PLYMOUTH!

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 119, 22 May 1941, Page 21

PLYMOUTH!

DEFIANCE TO HUNS

j LIVING ON ITS SPIRIT I ENGLAND'S TIME WILL COME XrcW YORK. April 2li, : "> oil -(_■! to love an old Kn.Lrlish | •.•!!>• like Plymouth as you follow it I ihroUßh raid after raid and see it i rise up time and time again and : continue- on. says • P.M.V London j correspondent. It becomes more j than just a medieval city on hills 'between two beautiful Devonshire ! rivers: as Plymouth withstands J months i>l air atiaek you see it Making form as a glorious living place caught, in the midst of a terrible human struggle. Vou see it living and dying for the best things l.'.ngland has ever stood for. and as you walk through its blitzed streets vou realise that these best things are no different from those causes which the Pilgrims hoped to secure for all I time in the U.S.A. Under the stress of battle and death you now realise ovev here that Plymouth is like Boston and that. England is America in another fo -m —both cities and both countries have I the same basic inclinations to sell nutmegs on week days and to preach the P.ilile on Sundays. Walking through Plymouth's ruins to-day you lealise how real is the link which both America and Britain possess— how both have similar dominant characteristics for building world empires and similar recessive characteristics for living at the same time in a world of the Puritan spirit. Plymouth in its time has founded I 10 cities in distant parts o( thei world, rt sent Sir Francis Drake on his marauding expeditions and it lined out Captain Cook for nil his voyages. Hawkins sailed from Plymouth and so did Captain •Scott when he set out for the South i Pole on the Discovery. The pioneer ship leaving to settle Xew Zealand sailed from Plymouth. Four Visits Since the Germans began raiding the city last July, I have been four times to Plymouth, principally to see how the morale was lasting and how the city was taking its beating. 1 was. there in August, when only about 1000 houses had been damaged. and 1 was there again in October when the damage had increased, but not to any great, extent. I was there last month during those two terrific blitzes, both of which were among the heaviest of the war. I was there again last week. During those two March nights I saw the city burning for miles. Tons of bombs crashed about us and the sky was crimson with flame. When I left on that Saturday morning after the night of the second raid, the streets of the city still were blocked with fallen houses, and there were hoses everywhere, and firemen and soldiers still were fighting the fires. During those raids and during; other raids Plymouth lost many of I its principal churches and hospitals. several hotels, most of its big store? and halls, and some thousands of dwellings. It lost its fine Guildhall with its memorial window that commemorated the sailing from Plymouth of the Mayflower. Appalling , Devastation Plymouth has suffered appalling physical devastation since July- I do not believe San Francisco or Chicago suffered more in proportion during their catastrophes than Plymouth has since last summer. Still Plymouth operates on. It still is working and still fighting. On that Saturday morning when I left it. Plymouth was like any city that had been blitzed on the night before. I Its people were tired and sad, many,; were homeless. There were death and destruction everywhere. You find you feel these blows more deeply in a city like Plymouth than you do i in one like London. People' know I one another in a city like Plymouth, death and sorrow are closer, they are more personal. When I returned this last time, Plymouth had swept | the streets of rubbish, had dyna- j

Jrnited the clangorous walk had buried the dead at a community ' funeral, had settled back to work again and was ready for it? next battle. They had discovered who among j them was vacillating and who was I weak, and they knew now who was strong. They knew, too, what it I meant to put their faith to the test , and I discovered they held the firm ■opinion that the time would come I when Munich and Berlin and Dres- ; ucn would lie flatter than Plymouth I hey said they could hold "on. that kngland s time would come. ; Everybody was willing to talk and : everybody wanted to tell about his own experiences during those horrible nights. At a hotel I heard the tinanage-r tell about caring for I soldiers who had been injured'when a shelter nearby had been blown in. "All (ioiie" One of the soldiers had died in i I mi hull before a doctor could arrive --a hole was in his lungs. A colonel i .lad been killed. A major we knew I Had siopped next door into the street I to put out on incendiary and while i ho was dousing ii with 'sand a hitrb (explosive had fallen on his house The major had been due out of the 1 doorway and he had paid over and ] over again to the rescuers: I "I want the truth about my wife." ! i His wife was in the house at the i j time. Nothing had been found of j her. A lieutenant-commander and lls wife had been buried in the nexi House. A hospital superintendent whom I had met had lost his wife a nurse. A doorman had lost his entire family. "Ve.s. -, he said to me. "they're all gone—all or them." I was told about a woman who I ■ had come home from playing whist j with some friends to find" her house; I down and her daughter and soldier! son gone with it. My friend. Rose Harrison, showed me a letter she had written to Mrs ■ C harles Dana Gibson and to Thomas ! f -anion t in New York telling about • the blitzing. ! I "I looked out of the window," i I koso had written, "and sroe whizz J it looked like fairyland-flares and fires everywhere. I saw n bomb drop and up the lot wont, so after hearing glass crashing all around I i flew to the basement." I Later Hose told about going to the roof to firewatch. "Arthur and 1 were all nlonr> on I the roof from 2.. ,: t0 till 4 a.m. Well I Arthur happened \n be at. the other end of the roof and I was at this end when all of a sudden I saw a huge' black mass oominsr for me. a time I bomb had gone off just below No ! 1, bringing all with it. Hands Over Head "Well. I hadn't, the time to move or think, so flat down I went. 1 put ' my hands over my head, my elbows \ rested on the roof and I raised my i chest from the roof in case it re- ! bounded and hit me. and I tried to j put my head under my chest. Well, | half the bricks rained down on my back and didn't they hurt! T am nil j lumps and bruises, and believe me they made me sore. Arthur came to me as I was trying to collect myself. but I couldn't answer him and hp j thought T was dead. When I did pet. together, I cried and it relieved my feelings. I went down and had a cup of tea and then I came kick and stayed on the roof till G a.m." Just before sundown on my last ! visit, to Plymouth I went to walk! with a friend on Plymouth Hoe. Wei went out to look at the quietness of; the sea and at the clouds. People' were hurrying home to get them- ' selves settled before darkness fell j and the sirens would sound and an-' other battle might, start. A woman ' with a big market basket on her j arm trudged by. Mv friend said to t her: I "Good evening. Mrs. Holt, arc vou all right?" Mrs. Holt replied: "The house is gone, but I'm all right. I'm free and independent."