THE HOME FRONT

Evening Star, Issue 23908, 11 June 1941, Page 9

THE HOME FRONT

MIGHT FALLS ON ENGLAND SIRENS, GUNS, AMD BOOS Vu id “close-ups" of night conditions in K ugl aml :iri' portrayed in a diary received in Dunedin recording the reactions of an Knglisli household under ceaseless German air activity over a certain industrial and maritime city. The author herself .resides on the coast, and in the path of the hinuhers as they come in over the sea to spread their nightjy trail of havoc. In such a position it is only to he expected that numerous anti-aircraft guns are mounted in the district to intercept the raiders before they arrive over the city proper Tims it is that her home has so far escaped destruction, though subjected to the deafening crashes of the gunfire " THE SI HEN RULES US.” The latest instalment to hand roads: ” These entries are becoming difficult. Our lives have fallen into a kind of pattern, endlessly repeated, and how can I find new words to describe it f Sirens, guns, bombs—guns, bombs, sirens, sometimes more, sometimes less. These make up our nights Sunset and tho blackout, confine n.s to the house, at once our refuge and our prison, for to go out is to court danger. The siren rules us Hut how wo live each moment of these days! We have to pack into these light hours, so pitifully few, all our work and our pleasure; and so we see the city outwardly the same as ever. Shops are gay and busy, cafes and cinemas crowded, and streets filled with people. With amazing quickness the events of the previous night fade from onr minds, seeming like memories of some fantastic nightmare, and even daylight, warnings cannot revive them. It is only when the sun begins to sink that we remember and hurry home.

“ And so we live, not, God knows, without irritations and fretful anger at the great and petty annoyances the war has entailed, but still with a certain amount of happiness. There are still hooks and sunshine, films and laughter; shaping our lives to a new pattern, we have learnt to ‘ take it,’ to pass through experiences which in peace time would have unnerved us, and to try at least to keep chorcful. And we dol On this night, October 1. 1940. a nearby town suffered severely, one bomb falling among crowds as they left the cinemas. QUIET NIGHT. “The following evening was wonderful. Not since the early months of the war do I remember a similar one. During its entire length we did not hear a single sound, not a gun, not a bomb, not a plane. It started so late for the first time since heaven knows when, that we were able to sit peacefully’ round the fire after supper. We felt quite civilised again. It was announced next day that- for once no bombs had been dropped; the Nazis had been concentrating on Manchester. Now’ that the long dark winter is approaching we are reexamining our black-out. Having experienced bombing we scrutinise it with far more critical eyes than those with which we so innocently gazed last year; and so every night w’e find new defects, new weaknesses, cracks, and crevices, through which can escape the all-betraying light. Drawing pins, curtain rods, patent fasteners, black paper; w’6 use them all impartially: did Shakespeare foresee our struggles when he wrote: ‘ How far that little candle throws its beams ’ ?” RENEWED ATTACK. Under date October 7, the diary continues: “ Wo knew this respite cquld not last, and so we savoured its brief peace to the full. To-night it ended; again came the hovering, droning planes, and again the guns thundered and rolled, shaking the house with their harsh voices. Again wo ran to undress during the lull, and again we lay down to sleep in the shelter. How quickly wo remembered what we used to do. On this night much damage was done in the city, and it was announced on- this evening that the cathedral had been harmed in earlier raids. Photographs showed how the lovely windows had been smashed, the graceful tracery of the stonework broken and mutilated. Is this what the Nazis call a military objective? It would be hard to believe that it w r as hit by accident; it is so conspicuous a building, and it has been bombed several times on its outskirts.” And a few days later; “Having passed the stage of comparative indifference, we are now becoming wilfully i careless; w r e do things which a few weeks ago would have curdled our blood even to contemplate. Tonight we gave a very good demonstration of how not to behave. We peered out of the windows, w'o even went into the garden to watch the gun flashes; we stayed in the drawing room while a heavy barrage was being put up; and, to cap it all, we remained in bed after a warning had been given. It was fortunate that nothing happened during the second raid because we, all of us, fell asleep. Nobody knew definitely when the ‘ all clear ’ went.

Two days later, after referring to a visit to the city, she continues: “We left early so that we might call for Daddy at his office. As we walked down the side of the building we could hear the tinkle and crash of falling glass as workmen knocked down the hanging fragments from the frames. In the office itself was the same sound; glass, powdered to the finest crystals, lay heaped on the floor and windowsills. The sea wind blew freely through the office, and the typists were working in their coats. Outside we walked across the road to get a full view of the damage. In the whole front of the building there was hardly one window intact, yet already, many of the frames had been boarded over, and when we asked whore the bomb had fallen they pointed to a smooth, apparently untouched road. The crater had been filled in and the tram linos relaid. “ This bomb hurt no one. Nine people were working late in Daddy’s office, but they heard the bomb falling, and, flinging themselves under the desks, escaped injury.” (To be continued.)