LONDON HOT SPOT

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20488, 24 February 1941, Page 4

LONDON HOT SPOT

INCENDIARIES EASY EFFECTIVE COUNTERS WOMEN SEE IX THROUGH A WHITE FEATHER STORY They have a joke in London about a girl who gave her boy friend a white feather because he left the London danger zone for the safety of the army, and another about soldiers knitting for the civilians. These are quoted in a letter that reached Gisborne recently from one of the "hot spots” of London bombing raids, and the writer, a woman, quoted a press article which stated that in years to come it would be a great honour to be able to say, ‘‘l was a citizen of London in the great blitz.” She wrote that she would .willingly exchange the honour with anyone, but. at the same time she did not regret being there and wanted to see it through. The menfolk of the family wished the women to go to the country, but they stayed on. While the letter was-being written, aeroplanes were droning overhead and the gunfire was becoming noisier and noisier, sometimes being accompanied by the whistle of bombs.

"We have been tipped out of our beds, out of chairs, off our feet,” the writer continued. "This is one of the recognised hot spots. Herne Hill station is an important junction, but practically everything but the station and line has been hit. . . . The damage done everywhere is ghastly. All the roads and streets about here have been affected in some way. Many of our friends have lost their homes, some their lives.” Dealing With Incendiaries

Little fear was entertained for the incendiary bombs, for they were not hard to deal with. Pails of water and sand were kept at the front gate and the back door, and every five houses had a stirrup pump, and all the residents were trained to deal with incendiary bombs and the resulting fires. In one raid about 50 incendiary bombs were dropped in the neighbourhood, and everyone had to help to put them out. The work was so effectively done that only one house was burned, and 4 he occupants of that house were away, leaving the black-out curtains across the windows, so that the fire inside had a good hold before it was discovered. It was not unusual for bombs to entomb people under wreckage. Some were rescued, but many were dead. Five people were rescued from a cellar after 24 hours, and two of them subsequently died. "These are not isolated cases,” the writer went on. “There are literally thousands of them. Dozens of roads are barricaded because of unexploded bombs, and one never knows which way a bus is going. Hundreds of buses have been destroyed, and 2000 have been brought in from Scotland and the provinces.” Bomb Whistling Overhead Of the personal experiences of the writer, a few incidents are told, including an occasion when a bomb whistled directly overhead. “It appeared to be coming right at me,” she wrote. “I nearly swallowed my tonsils. It hit the next street. It was a nasty moment.” One day when the writer was returning home during an air raid, an enemy plane began machine-gunning the people in the streets. She flattened herself against a brick wall, and then accepted the invitation of a woman in a nearby house to seek shelter there.

The house had a cellar fitted with a camo bed. and at first the family retired to the cellar when things got too hot, mainly to get away from the n:'se of the anti-aircraft barrage and the falling bombs, but as they “heard plenty down there” they did not use it now. Often the house swayed so badly that it seemed impossible that it would right itself again. The writer added that she now feared the cold weather more than the raiders.