SAVAGE RAID

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 22 May 1941, Page 6

SAVAGE RAID

ATTACK ON LONDON NIGHT OF HORROR JOURNALISTS’ STORIES HEROIC FIRE-FIGHTERS When the story of the great raid on London comes to be written fully, its most glorious page will be that dealing with the work of the fire-fight-in-Y services, which transcended even the more spectacular deeds of the nightfighter pilots, cabled a special representative of the “Sydney Morning Herald” in London on 11th May. The firemen were braver than frontline shock troops failing a hail of enemy bullets. For hours areas in London burned. From the top of a London city building I saw the Luftwaffe’s most deliberate attempt to set fire to London, to the accompaniment of one of the heaviest high-explosive raids the city has yet experienced. After the preliminary heavy bombs, the German aeroplanes rained down thousands of incendiaries. They fell like grain from a seed drill as aeroplane after aeroplane laid them across the city. In a few moments the rooftops and streets were brilliantly lit by chemical flames and the flashes of high explosives. Roof and street fire-watchers, antlik4 attacked the incendiaries, but as soon as they were put out more fell. Many exploded; others charred roof materials. Soon many of the fires were out of the watchers’ control and the fire brigades were called in. RINGED WITH FIRES Half an hour later dozens of fires started, and the building from which I was watching was soon ringed by fires. Great clouds of choking smoke hid the full moon, and a blood-red glow lit up the city. Roofs fell in and walls crashed down, while high-ex-plosive bombs continued to thunder down, rocking buildings. Still aeroplanes continued to drop incendiary bombs interspersed with highexplosive bombs. Millions of sparks shot up out of the flames, giving buildings the appearance of a hideous fairyland. When the all-clear sounded at dawn, sparks had been falling for many hours, setting further buildings on fire. Smoke clouds, rising thousands of feet, blanketed the sky . a walked round the nearest fires. Passage along the streets was most difficult because of the rain of sparks. The pavements were covered with cinders. Fire-fighters, who had been on duty for several hours and were tired, were carrying on, pouring millions of gallons of water into the flames. Great areas, containing historical buildings, looked like infernos, and the heat was so intense that the firemen were unable to approach to fight the fires. In narrow streets and lanes the fires threatened neighbouring buildings, but the firemen kept on directing jets of water against the blazes. ATMOSPHERE OF UNREALITY The Germans apparently hurled most of their bombs into the fire, because there was not as much damage as I ex- ; pected from the number of bombs I heard fall near by. One street was completely full of craters. Great slabs of conci'ete and road blocks had been hurled hundreds of yards. One large bomb blew out every window for hundreds of yards around and threw up huge beams to the roof. I saw some warehouses which were cauldrons of flame. Firemen battled grimly with the flames, which were destroying magnificent structures. The heavy pall of smoke, tinged with red from the flames lent an atmosphere of unreality to the scene, at which even hardened “blitz” victims were horrified. I toured London and talked with firemen and other Civil Defence workers. I saw buildings which I had read about in history books at school, and which I had since visited with affection, reduced to a mass of burning wreckage. WRECKAGE LITTERS STREET As I wrote the story, smoke clouded my room and cinders strewed the floor. Looking along one street I saw flames leaping from the windows of beautiful architectural monuments of Britain’s past. There were continuous explosions as firemen wrecked burning buildings to prevent the spread of the flames and as time-bombs exploded. Red-eyed, exhausted fire-fighters did their utmost to fight what Civil Defence workers described as a “fire plus high-explosive blitz.” Firemen who have worked in London since the raids began said to me: “Jerry in other raids concentrated either on high explosives or fire. This time he combined the two.” The fires were so intense that Civil Defence workers were forced to concentrate their whole attentionon quelling the flames. The wreckage of buildings struck by high-explosive bombs littered the streets. “WE’LL BEAT HIM” A fireman I met was hardly able to stand, but he refused my offer of help to carry a ladder which was so heavy that an average man would find difficulty in lifting it. “We have to carry on,” he said. “Things are tough, but we’ll beat him.” He went to the aid of comrades fighting a fire in a building which blazed fiercely and added dense clouds of flame-tinged smoke to the red haze - hanging over the area, creating a scene which might have been taken from Dante’s Inferno. The blackened fire-fighters themselves looked like demons from the pit. Ambulance bells clamoured as I picked my way over wreckage to a “pub” for a drink for a group of weary firemen. I returned with a small flask of rum, for which the publican had refused payment. I received almost embarrassing thanks from the firemen. The devotion to duty of these men was such that it never occurred to them that they were worthy of a public tribute. After they had gulped a nip each they returned to the job with almost superhuman energy. EXPERIENCE IN SUBURBS Another member of the “Sydney

Morning Herald” staff, who was visiting friends in a suburb, was caught there . \ en the raiders almost immediately followed the alert. He stayed there about an hour and actually went to sleep, in spite of the intensive gunfire and the noise of the raiders and fighters’ engines. Shortly after midnight his agitated hostess, who already had taken refuge in an elaborate shelter, besought him to follow her example. A “dug-out night ’ followed, with frequent excursions to the surface when fighters’ machine-guns told of the ’‘scrapping” overhead. Twice those in the shelter heard what was apparently the sound of aeroplanes diving to earth out of control. Shrapnel and cartridge cases fell like rain for several hours, though the district was little affected by bombs. Raiders droned overhead for hours, like traffic on a busy highway, for the suburb was on the main route to London. Soon a dull fire glow and a heavy smoke pall could be discerned in the direction of the city, and wood ashes and cinders began to drift on to the green lawns. Sleep was impossible, so. in spite of the unseasonable cold, the householders watched for long periods, clad in dressing gowns and slippers. As soon as the noise of one raider died away, another took up the ominous chorus. When his host drove the Herald” representative to London by car, the streets, normally deserted on Sundays, were crowded with thousands of sightseers.