TOWNS RAIDED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 218, 13 August 1940, Page 7

TOWNS RAIDED.

SHATTERING EFFECTS. WIDESPREAD BOMBING. Received August 13, 12.50 p.m. LONDON, Aug. 12. Some English towns were raided for the first time to-day. The explosions in one centre caused much damage. Successive formations of dive-bombers substantially damaged one thicklypopulated area. A salvo cut off the waits or a row of dwellings like a knife. Hardly a window is intact in the whole district, and doors are hanging from their hinges. Fragments of glass, tiles, and slates litter the streets. A surgeon was beginning a critical operation w'hen the raid began. A bomb exploded a few yards from the operating theatre, but he carried on and successfully completed the operation.

A big heath fire was among a number of outbreaks resulting from the bombing. / The killed included two women in an air raid precautions shelter, which was directly hit. A legless old man in an invalid’s chair was among five injured when a bomb dropped in front of a parkland shelter. Twelve nighexplosive and 70 incendiary bombs fell on two small towns in the Midlands. One formation of planes put out a smokescreen extending for 15 miles. It has become a full-time job for many men on service rounding up pilots and gathering up wreckage. German planes were shot down over widespread areas. The pilot of a bomber badly damaged by anti-aircraft fire tried to land in a Geld. A young bombardier rushed out from a hedge with a Lewis gun and peppered the bomber. Three bodies were later taken from the plane. One is believed to be that of a 24-year-old German count. A German airman in another district walked down a road to meet a Home Guard. Another was found asleep rolled up in st parachute, and two others were sitting on the ground. Civilian passers-by pounced on a pilot who landed in the middle of a street. Naval boats went six miles out to sea to rescue Germans brought down in the Channel.

The battle extended for miles after 100 enemy planes crossed one section, of the South-East Coast. Another 70 bombers and fighters appeared at dusk. Many bombs fell in open country and others in the sea.