QUIET IN LONDON

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 265, 8 October 1940, Page 7

QUIET IN LONDON

PEACEFUL NIGHT.

BEST SINCE BLITZKRIEG

(United Frees Association—Copyright.) (Rec. 9 a.m.) LONDON, Oct. V.

London has had its quietest night since the blitzkrieg. The signal alert before dawn, like that last evening, was brief.

Nothing was heard in the central districts and the night transport services operated normally. Many sleepers joked, wondering why the silence. The shelters had their usual occupants who feared a night visitation. People went to work refreshed and cheerful. Brilliant sunshine followed the stormy night in the Straits of Dover, but a mist veiled the French coast. The relatively small number of casualties caused ’ b.y enemy bombings were commented upon by the Minister of Health in a broadcast address yesterday.

Lord Croft (Under-Secretary for War) states that more German airmen have been killed or captured in the last twelve weeks than all the civilians they have killed in Britain in the same period.

The Board of Trade states that if Hitler and Goering’s aim was to seriously impede the commercial and industrial activity of the Greater London area during the month of intensive day and night bombing it signally failed. Inquiries addressed by the Board of Trade to meniber firms of the export groups and trade associations in the area give conclusive proof that the overwhelming majority of the works engaged in tho export trade are keeping up their full production and are making deliveries to contract time for dispatch to customers overseas. Even in the most heavily-bombed areas works which have been repeatedly hit have been able to adapt themselves quickly to the front-line conditions. RAIDS IN DAYLIGHT.

London had six alert signals during to-day. More thrilling air battles occurred in the morning, when several groups off German planes crossed the Kentish coast. British fighters broke up the formations, which were scattered in disorder.

The anti-aircraft guns put up a lively barrage when the raiders tried to penetrate inland. One Junkers divebomber dropped high-explosives on a Kentish town, directly hitting a cottage ; one was killed and several injured. A whistling bomb fell in a street in another Kentish town. Twelve nuns were kneeling in prayer before the altar of the convent’s little chapel in a coast town in Kent when a raider dropped bombs which smashed over 300 windows in the building, hut none was injured. Another bomb partly wrecked a sanatorium from which children were evacuated. During the second alert signal of the morning the raiders dropped twelve bombs in a South-East London residential district and demolished two houses from which two people were quickly extricated, ft is feared others are still under the debris. A shop and a warehouse were also wrecked. Two were killed in another South-East London area. , , , , ... During the sixth alert late in the afternoon three planes were seen over Central London. The Air Ministry’s 48th casualty list contains the names of 305 men, including 126 killed, 41 wounded, and 125 missing.