Bomb Thrown Into Sydney Striker’s House

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 October 1948, Page 5

Bomb Thrown Into Sydney Striker’s House

(Rec. 10.45 a.m.) SYDNEY, This Day.

A bomb thrown into a house in the suburb of Alexandria late last night wrecked a front room of the house and would have caused much more damage had its course not been deflected by a cornsack covering the window through which it was thrown. The cottage was occupied by George Mansour, aged 44, his wife and two daughters, aged nine and seven.

• Mansour is at present on strike with other members of the Painters and Dockers’ Union. '

The bomb apparently hit the corner of a bag stretched across a broken window. It burst just inside the room without dropping to the floor. The explosion lifted the window out of its frame sockets, blew the front wall three inches out of. alignment, brought down the ceiling, wrecked a lounge suite in the room and made 19 large holes in the brick walls.

One piece of metal knocked a hole in the brick wall dividing the'lounge room and the bedroom where the Mansours were sleeping, and another passed through the door and penetrated clothing hanging in a bedroom wardrobe.

People sleeping in a neighbouring house were awakened by the explosion and found their beds covered with pieces of plaster and stone from the shattered wall.

Neighbours heard a car drive away from the front of Mansour’s house as the bomb exploded. Detectives believe that the main force of the bomb was expended outside and that, if it had landed on the floor before exploding, it could have demolished the cottage. They are certain the bomb was not an army hand-grenade, but that it was made by someone with an expert knowledge of explosives.