1941-04-03 — Page 23

THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL 3, 1941.

CHINA MAIL

WINDSOR HOUSE

FINISHING THE JOB

The great storm of war which has burst more furiously over Signor Mussolini, smashing his fleet in the Mediterranean so that it is exceeding doubtful if it will venture to sea again, wresting Keren, Asmara, Harrar and Diredawa from him in East Africa so that the doom of his African Em- pire is clear writ, was not just an accident of a chance meeting or even superior mobility. No more was the blitz raid upon Emden, the effect of which shook even Joseph Goebbels into admitting)

comparatively

damage."

large

"Give us the tools,” said

Mr. Churchill, with his ALL WAR SHORT OF AID!

formidable emphasis, "and we will finish the

jab."

Germans having spent week digesting the Yugoslavian coup and the hews of Italy's defeats, Į and the leaden knowledge | having sunk well home, their skies were torn to fury with the night and the finishing of the job was under way before their eyes and above their heads.

ALL AID SHORT OF WAR

FEAT

0000000

Gates

Lot

Stand

Bombs

Can

More

calling to each other and to the

occupants, "Are you all right?"

Just what the phrase "London | one of the most beautiful. and one, building and men can be heard had its heaviest raid of the war of the most terrifying spectacles last night" covers in the way of, imaginable. damage is something that cannot, and will not, be known in detail outside England for weeks.

Reading the dispatches, we know only that the physical dam-

age was considerable and that the

casualties, both dead and wound-] ed, were numerous.

For it seems apparent that the arrival in Britain of giant American bomb- ing 'planes of the Con- solidated Liberator type London.

The only yardstick by which to judge a big raid is a comparison with the other heavy raids on

contributed significantly lest on the metropolis up to that In one raid, probably the heav- to the crash about Emden time, the Germans claimed to of bigger bombs than had have dumped several hundred thousand pounds of bombs on the ever before fallen upon a city. Both German and British German city. Buildings sources put the number of planes which hovered over London that were lifted bodily from night at between 1,000 and 1,500, their foundations; be- and they didn't get their money's

worth in vital damage done,

cause

celebrated and

dreaded long-range bomb- ers were droning over- head.

Strike In Series

Sky Pockmarked

With Fire

As the 'planes approach the London defences, the sky is pock- marked with reddish points of fire where the anti-aircraft shells are bursting. The searchlights cut long white channels through the darkness, and from the ground the

By Frank R. Kent, Jr.

sulien glare of several fires start- ed by incendiaries outlines the antlike figures of the AFS men working heedless of explosives to subdue the flamen

Of Waves Contrary to a popular miscon- ception, this does not mean that

The barking of, the guns is al- These bombs shook a 1,500 German planes were over most one continuous roll, and people who have been told London at one time. The Germans high above is that whrrr whrer that no air attack would wave comprising only a

come in a series of waves each whrrr-the beat of a bombers' en- small gines. be allowed to reach them, number of, 'planes,

Each wave, however, no sooner that Britain is beaten and

has anloaded its burden of de- virtually out of the war, struction than the ominous irre- that American aid will gular beat of the next wave's en- gines can be heard approaching.

far more often,

:

Incendiarles Then Explosives

The Climax And The Lull

The sound of the engines gets pack of deep-throated watchdoge baying furiously at an intruder.

The observer holds his breath waiting for the last note in the symphony of totalitarian war; and then it comes.

There is a sound like an express train getting louder and louder and there is a' dull “Krump.”:

Sometimes there are two more sometimes there is only one. The sound of the 'plane fades off, and there is a few minutes of com- parative silence during which are men can be heard shouting to each

Sometimes there is an answer --sometimes there is only silence. Even as they call, shell bursts for away in the night sky give warn- ing of more 'planes and once again comes the uneven note of bombers' engines.

That, in general, is à picture of what goes on when a heavy raid is in progress.

not be allowed to reach have stood in the street while a closer and the guns sound like a the British Isles. Yet ad was in progress and it seem

ed from the ground that the while this latter part of planes were coming in with the the fable was being drum-regularity of subway trains, but med home, the RAF struck its most devastat- ing blow, and with it, gave promise of still heavier

The general practice, is for the blows to come.

first planes to drop showers of incendiaries near

whatever ob The initiative, plainly jectives they happen to be hunt, is slipping from Hitler's ing, and the following planes gun for the vicinity of the fires hands. If only America with high-explosiva bombs. can provide the tools To the more or less innogent by-stander it quite often seems to promptly and in suff develop into a race with the Auxi- cient quantity, Britain Hary, Fire Service working "des- perately to extinguish the flames will finish the job, even bezare they can guide the next If the bomb has fallen very oner perhaps than could wave of bombers to that oblec-close you can also hear the clump of heavy shots as Wardenge and at one time be imagined, really heavy ráid is at once police

öward the sti

other as they

Sometimes Only Silence

Armageddon, Then

The Dawn

Sometimes the raiders may be. concentrating on a relatively small, area, sometimes they spread out and several districts will be un- der fire at the same time. In the thick of the noise, with the re- flection of fires glowering in the sky in several quarters the gen- eral impression' is that Armaged- don finally has arrived and Lon- don in the morning will be a sea of blackened walls.

buses

With morning, after the all clear has gone, however, you wake up to the familiar sound of rumbling through the streets and see the people on their way to work.

"They may—and many of them" probably have-spent the night in shelters, but they are up and go- ing back to business as usual, You visit the scene of your own parti- cular raid of the night before,

Can Stand A Lot More Of Them There will be holes gaping in the solld rows of buildings. There shells of will be re-blackened what once were dwellings or bust- ness houses. Here and there a lucky building may be standing with the adjoining structures of both sides reduced to a tumbled heap of rubble.

•

Undoubtedly the raiders did a

lot of damage. Then you look at the traffic seething through the streets, the stream of life carry- Ing on "business de usual.”.