ISOLATED PLANES

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 107, 1 November 1940, Page 7

ISOLATED PLANES

RAIDS ON BRITAIN

SLIGHT DAMAGE DONE

A QUIETER NIGHT

LONDON SHOW PLACES

SUFFER

(Official Wireless and U.F.A.)

(Received November 1, 1 p.m.)

LONDON, October 31.

There was little air activity over Britain up to midday, after which the enemy made a number of attacks by isolated aircraft on various parts of the country, states a communique. Bombs were dropped on two towns in the eastern counties and at points in the south of Wales and in the Midlands. There was a small number of casualties and slight damage.

The Air Ministry states that enemy air attacks last night were not heavy. !%ey were mainly,- directed at the London area, eastern and southern. England, and the Midlands. Casualties were slights

Nine enemy planes were destroyed yesterday. Five British fighters were lost, one pilot being safe.

Last night's raid was less intense. There was only occasional bombing after the first hour, with long periods of quiet. The all clear sounded at an earlier hour than for some days.

A lone raider this morning dived out of the clouds and bombed a south-east town, demolishing several shops and damaging others. There were a number of casualties, some of them being fatal.

Among places recently bombed in. London are St. Boniface's Church, Leicester Square, the Dutch church of Austin Friars, part of which dates from the year 1250, and St. Bartholomew's Medical School.

In Stationers' Hall a ceiling representation of St. John the Evangelist, which is considered a show piece, was damaged. ' .

A high-explosive bomb crashed on a stand at Wimbledon and flung debris on to the centre court.

Damage in Leicester Square was caused by a very heavy high-explosive bomb, which fell in the south-west corner.

A photographic studio and Thurston's billiards hall were totally wrecked. A cinema and adjacent shops were badly damaged and an exhibition of billiards antiquities in Thurstons was destroyed, including a gilt inlaid table which Napoleon the Third presented to Alexander the Second of Russia in 1855.

Six unoccupied taxis were set on fire and others destroyed.

Children evacuated from the London area up to October 30 total 563,000. There are still 279,000 in the city.