COAST WAS PINK WITH FIRE

Southland Times, Issue 24163, 27 June 1940, Page 6

COAST WAS PINK WITH FIRE

FLANDERS ECHOES LIFE IN SOUTH COAST PORT LONDON, May 25. The white coast of France is pink with fire, and smoke drifts across the Channel, our safety belt, writes Hilde Marchant, in The Daily Express, London. People walk along the sea-front with its beach huts and summer pavilion with an air of self-conscious haste. Time is getting short as the guns thump over the water and the aeroplanes dash over the sky. I was walking along a beach listening to the prelude when a short, sharp, near sound came over our heads. NEW SORT OF TIN HELMET An aeroplane flying low came over the beach. At first the crowd thought anti-aircraft guns were firing and they ran for shelter. But the aeroplane, British, was just back-firing. A black cloud of smoke has hung over one spot on the coast of France all the afternoon. The hotels are filled with Royal Air Force pilots, naval officers and Arniy officers. In one hotel the hatstand had a new sort of tin helmet on it. It was French. In the lounge two French officers and a French Red Cross nurse who had brought refugees were trying to explain that they had only French money to pay the bill. The girl at the cash desk waved it away and said: “Nothing to pay.” They did not understand until she tore up the bill. Then they were delighted. , A . These men had seen the Royal Air Force at work on the French coast only a short time ago. They were full of enthusiasm. One of them said: “It is the old tradition again, fighting against large numbers just like M. Drake.” GIRL’S ONE PRECAUTION While refugees coming into our harbours are fed and nursed, evacuees are going out on another road. These towns are barren of children, and only a few local school children stay behind to watch the fireworks. Early this morning there was a sky battle over the front. The searchlights

caught two raiders and the anti-aircraft guns fired after them. The girl in a bar said: “We have not had such excitement down here since we decided to put fairy lights on the front.” Her only reaction to a danger that creeps nearer every day is that she has sent away her best clothes to her mother in London. She is not going to leave behind her wardrobe. With great pride the girl in the bar told some French ' officers that they had had an air raid warning during the night. The only reply was: “It is one perpetual warning for us all these days.” But one story that will give the tone of this battlefront is the one of an officer who commented on a ship going out with two white ensigns, one on either end. i

One of the sailors said: “They are going to the French coast and one of them might be shot off.”