LARGE SCALE RAID

Grey River Argus, 14 March 1941, Page 5

LARGE SCALE RAID

On Wednesday Night LIVERPOOL AREA MAIN TARGET. r Aus. & N.Z. Cable Assn.] (Rece’ved March 13, 11.40 p.m.). .LONDON, March 12. _ A few enemy planes visited Britain during daylight .on Wednesday. They caused no casualties and did little damage. The activity of the enemy aircraft warmed up after nightfall. Raiders were audible over London. Mostly they appeared to be cn route to other districts, but the metropolitan anti-aircraft batteries did their utmost to put some salt on their tails as they passed by. One raider wvas phot, down in flames on the obundary of Surrey and Sussex. It was a Heinkel. Four members of its crew • were killed, and the fifth baled out and surrendered to a member of the Home Guard. The enemy machines flew so high that it was hardly possible to hear their engines. The enemy planes unloaded incendiary and high-explosive bombs indiscriminately over Liverpool, the raid on which lasted for several hours. The Air Ministry in a communique savs: “fl he moon being full, and the weather clear, pl.anes '.at night attempted their first largescale raid for som e months, attacking the Merseyside in force. The damage and casualties caused bore no relation to the scale of the attack, and littl e was achieved beyond seriously damaging a number of private houses. There were isolated incidents in other parts of the country. Our defences, including fighter planes, anti-aircraft and other devices, were very active, and harassed the enemy by land and sea. Nine enemy bombers ar e known to have been destroyed. WHEN LONDON GROWS AGAIN. RUGBY, March 12. A Cheapside as gay as boulevards, with wide concrete pavements', where citizens could watch their Lord Mayor in appropriate state

and surroundings pass from the Mansion House to the Guildhall, was .one pictur e of a vastly improved post-war London drawn by Mr W; H. Ansell (President of the Royal' Institute of British Architects). There should be a fine open piazza leading from Cheapside to Guildhall in plac e of the present narrow way, he said; and round Stepney a clearace free from its jostling neighbours to provide a closeworthy view of Wren’s masterpiece. He said: “Terraced gardens will drop from the Cathedral down to the river, linking- up with an extended cm? bankment, so that; a view of London’s earliest story, her river, will be obtained from the transepal steps of Saint Paul’s.” Mr Ansell said he dissociated himself from those who would, make a “new’’ London. “I want it vastly improved—not improved out of recognition,” he said.