NIGHT OF TERROR

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 78, 3 April 1939, Page 11

NIGHT OF TERROR

LONDON BOMB OUTRAGES

GANG IN A CAR

I.R.A. REPRISALS

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

LONDON, April 1

An Irish republican gang touring London in a powerful car loaded with bombs subjected the city to a night of terror as a reprisal for the convictions at the Old Bailey in connection with previous bomb outrages a few hours earlier.

Five outrages between midnight and dawn caused extensive damage, chiefly to shopfronts, but there were no casualties. The policy detained if

one man,

A loud explosion occurred in Fleet Street at 12.45 a.m., a window of the advertisement offices of the "News Chronicle" being blown out. A bomb apparently was deposited on the pavement below the windows. The driver of a passing car saw a man running from the spot?

Glass was hurled across the street and a hole was blown in the masonry. The explosion shook the "Daily Telegraph," "Daily Express," and Australian Associated Press buildings.

Fire-fighters and police rushed to the scene. The big crowd which gathered included printers and women in dance frocks. Firemen found pieces of newspaper and tattered fibre. It is believed that the bomb, with a short-time fuse, was contained in a fibre attache case.

A second explosion occurred at 1.30 a.m. at a dress shop in Park Lane, where glass was scattered and frocks strewn on the pavement.

HUNDREDS OF SLEEPERS

DISTURBED.

At 3 a.m. hundreds of people were brought from their beds by an explosion 'in Tottenham Court Road, where five large windows of Heals, Limited, furnishers, were blown out and the masonry of the shop front shattered. Luxury furniture was scattered over a wide area. A pedestrian told the police that two men rushed from the spot before the explosion and jumped into a car.

By this time Scotland Yard had marshalled every available car in order to intercept the terrorists' car.

Thames River police patrolled the vicinity of the tow path of the river by launch all through the night in order to forestall an attempt to interfere with the University boat race.

A constable in Edgeware Road at 4 a.m. picked, up a live bomb which was thrown from a passing car. He removed the fuse. A few minutes later another exploded, wrecking the front of a shoe shop and rocking blocks of flats, from which hundreds of people rushed in their night attire. Coutts's Bank in the Strand was damaged by an explosion at 5 a.m. when a bomb was thrown into the basement through a window grille at street level. Several charwomen were treated for shock.