RAID ON MIDLANDS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 19 May 1941, Page 5

RAID ON MIDLANDS

SEVERE DAMAGE DONE CASUALTIES THOUGHT i LIGHT GERMAN BOMBERS ACTIVE | [U.P.A.-By Electric Telegranh-Copyrishti j i'j London, May 17 ji l ! German raiders concentrated 1 JI their main attack last night on a|, - town in the west Midlands, j. 3 stated by Germany to be Birm- j t j ingham. Severe damage was 1 , done to property, though casu- r , alties are believed to be light. £ The Luftwaffe also attacked .< - an East Midland town and a ’ southern England area. Two j j bombers were brought down. A 5 public shelter was directly hit i 5 in a west Midland district, re- 1 suiting in a number of casual- s . ties. Explosives fell over a wide t t area in an East Anglian town, I ; destroying or damaging the ■ j homes of workers, many of j 1 whom refused to quit while one - room was habitable. There were s ' a number of casualties. 1 A German news agency states that c • more than 100 planes bombed indus- * 1 trial works and utility services in £ Birmingham for three hours. Four 1 of the biggest bombs dropped in l - Barrow-in-Furness must have caused 1 - trmendous havoc, it says. Others * > bombers attacked a number of aero- c . dromes by day and night. 1 r An Air Ministry and Ministry of 3 Home Security communique states: 1 > “During the day there has been a £ certain amount of enemy activity off > the east coast. Small formations of * 1 enemy aircraft crossed the coast, but 1 1 have not flown inland. To 7.30 p.m. 1 1 there were no reports of bombs hav- 1 ) ing been dropped. Another enemy t fighter was destroyed by anti-aircraft - gunfire yesterday afternoon. A third 1 enemy bomber was destroyed last 3 night.” It was later reported that an - enemy fighter was destroyed off the | 3 south coast by British fighters. 3 The day was described as a day of - dogfights, some of them at 30,000 feet. i Other times, Messerschmitts bent on j 3 hit-and-run machine-gun attacks came j ■ down as low as 500 feet, but soon * found the ground defences too hot. and flew out to sea. No casualties have been reported. REPAIRS TO WESTMINSTER i Offers to assist in repairing the effect c of the destruction at Westminster dur- ( ing the recent raids come from Oxford , 1 and Australia. The Oxford Union , { Society has decided to offer the j £ Speaker of the House of Commons its , j dispatch boxes to replace those de- _ troyed. The Oxford boxes were used s by Gladstone and Peel when they went 2 to Oxford. They are facsimiles of those . which were in the House of Commons. In connection with the offer of beams j of Australian hardwood to help repair t the roof of Westminster Hall, it is \ stated that, though the actual work e . cannot be undertaken till the end of the ‘ war, an earlier start will be made on t fashioning the timbers if the offer is £ . accepted. c The Rev. Mr Perkins, who has been £ Sacrist at Westminster Abbey since I 1 899, estimates the cost of repairing c the latest damage to the Abbey at c £IOO,OOO and the total cost of restora- J tion for damage since September at * £135,000. Air Commodore Huskinson, designer 1 of Britain’s new powerful bombs, c v/hose eyes were injured by bomb jalast 1 I in a recent London raid, will recover % his sight. c • ! c | FIGHTING FIRES t 1 Mr Herbert Morrison, Minister of V ; Home Security, broadcast on Friday ! j r night urging 40,000,000 people to fight -] r the “Battle of the Flames ’ t This, he said, was the biggest job - on the home front. It was total war, - and the entire population was needed j ito wage it. He warned his hearers ! t it was no use arguing about rights or ; i wrongs while bombs were falling. Firebomb fighting was a national service ’ wherever the bombs were falling. It ’ was a fine thing to guard one’s own ; 1 home, but if a party of neighbours were 1 guarding it, it was just as fine a thing c • to guard some other home, office, shop, > 1 or factory. f ' Mr Morrison went on to say that ex- c perienced fire chiefs had told him that 1 ; the work of their brigades had been c ' enormously eased because so many fires -*■ t never got really started. t ’ i CIVILIAN CASUALTIES FOB APRIL t ( [British Official WirelessJ j i Rugby, May 17. c i The Ministry of Home Security has t . announced the following figures for i i civilian casualties during air raids on t ; the United Kingdom in April: Killed, 1 [ 6065; comprising, men 2912, women t 2418; children under 16 680, unclassi- £ fled 55. Injured and detained in hos- e pital, 6926; comprising men 3659, wo- t [ men, 2748, children under 16, 519. In 1 addition 61 are missing and believed c . killed, of whom 48 are men, six women, P , and seven children. t