NO RAIDS ON BRITAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 23 May 1941, Page 7

NO RAIDS ON BRITAIN

LONDON’S LONG LULL MUSEUM TREASURES LOST ! [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. —COPYRIGHT.] LONDON, May 22. No enemy aeroplanes were over Britain last night, and London had its eleventh successive free night. Bad weather probably kept the enemy aeroplanes grounded. No bombs were dropped in daylight. Irreparable losses were suffered by the Royal College of Surgeons in a recent air raid on London. Thousands of museum pieces are gone, including skeletons of kangaroos brought by Captain Cook from Australia, and a comparative osteology collection of 4000 specimens, acknowledged to be the finest in existence. The oldest mummy in the world was also destroyed, and, by a grim coincidence, an invaluable army medical collection containing plaster casts of every type ol wound, was also demolished.

Asked whether the Government was going to make any further statement concerning the bombing of Westminster Abbey and the House of Commons, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Information (Mr. Harold Nicolson) said that it did not need anything more to emphasise German vandalism. The German Press had admitted that the destruction of these buildings was intentional. It is revealed that the rooms of the Empire Parliamentary Association, in Westminster Hall, were destroyed by air raids on May 10, but some important books and records were saved. SUSSEX VILLAGE DAMAGE. RUGBY, May 22. A communique states: A few single enemy aircraft have flown over Britain to-day. One of these dropped bombs on a village in Sussex, damaged several cottages, and caused a number of casualties. Bombs dropped elsewhere did little damage, and caused no casualties. One enemy fighter was shot down by our fighters, this morning. RAIDS ON HELIGOLAND. LONDON, May 22. A small force of British bombers carried out a raid on the German island of Heligoland in daylight yesterday. The raid is described in London as a successful surprise attack. One British bomber is missing. The German radio has admitted that some damage was done by the British bombers.

A strong force of b’ombers, accompanied by' fighters, attacked oil tanks at a point 50 miles inside the coast of German occupied France. The force was engaged by enemy fighters, five of which were shot down, four by the British fighters, and one by a bomber. Six British fighters and one bomber were lost, FIERCE ENCOUNTER. ~~RUGBY, May 22. The proportion of six R.A.F. fighters lost to five German, in yesterday’s raid on Bethune, provides a striking comparison with the battle over Britain last Autumn, when, despite the concentration of the whole Luftwaffe armada, the German losses uniformly ranged from threefold to five or sixfold those of the R.A.F., again proving the greatly-superior British quality, both in pilots and machine performance. The violence of yesterday’s action can be judged from the description by the wing commander who led the squadrons escorting the bombers. He said: “I know, when we used to attack fighter escorts in the Battle of Britain, it almost invariably ended in the enemy bombers being left to the mercy of our fighters, but to-day we managed to drive away the MElo9’s and to keep in company with the bombers. We saw one lot of enemy fighters climbing up to attack our bombers, and another lot of about nine dived down on the rear section while more attacked us. At one time we had a fight with ten Messerschmitts, and three of them were shot down. A Czech sergeant pilot got one. The Germans continued to make half-hearted attacks on us all the way back to England.

GOEBBELS’ ADMISSIONS. LONDON, May 21. In an address to A.R.P. workers in. Germany, the Nazi Minister for Propaganda (Dr. Goebbels) showed that the Royal Air Force raids were having a telling effect. . Replying to statements in the American Press that the British were standing up to air raids better than the Germans, Dr. Goebbels said thatj what the Germans could stand, under bad and cowardly leadership, they showed in the last war. What, then, would they be able to stand now that they were led by a real m: Di ? . Goebbels attacked critics who before the war had laughed at the A.R.P. organisation. To “^, ay „ A R.P. is not a joking matter, he said, “but one of bloody seriousness. Many of you bear scars received m raids. Some outer districts have suffered slightly. Others have suffered heavily. We formerly diffeientiated between the front and ffie hoffieland. To-day Kiel, Bremen and Hamburg are in the very midst o the front line.”

SHIPS DESTROY ENEMY PLANE RUGBY, May 22. An Admiralty communique states: “German aircraft which attacked defensively armed British merchan - man off our west coast was shot clown by the latter last Monday. Survivors from the aircraft have now been landed as prisoners of war.’ AUXILIARY FIREMEN. RUGBY, May 21. All of the part-time auxiliary firemen who had reached the age o.t 25 years at the date of then legistiaHon and whose calling up lor mill-' tarv service has been detened until June 30, are now to be compulsorily enrolled for the whole time duty m the A.F.S. at once. Several thousand men are thus to be added to the fulltime strength of the fire service. Priority is to be given to those districts in which there is a specially urgent need for full-time men, but as far as possible, the men being enrolled are. to be posted to fill vacancies in the A.F.S. establishment in their own areas. TRAINING CORPS. ~~RUGBY, May 21. The progress made by the Air Training Corps was described by the Secretary of State..for Air (Sir Archibald Sinclair) in the House of Commons. Since the formation of the

corps on February 1, Sir Archibald Sinclair said, 1300 units had been formed, having a total strength of. about 170,000 cadets, and about 4400 candidates for commissions had been accepted by the two selection boards for service with the corps. More than 700 units had been affiliated to Royal Air Force stations and training was proceeding at all units. EMPIRE TRAINEES. OTTAWA, May 21. The High Commissioner for Canada (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald), in a speech at Toronto, said the Empire air training scheme would make decisive Britain’s air mastery over Germany before many months. He added:’ “The people of Britain will never give in. We shall never be so weak in relation to the enemy as we were last June, when our armies lost much equipment with the collapse of France. We shall survive anything the enemy can do now or in the future.” •