Tremendous Material Damage

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 4, 6 January 1941, Page 5

Tremendous Material Damage

PRESSMEN DISPLAY GREAT GALLANTRY United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. Received Sunday, 7.30 p.ra. LONDON, Jan. 4. It is now possible to give the first comprehensive story of Fleet Street’s part in last Sunday’s devastating tire raid. Hundreds of incendiaries fell in the street and adjacent buildings and alleys. High explosives were expected to follow at any moment, but all the papers produced much as usual. Tremendous material damage was done to the buildings ringing Fleet Street. A few were injured though a number lost their lives in fighting a fire in Shoe Lane. The newspapermen displayed great gallantry. Messengers disregarding orders rushed out to help the firemen, while sub-editors and reporters dropped their pencils and joined the mechanised staffs in saving threatened buildings and then went back to their jobs. The famous Cheshire Cheese Inn was at one time gravely endangered by a big fire. Among the places narrowly escaping destruction in the Saint Bride’s fire and still threatened throughout Monday was Reuter’s building in which the Australian Associated Press and other Dominion news services are housed. One floor was evacuated owing to the heat. It was also feared Saint Bride’s spire might crash. A portion of the Daily Telegraph’s offices was burned out. Members of the British Associated Press staff continued cabling while the fumes choked their nostrils and water swished around their ankles. Eventually they wore obliged to evacuate their building in Tudor Street. A Daily Express crime reporter removed a dangerous firebomb from the room of the Press Club. The journal Aeroplane, commenting on the raid, said: “Again the Germans revealed that their aim was destruction irrespective of its effect on the war effort. We have been as loth to subscribe to the theory of pure frightfulness as to believe that any Air Force would deliberate waste its substance on non-military objectives. The attack on the business quarter seems to leave no further room for doubt.’’