AN AIR RAID IN THE LAST WAR

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22883, 2 December 1939, Page 17

AN AIR RAID IN THE LAST WAR

(BPICTALM WHITTEN POH THE PRESS.)

[By V. J. COLLIER]

S-e-e-E-E-e-e-p! There goes the maroon, the air-raid siren. Trams stop, lights go out. People make for cover like a Brighton crowd in a shower of rain. Policemen cycle up and down with phosphorescent placards on their backs. “Take Cover” is the legend. In the city folks make for the tube stations to shelter in their deep subways; elsewhere they gather in airraid shelters of various kinds : —deathtraps some of them, as was the John Bull building when Jerry scored a direct hit. - In suburban homes families sit up With as much composure as possible. The queer coughing reports of the anti-aircraft guns can be heard to the north-east. Searchlights like giant antennae sweep the sky. Presently the drone of aeroplanes, perhaps an explosion. Now the mobile anti-aircraft units come into action. Some of the harshest din of an air raid comes from these guns mounted on lorries as they rattle down suburban streets at fireengine speed. All the noises come nearer. Ah! There goes our own

gUIlt W v xvIIOW AC Wciif AId.V C W flllvCV* round its barbed-wire enclosure, in the park, and heard it at practice. There is a clammy feeling, as one sits there in the kitchen, in the possibility—but don’t think of it. I wonder how long it will last. The moon is past full now, probably we shall not get another raid till next full moon, once this raid is over. The Zeppelins always came" when there Was no moon—it would have been suicide to present their unwieldy targets in moonlight. But the Botha monoplanes of the later years of the war chose moonlit nights as better for their own manoeuvring. They even staged several daylight raids. Our side of London is quiet now, the gun reports go further and further away. At last silence. An interval, then the bugles. Boy scouts sounding the “All Clear.” The raid is over. Next morning a bald official bulletin: “Enemy aircraft attacked London last night. The attack was beaten off. Some damage was done in north-eastern districts. Official:”