FURIOUS ATTACK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23772, 27 September 1940, Page 7

FURIOUS ATTACK

CENTRAL DISTRICT FAMOUS SHOPPING AREA RING OF FIRE3--.,STARTED By Telegraph— Press Association—Copyright LONDON., i'ept. 25 Soon after midnight (TuesdayWednesday) Goering launched one of the most frenzied attacks yet made on London. Sections of raiders sought out an important part of Central London and also a famous shopping area. They first rained down hundreds of incendiary bombs and circled round the targets. Then dive-bombers, swooping recklessly under the balloon barrage, joined in a series of furious attacks.

Valuable stained glass windows were blown in at an historic Central London church. One bomb blew out the interior of a bank a few yards from the church. Fire bombs on Central London started a ring of fires within a radius of a quarter of a mile, six of which were blazing simultaneously.

Fire-fighters worked on through the hail of shrapnel, and daylight found only the shells of buildings standing. In one well-known street walls continued to collapse in clouds of dust, debris and smoke.

In a south-west suburb a line of three shops wa.s wrecked, adjoining three wrecked a few nights ago. A particularly heavy high-explosive bomb caused great damage and also many casualties in one of London's most popular centres, while residential areas elsewhere were again damaged A communique on the daylight attacks by the German air force, issued early this evening, said: "Enemy aircraft crossed the Dorset coast to-day and attacked Bristol. Bombs were dropped near the coast and on the outskirts of Bristol, causing some damage and killing and injuring a number of people."

FAMOUS STORE DAMAGED LONDON, Sept. 25 Selfridges, Oxford Street, in the West End, is among the several department stores which have suffered damage in the course of recent enemy night bombing. BRUTALITY AT SEA GERMAN RAIDER'S ACTION NEW YORK., Sept. 25 Survivors of a British freighter who were landed at Barranquiila (Venezuela) reported .that a Gorman raider sank their ship off Trinidad on September 3. Thereafter,- the raider machine-gunned Che'.'lifeJipats.The survivors drifted for;-a fortnight before they were picked tip by'A "tanker. CIANO GOES TO BERLIN LONDON, Sept. 20 The Italian Foreign Minister, Count Ciano, left Rome this morning for Germany. '