1940-12-20 — Page 41

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THE CHINA MAIL, DECEMBER 20, 1940-

VISIT TO

THE

NAZI BOMBERS' GRAVE

PEOPLE WHO find it difficult to credit the staggering successes of the. R.A.F. ought to be shown

THREE INDO-CHINA TOWNS BOMBED

In retaliation for French attacks. the Thai air force has bombed

the graveyards of the Nazi aircraft we have destroy-Vientiana, Savannaket, Sisaphon ed, writes a special correspondent.

I went to one of these graveyards to-day, and the scene was. unique. Here lie the remains of enemy. bombers which came to shower death on women and children, and were shot down in the process. With them lie crumpled Messerschmidts.

You have to come to a gigantic scrap heap like this to appreciate the bringing down

alone of 188

epemy aircraft on one day and 48 on another. Not all of them, of course, reach the dump. Some disappear for ever in the Channel; others are blown to bits; others, again, may come down in places not easily accessible. But the majority come in the end to the dump. to provide solid evidence of the destruction ་ཐཱ་ have wrought

Stricken Dornier

SOLDIERS CHARGED

in

a

Seven men of the Royal Norfolk Regiment were charge on remand at Epsom with stealing property from houses said to have been damaged by aerial bombardment.

Major Fitzgerald handed letter from the commanding officer of the regiment asking that the men should be handed over tu the military to be dealt with by general court-martial. Mr. W. H. Chitty, who defended. objected that the men would not be legally | represented. Major Fitzgerald said that they would have a fair trial, and although the officer appointed to represent them might not be aj

Advocale holes through legal man, the Judge

would be.

of

I

The colossal accumulation wreckage spraks for - itself looked at the big wing of a Dor- nier, with its black and white cross standing out forlornly.

Nearby were German airscrews that had been twisted into fan- tastic shapes. Some of the blades

bullet

even had them.

which contained

soldiers offences

Smashed fuselages, bits of The charges were withdrawn on cupolas, retractable undercar- the understanding that the men riages, odd wheels and tyres, all were handed over to a military

Two figured in a collection of junk court.

Canadian charged high pro-

with similar

portion of sheets of strong me- tal. It had for the most part been concertined as if it were tissue paper.

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My guide pointed to ก rough piece of fused metal resembling a heavy lump of clinker. "That is a common enough sight here," he remarked. "When the machine has caught fire the heat reduces parts of it to a blackened mass,' What had once been a beautifully formed radiator is now revealed as a poor shrunken thing with the honeycomb tightly pressed into a solid block.

Daily Addition

As I wandered

round, a goods train pulled into the siding about

100 yards away. Each of its long line of open trucks was load- ed with a fresh consignment of crashed aeroplanes. These trains

arrive so regularly that the giant heaps are added to daily.

The constant Influx would prove overwhelming but for the energetic way

in which hundrede of workmen apply themes/ves to systematically recovering all that is worth while.

Steadily they reduce the aluminium alloy to small pieces which are promptly taken to the adjacent furnace, Pre- sently you see the result of the smelting. Ten tons of little ingots of the valuable alloy were ar- ranged in neat piles, the work of half a week.

Ingots of this kind have helped to make many new Spitfires and Hurricanes in recent months. And many more will follow.

BOY SAVED

FATHER

When an incendiary bomb fell om the bed in which he was sleeping, twelve-year-old

Joe

Chown, of a south-west village, thought first of his invalid father, who was in the next room.

Having got his father to safety, Joe got a bucket of earth, i réturned to his bedroom and 'coolly put out the blazing bed.

"Sparks were flying near my eyes and the glare was terrible, but the earth got the better of it," he told a reporter.

Officers and men and their girl friends were, dancing in a › road........ house in the same district when a shower of Incendiary bomby rained down.

-One fell on the roof of the ball- room, but was safely removed by a naval officer guest. The dancers were unaware of what had hap-

were dealt with in the same way. I

UNIC

and Siemreap, in Indo-China, 'ac- cording to a communique issued in Bangkok yesterday:

Bangkok radio announced that three important towns in the pro- vince of Cambodia, were heavily bombed. Reuter

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