LONDON TO-DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24633, 14 June 1941, Page 10

LONDON TO-DAY

DESTRUCTION AND UTTER AFTERMATH OF THE RAIDS STRANGE SIGHTS AND SOUNDS *, (0.C.) LONDON, May 14. Flying brick dust, gaping manholes, occasional mounds of sand that have quelled incendiaries,'"straggling einp.y hose pipes,,; the steady beat; of . water pumping ■, engines, ' gnawing rattle of pneumMic are familiar sights and' SoUnds'in' Londdh to-day. They are the sequences/to the. Nazi raids which' have been devastating in’ the damage they have wreaked. . , . ' ■•London to-day. land particularly the City of London, has to be seen’tto be believed. No written account, no photographs, and not even' films, can reproduce the sights that surround the .Londondefs of to-day attd the atmosphere in whichl.they live and go to work.: vV-.. 1 , In the City itself street after, street has been ■ wrecked. ' Only crumbled ruins .remain of rows and rows of shops and offices. . There is ho traffic, and the padding of, footsteps is the lighter accompaniment to the machinery of demolition gangs. The people themselves are quiet, but their eyes miss nothing; and if they say-little in the streets all, the sights and sounds are indelibly printed on their minds./ Odd Impressions Innumerable odd impressions remain after a walk through the City streets. A pale typist swings along -to her office. Her gas mask clinking occa r sionally against her tin hat. Her gas mask bag and the “W ” on her tin hat indicate that she is a warden m her home area. A six-storey building that escaped fire has been hit by n bomb. A mass of masonry has sprawled into the street, like an erosion in the clay bank overshadowing a road; a mass , of steel girders bent and twisted resemble an iron bedstead that has been twisted for wanton joy. In the tea shop on the opposite side of the road cakes and buns are displayed in a window naked of glass. . The demolition, workmen, grouped'ln gangs, sing and joke among themselves as they work! They have become inured to the wilderness of damage.. They handle it all day long, it means •. work to them, and there is no point in their remaining lugubrious—although they may have lost their own homes and their families may be separated from them. -. .~, Bomb craters scar the streets, pock marking them, and the wooden brinks of London’s roads are scattered with . a mingling of concrete bed. The scenes are crazy and senseless. Steam from some building newly razed by fire' eddies above the bricks in hesitant clouds, and stale smoke leaves an acrid sting in the nostrils. Famous Buildings Destroyed

In the shopping areas, whole stores have been burnt out in some of the streets. Where the outer walls stand, the flames have often left their marks on the window facings, crumbling them and rotting them; ? and there are smears of black soot the mark of eddying smoke: . „ .■' So many famous and ancient buildings have now been destroyed that the public mind may be excused if it fails to grasp the enormity of the damage and the irreparable loss to the city that has been famous throughout the world for its 'roots 'in history—roots that have given-. life and: meaning to men who have long since been dust and events that have shaped history. Each new raid means fresh destruction. Twice St. Clement Dane’s, the official church of the Australians in London„.-was:‘searred by bombs. Now it merely gyJioilow shell;- Yet thevipatuc of Dr Johnson still ; stands fading-.' Temple- Bar and Fleet street beyond, A short.-.stumpy figure, he continues to read his book unperturbed; and those who have read and re-read his work can almost imagine him snorting indignantly: “ Sir. the Nazis are a mere heathen rabble.” '•'" ; The loVely ancient Temple Church has also gone.. For long months of raids, while buildings all round it were razed, it stood unharmed. People from the entire world, had visited it. It dated from 1129, was owped by the Knight Templars and later came into the possession of the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. The house in which Oliver Goldsmith died is demolished, and only its. doorway stands. Lamb’s house in Crown Office row. “ place of my kindly engendrure.” is wrecked. And so the sorry tale continues. •• . 1 ■;; St. Paul’s Still Stands St. Paul’s still stands, damaged by bombs, but unharmed by . fire. Yet flames have ravaged buildings on its four sides now, and it rears high above-, a scene of increasing desolation. How the flames have spared it, seems little short of miraculous. - The trail of raid damage leads all over England. It is repeated with sickening familiarity, in all the big cities and ports. Small wonder that when the Prime Minister, Mr Winston. Churchill, walks among and talks,,to the people, they urge him to “ Give it them back.”