“LITTLE HELL”

Evening Star, Issue 23863, 18 April 1941, Page 6

“LITTLE HELL”

“ We get Jerry over most nights and some days (states a letter received* by a Melbourne business man). You will remember the canal by our warehouse. On the opposite side, about 70yds away, stood a group of oil tanks. One night we had “ little hell ” for about five hours. I heard one screamer; the next second two of the tanks were on fire, and lit the place up. And then we got it—until about 4.30 in the morning. Yet in spite of several whole streets being damaged, some with fronts completely blown in and others almost completely destroyed, there were no deaths. At the warehouse here we had eight windows blown in and some of the mortar knocked out of the roof. But as our place is one of the good old sort, about 150 years old, with walls 21in thick, we stood up to the path of the blast very well. “Last week things were very hot again. Liverpool was one blaze of light from gunfire, searchlights, and bombs. A constant'stream of German machines was passing overhead, in and out and all round, to Manchester and other places outside Manchester. The worst actually dropped that night, however, were a few bombs in a radius of about two miles from here. The last thing dropped was a land mine. The house didn’t stop vibrating for about 20 seconds ; in fact, I was ready to get moving. “ Two of my sons have been in the regular Air Force for some years—one for eight, the other for four and a-half. The cider has. done about three raids a week as a rear-gunner. The other boy is a volunteer parachute jumper, while one of my daughters is on the strength with her husband, who is a young officer in the Manchester Regiment.”