floor all round. No one seemed to be standing.

'"Tho air was filled with the smell of |'o\\ der and dust.

■'I'd just left a table near the band w hen the bomb burst. I groped my way back in the dark. My hand fell on someone's face. My table had been smashed.

"Then a. few lights began to appear. I could hear a few groans, but everyone was calm.

"I saw an airman dividing his attention between his mother and a young woman. Both were hurt. Later he, too, wan taken to hospital.

"As far act I remember, most of the debris fell from the centre of the roof." When tho leader of the band was killed some of his men who had been swinging it so gaily were injured. As for the glamour girls: "All my kids arc safe," said the grey-haired woman who looked after them, as she puffed a cigarette in the rnake-tip room. "They were waiting to go on. Had it been a few minutes later . . .

"When the building rocked and there was that loud crash they were frightened, but they remained steadv."

A waiter, whose head wa<? bandaged, said: "I was just coming through the service door with some wbie for a table on tho balcony when it happened. I was flung to tho ground, and bottles crashed on to my head." -

Every member of a party sitting round one table was killed outright, ypt a bottle of wine remained intact on the tableland was not even' cracked. ' "X. \ When the explosion was followed by the falling of debris, men in uniform pushed their partners under tabbs. But it all happened so suddenly "thifc^.few had a chance to iind protection.' Women only slightly in/ured trietf to drag their partners out of the debris. They tore- up " their" dresses'Tto. make bandages. They were magnificent. - Waiters, tlieir shirt fronts etainipd and their coats covered ,-with < duet, sought patrons whom they had ji»t been serving with food/and wine. Injured men and women staggered from the wrecked building out;into the street. Policemen, wardens, first aid squad's hurried to the sCene. , '■'■

Women, their dresseir bedraggled-and torn, were taken from the wreckage to neighbouring buildings for treatment. Torchlight search was made for people buried under the debris. Outside, soldiers with field dressings helped give first aid to the injured on the paveinent. Only the ohef escaped injury when another ©mailer restaurant in the same district was hit. All the men and women dining and all but thin one of tixe staff were killed or,injured. _ The owners of the restaurant are believed to be among the killed. Nurses by Taxi.

Nurses were taken to the restaurant by taxi. .

A nursing ekter, after tending the injured in the restaurant, eavr a man rifling her handbag. He got away with he.- fountain pen and a R.A.F. brooch given her by a pilot who is now a prisoner in Germany. The sister, who iu employed at the Bel.gravia and Chelsea Nursing Institute, was off duty and was about to enter the restaurant with a Dutch member of the Fleet Air Arm when the -bomb fell. She at once offered her help. Soldiers thrust an armful of field dressings into her hands. With these, a bottle of iodine, and handkerchiefs given by women guests she attended to the more fondly injured. It was when she had finished her work that she saw the man rifling her handbag, whioh she had left on the desk of the office of a.n hotel opposite. She called. 'Drop that." The man disappeared, leaving a email sum of money intact.

While the rescue work was going on naval ratings and soldiere on leave helped Home Guards a.nd police to cordon the building. A police guard was put on the women's cloakroom, where m«nv women had loft their furs.

This part of the building was not wrecked and a number of women owe their escape from injury to the fact that they were powdering 'their faces when the bomb fell.

Soldiers also helped to release the trapped, working by moonlight. Bombs were still dropping, but no one took

Yesterday I returned to the restaurant and Hatched men still clearing away the debris. I saw broken tables, cracked bottles, the remnants of embroidered evening bags, saxophones cracked and twisted . . .

In a Public Bar. There wa<; a Saturday night crowd in a London publichouse too. Men were drinking their pints and plnying their darts and talking—maybe a little too casually—about "the noisy night.' Some of them were soon to go on fire-watching duty. Suddenly a bomb crashed through the roof. The public bar was wrecked and there was a large number of casualties, some of tliem fatal.

The bar floor went. People were flung into the cellars.

One husband and wife were killed t< aether. So were a soldier on leave and his sweetheart.

The licensee's three children, who were upstairs, were unharmed. The staff, <>xc?pt for a barmaid who was cut by fin", escaped unhurt. helped tend the injured.

Thirty people had lucky escapes when bombs were dropped at the front and back of a publiehouse in another suburb. Part of the house collapsed. Two men playing darts were blown into the road and the dart board followed them. The men found themselves lying on their backs on the door of the public bar, the dartboard at their feet. There were no serious casualties. One customer. Jack Martin, felt a sharp pain in his head and realised he had been trapped.

"My head and shoulders were saturated," lie said, "and in the dark I though I was badly injured.

Family Buried.

"But some of the stuff I thought was blood trickled into my mouth as 1 lay trapped under a table. I took a second tarUe. I'd been hit by a bottle of whisky."'

In a nearby district rescue workers searched all niglvt for a family of four who were believed to be buried. Soon after dawn one of the family returned home and explained that they had been away all night at a twenty-first birthday party and no one was at home. The ten peopl" killed in this area included a mother and daughter, an

elderly invalid, and two jveople who were in the street.

In another district five children were orphaned. A father, mother, and seven children were asleep when a bomb wrecked the three-storey tenement building where they lived.

The whole family were trapped. Five childiv 11 were rescued, but just after they had been sent to a rest centre police found their parents and two baby brothers dead amonjr the debris. Nine people in all were killed and 17 injured. After rescue workers had brought out 06-ycar-old Mrs. White, she raced back into the hull and dragged out her 30-year-old daughter Lily by the hair.