LULL IN RAIDING.

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

LULL IN RAIDING.

STORMY AVEATHER AT NIGHT

LONDON, Oct. 7. The Air Ministry reports that shortly after dark a few bombs were dropped by an enemy plane on the outskirts of the London area, causing little damage and no casualties. Single ’planes crossed the South-East Coast at one or two points just before dawn, but did liot penetrate far inland. A few bombs were dropped, but no casualties so far have been reported.

There was no other enemy activity over the country during the night. London had the usual air-raid warning, blit it proved very short. People had scarcely settled down in the shelters when the all-clear signal sounded. No bombs were dropped. A possible explanation of the absence of the raiders can he found in the wild weather in the Straits of Dover, where rain was falling accompanied by a full south-westerly gale. Heavy seas pounded the South-East Coast, and visibility was nil. Four wome.ii and two children were killed at Folkestone when a raider diving from the clouds dropped several bombs ou sinaU houses. A bomb demolished a house in which there were five children, including a year-old baby. Two of the children were killed. A Dornier diving on a town in East Anglia machine-gunned a number of small boys, but there were no casualties. A high-explosive bomb fell in the forecourt of the Houses of Parliament between the public entrance and the peers’ entrance during a recent air raid.

It blew in hundred:; of leaded windows and smashed a 30ft window at the end of Westminster Hall, including a part of the massive stone framing. Stained-glass windows on one side of the debating chamber of the House of Lords were blown out and doors were torn from their hinges. Glass and metal rained down on the golden thrones used by Their Majesties in opening Parliament, but they were not scratched though the surrounding carpets and walls were damaged. More glass was broken in the lobbies and cloakrooms of the House of Commons. Flying splinters caused three more wounds on the western face of Big Ben, but the Big Ben time still shows on all four sides. Lord Teviot, Lord Lawrence, and several officials suffered minor cuts.