PEOPLE CROWD TUBE STATIONS

Southland Times, Issue 24236, 20 September 1940, Page 5

PEOPLE CROWD TUBE STATIONS

The sirens which sounded London’s eighth warning yesterday had hardly died away before the anti-aircraft guns opened up a protecting curtain of shrapnel against the raiders, who seemed to come singly from several directions. The explosions of bombs mingled with the sharper sound of guns. For the third successive night heavy bombs crashed in the West End areas. The raiders tried for three hours to reach central London over the southwest suburbs, but were repelled by fierce gunfire time after time. Finally they were forced to seek other inlets, through which some broke. Single planes heard in the * heart of the metropolis met terrific gunfire. The raiders did not neglect the outer areas and many bombs were dropped in suburbs at every point of the compass. ■' Although the Ministry of Home Security has appealed to the public, especially able-bodied men, not to use the tube stations as shelters, hundreds of thousands last night swarmed on

the underground platforms before the sirens sounded. The stations present one of the capital’s strangest spectacles now that Londoners have overcome their earliei' diffidence arising Jrom notices at entrances entitled: This station is not to be used as a shelter. Thousands of East-Enders arrive at West End stations before dusk equipped with blankets and baskets of food and buy a penny ticket in order to pass the barriers. They make up beds two or three deep. The police last night strolled up and down while news vendors sold the latest editions of the evening papers. Dozens of babies slept peacefully beside their parents, for many of whom the stations provide their only roof since the destruction of their homes.

The first wave of planes to come jover comprised about 100 planes, mostly fighters. The second came shortly after noon when five groups of bombers and fighters crossed the Kentish coast. All were thrown back except one plane, which reached the London area.