TARGET FOR BOMBS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 92, 19 April 1941, Page 9

TARGET FOR BOMBS

DAMAGE NOT SEVERE

LONDON'S SCARS

RESCUERS STILL WORKING

(By Telegraph—Press Association—•Cooyrtght. I (Received April 19, noon.) LONDON, April 18. Portsmouth was the main target of last night's enemy raid against Britain. The attack lasted most of the night, but the casualties were light and the damage not severe. Southern, eastern, and northeastern England were also raided, but casualties were few. There was no substantial damage. Two raiders are known to have been destroyed during the night.

Processions of enemy planes heavily attacked Portsmouth. The raid began soon "after dark and lasted for several hours. Bright orange flashes of exploding bombs lit up the sky and houses were constantly shaken.

Bombs in another area extensively damaged a number of houses and killed four children and one woman and injured several.

The German news agency stated that strong formations attacked Portsmouth and caused large fires in the region of the dockyards and arsenal.

A hundred rescuers worked all night in an attempt to reach persons trapped in four-storey tenements in the London district. High-explosives literally scooped out houses in which families were mostly living in single rooms. Eleven persons were found, of which two men and two women were alive.

A search continues in the ruins of a large block of workers' flats in London which was shattered by a bomb on Wednesday night. The bomb fell in the courtyard between the flats and a surface shelter, wrecking both. A number of killed and injured were taken from the wreckage within a few hours. Workers who are tunnelling in the debris have so far not located the others. Between 300 and 400 people lived in the flats but it is believed that many of them previously went to another shelter after a heavy bomb had made a direct hit on a nearby hospital.

Bombs ! dropped this morning wrecked several workers' houses in an east coast town and several people were killed or injured. A bomb made a direct hit on a house in which a mother, her two sons, and a daughter ,were living. A twelve-year-old son was dug out after three hours slightly injured, but the remainder of the family were killed.