HEAVY DEATH ROLL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 December 1940, Page 6

HEAVY DEATH ROLL

NIGHT BOMBING OF LONDON CAPITAL WEARS NEW SCARS TERRIFIC HAMMERING | U.P.A.-By Electric relegraph-Copyrtght| Received 10th Dec., 12.35 a.m. LONDON, 9th December. Daylight found London wearing new scars which were invisible from a distance because of the heavy cloak of smoke from the extinguished fires, but which on close approach revealed the ! desolation wrought in last night s terrific hammering. Earlier reports gave general de-j tails of the destruction to buildings after midday the sources were confined almost exclusively to the tragically high mortality list. The Germans as previously showed special accuracy in attacking hospitals, of which those damaged included the general hospital, and a special women’s hospital. Three night porters were trapped under the debris, and are believed to be dead, when a block of hospital buildings was cut in half by explosive bombs. There were two other deaths in the same hospital. A number of elderly patients died of shock when a heavy high explosive bomb fell in the grounds j of another hospital, considerably damaging the buildings. Two bombs scored a direct hit on unoccupied parts of yet another hospital. Rows of once smart suburban dwellings lay in unrecognisable heaps of ashes and rubble and the cratered roads necessitated a diversion of traffic in some areas. Four men sheltering in the archway of a school playground were killed. A member of the A.R.P. was fatally injured. Bombs demolished shops and dwellings in the same area, killing a number of people. Rescuers were still searching twelve hours afterwards for the ! missing. Thirty were sent to hospital. Many are feared to be burlod under a , block of middle-class flats demolished by a bomb. Many casualties occurred in the poorer pa: t of one district which was se-' verely battered. Two big storage de- 1 pots were burnt but the shopping district of the Thames Estuary suffered heavily. A mother and two children ; aged thirteen and four respectively and ; a woman lodger were killed and the father sent to hospital when a bomb destroyed a house in the home counties. Seven were killed and others injured when a stick of explosives hit a row of cottages in an East Anglian village. Four were killed and one injured in 1 south-east England in attempting to examine a time-bomb which exploded. The Berlin News Agency says that within two hours after the attack on London forty extensive fires could be observed in the Government quarter and adjacent districts. The areas suffering most were northward of the . Thames, comprising the popular Bethnal Green. GERMAN COMMUNIQUE (Received 10th December, 11.30 a.m.) LONDON. 9th December. A German communique says: “As a reprisal for the R.A.F. attacks in western Germany our Air Force carried out large-scale attacks throughout the night on London. “Solitary British planes bombed Dusseldorf and Munich, nine being killedand forty-one wounded. There was no damage to military targets.”