RAIDS BY SINGLE PLANES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 112, 5 February 1941, Page 9

RAIDS BY SINGLE PLANES

London Has Brief Alert LONDON, February 4. Enemy planes were over an East Anglian town early today. One bomber was shot down into the sea off the Suffolk coast by R.A.F. fighters. London had a short alert, the second in 15 days. A few incendiary bombs were dropped by single aircraft, but the fires were quickly extinguished and little damage is reported. Bombs were also dropped in eastern England, but little damage was caused.

During yesterday morning and the early afternoon a number of raids were made by enemy aircraft, flying singly over the east and south-east coasts of England. Bombs were dropped at several places in London and the surrounding districts and in East Anglia and Kent. Some damage was done and a small number of people were killed in a town on the coast of Kent. Elsewhere there was little damage and the casualties were few.

A Spitfire equipped with cannon shot down a German bomber over the Thames Estuary in the afternoon. There was heavy anti-aircraft gunfire in the London area at noon yesterday when bombs damaged several houses and killed a child.

A raider which dived from low clouds over the south-east coast released a stick of bombs over a town and hit a Methodist church, which was wrecked. Several other buildings in the vicinity were damaged. Houses were also damaged and a woman and a boy killed and a number of people injured. It is believed that the raider was hit as it was chased off by a Spitfire.

The Lord Mayor of London opened a bridge over the city’s largest bomb crater, made when a bomb made a direct hit on a subway. The bridge consists of twp steel spans supported by steel piers and carries a wooden roadway 10 feet 6 inches wide. It includes footways 2 feet 6 inches wide.