The Northern Advocate “NORTHLAND FIRST.” Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1945. LONDON’S UNCONQUERED SOUL.

Northern Advocate, 6 July 1945, Page 2

The Northern Advocate “NORTHLAND FIRST.” Registered for transmission through the Post as a Newspaper. FRIDAY, JULY 6, 1945. LONDON’S UNCONQUERED SOUL.

THE story of how London came through a long ordeal of bombs and rockets will be told as long as men admire courage and determination in the face of adversity. None who lived in London through the years of terror from the air wilt ever forget an experience marked by wholesale death and destruction. ~ „ , , „ , The first air raid warning accompanied the entry oi Great Britain into the war, but it was not till France fell, in June, 1940, that the first bombs were dropped in the London area. This was the real beginning of the ordeal of London, it was to continue, though with lons 1 intermissions and in varied shapes, till almost the end of the war against Germany. There were times when the bombs were being distributed between other cities or towns and London; there were times when the capital was being let alone though other centres of population, were not. Nevertheless, it mav fairly be said that London passed through trials such as no other part of the country had to face. Once the first assaults hv the Luftwaffe had failed of their purpose as preliminaries to mvasioip London, biggest city in the world, was the inevitable main target of the enemy. The autumn and winter o± 194,0 and the ensuing spring were destined to be the worst period for London. The toll of casualties and devastation was taken almost invariably after dark There were long spells—the longest from September 7 to November 2, or 57 days—in which the bombers came night after nio-ht, without a break. The alert would wail as dusk was falling, then anti-aircraft guns would open up, and a few minutes later would come the dull crash of the fiist bombs. The mornings after those terrifying nights showed the citizens ol London at their best. When it was humanly possible they went to work as usual—sometimes to find that their job had itself vanished in the rums of a The capital was bombed again from time to time after the spring of 1041 but. it was to enjoy almost three years of comparative- immunity before the next significant air assaults on London. With February 1944. came the opening of a fresh series of piloted raids. There was no interval between what were virtually the last of those orthodox bombings and the first flying bombs which arrived in June. The VI was sensational on account of its novelty, alarming and destructive enough in itself, and more disturbing because of its vast implications foi the iu.me. Methods of defence were speedily modified to cope with the new menace. With the overrunning of the launching sites in France and Belgium the streams of flying bombs were cut off at the main; and the victory over them was celebrated— prematurely—by a Government spokesman. Not many hours later they reappeared, now discharged from aircraft over the North Sea London, still the main target, having greatly rejoiced, was correspondingly disconcerted when the attacks were resumed. They were never again so "formidable as at the outset, and, as a matter of fact, so nearly complete were their unadvertised victories that the Londoner was often foi dajs £ «- time scarcely conscious of being in the technical sense under fire Then, in number of J 944 came rockets which supplemented the flying bombs. II the rockets laid new burdens on the defences, their arrival before the sound of their transit tended to simplify the life of the ordinary citizen of London, once the target. Since there was no practicable means of giving him notice that a rocket was on the way he could not take to shelter, short ox staying there permanently. . . , . Rocket and fixing bomb continued to fall indiscriminately till both were stopped in March by the Canadians’ advance into nortnern Holland, whence the VI as well as the v'2, had latterly come. Now peace has come t.o London which, though shabby, is still cheerful. What a city and wnat a people!