DARING HOLD-UPS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 30 March 1938, Page 9

DARING HOLD-UPS

GUNMEN IN ENGLAND TWO SOLDIERS ARRESTED SENSATIONAL INCIDENTS LONDON, sth March. England has been startled this week by an astonishing series of armed holdups savouring more of America than Britain. To-day two policemen are in hospital suffering from revolver wounds and two soldiers have appeared in Court on charges of shooting with intent to murder. A police sergeant and a constable on patrol duty in a car on Monday night saw two men in uniform walking away from Tidworth. Hampshire, and questioned thfcm. Not getting satisfactory answers, they were about to take the men to the police station when both whipped out revolvers and ordered the policemen to alight. One started up the car, while the other jumped on the running board arxl kept the police covered until the vehicle had moved off. OFFICER S PLIGHT Some time later a Royal Air Force officer. Squadron-Leader Costa. who was driving to Andover, saw' two soldiers leaning over a car and stopped to offer assistance. A gun was pointed at him and the men. saying they were desperate, ordered him to turn the car round and drive them to London. The men got into the back seat and pressed their revolvers into the officer's back. Approaching Camberlcy, he saw a police cordon across the road. The soldiers ordered him to drive straight through and the police had to jump back. As he drove he heard the men in the back discussing whether to knock him on the head at the end of the trip. However, they eventually left the car at the BlackwalJ Tunnel and ran off

SKID AT POLICE STATION Last night two men stopped a car near Woolwich Ferry, and. pressing revolvers against the driver's back, forced him to take them toward the East End of London. The driver happened to be a police officer in mufti, Detec-tive-Cdnstable Piller. He drove quietly toward the Barking police station and when nearly outside it. deliberately skidded the car and crashed into the pavement. As he did so he grabbed one of the men and both fell out. The officer received injuries to a wrist and the head. The noise of the crash brought officers out of the station. There was a struggle and the men ran down a cul-de-sac, closely pursued by policemen. The fugitives climbed a 6ft fence. Shots rang out and two policemen fell, one wounded in ernin and one in a wrist. lEN OVERPOWERED An attempt was made to enter a house, but police officers approaching both through the house and over the back fence cornered two men they found in the garden and arrested them They were Andrew' Vanderburg. aged 37. and Reginald Eddie Kaye, aged 16. Both are troopers in the 12th Lancers and had been reported missing after revolver firing practice at Tidworth. They appeared at Stratford to-day on charges of shooting at the police With intent to murder them, and of being in. possession of two six-chamber-ed revolvers and ammunition. With a third man. Frederick George Clark, they were further charged with demanding money with menaces in London. They were remanded in custody. The condition of the injured policemen is satisfactory, but the two who were shot win be in for some time