1941-08-11 — Page 1

BOMBINGS BY Refreshing!

BRITAIN

ON MARCH 12, THE NIGHT THE BRITISH BOMBED BERLIN FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS SPRING, I WAS IN THE DEUTSCHER AUSLAND CLUB, WHICH MEANS GERMAN FOREIGN CLUB AND IS THE PLACE WHERE DR. GOEBBELS' PROPAGANDA MINISTRY LETS THE FOREIGN PRESS BUY ITS DRINKS AND ABSORB THE HEAT FOR THE NOMINAL DUES OF 20 MARKS A MONTH, WRITES CARL B. WALL, IN “P.M.”

The club is in a four or five-storey building in the Leipziger Platz in the heart of Berlin. To get there from the Hotel Adlon, you take the subway which runs under tht Hermann Goering Strasse and get off at Potsdamer Platz which is only one station away.

As you come out of the brightly: You could hear passing phrases lighted subway into the blackout people hurried past you in the you have to stand still for a few blackout. The British seconds until your eyes get ac, They're coming tonigh! customed to the blackness, For to-morrow

BRUM.

RESISTS

ATTACK

Big-scale civil defence exercises, in which the Home Guard, mili- tary and civil defence services cooperated, were carried out over a wide area of Birmingham and the Black Country during the week-end.

The attacking forces were re- as|gular troops while Birmingham was defended by its fome Guards and a force of relie, troops com- or posed of British. Free French, the wind it is Dutch and Czechoslovak Je- even after dark, trolley and bus clear. You kept hearing things gulars. traffic is quite heavy in Pots- | like that in the streets, in restaur- | It was assumed the enemy damer Platz and their dim, bluish »nts, in thea're, and you knew force of two divisions and lights have a way of bearing down that the people of Berlin were in panzer regiments were aflacking on you suddenly like speed mats mortal fear of "der bomben.” coming out of the fog.

The Foreign Club

I have never seen the outside of the Foreign Club except in the blackout, so I can't tell whether it is brick or stone or new or very old. In the darkness. It seems to be part of one great building which stretches for about 100 yards around the semi-circle of the Leipziger Platz.

On the night of the bombing had had a late dinner and had gone up to the

bar for a drink about 10.45. There was some kind of a party going on that night. never did find out, but I think it was being given by one of the big shots of the Propaganda Min's- try. There were two soldiers In the room.

One of them was a

lieutenant in a panzer division,

The other was a private, who was playing an accordion.

Nothing To Be

Proud Of

After a while I got talking to the lieutenant, who told me he had been in the Holland cam paign the spring before. didn't seem particularly proud of it, and he didn't talk a great

deal about it.

Ho

twu

Birmingham from the south-west and to help the invasion para- troops were dropped on the south and north sides of the city in the early hours yesterday.

The men's

I had been waiting, too. I was curious to find out whether I could take it. The first thing I did when Fleischer said there was an alarm was to go to the washroom and throw cold water on my face. I don't know why I d'd that.

Home Guard severely harassed the enemy and when relief troops came to the as- sistance a good deal of ground which had been lost was retaken.

When I got back to the bar the

Parachute troops proved very man f [7] the cloakroom was there. .He was telling everyone

effective in halding up reinforce- that there was an air raid on. He

ments long enough to allow the main column of invaders to said the sirens in the streets had been going for the last 15 or 20

advance to the city centre. minutes. He had just finished

One of the city's main railway speaking when we heard the Arestations was taken by the invaders arrival of of the guns. They sounded dull and held until the and a long way off.

"There is an air-rald shelter in the basement," said the man from the cloakroom. “Everyone had better go down there.' "It's no good. We might just as well stay up here. If we're going to get hit we might just as well get hit on the top floor as on the bottom."

Listening To The Report

relieving forces,

At the close of the exercise

R. General Sir

G. Finlayson G. O C. Western Command, who was in charge of the vercise, expressed satisfaction.

"The ex-

US

ercise," he said, "has taught

liaison

particularly the value of between military and civil vices."British Wireless.

ser-

ed black or gray as protection against the searching lights, but that

bodies night their silver Freda, the waitress. began seemed to glint like fireflies high bringing

I saw as many out large candelabras above the earth.

in the the tables. as six of them caught and putting them on This was in case the power plant lights at a time. The white puffs was hit and the light's went out. of the anti-aircraft burst within The phonograph had stopped and what seemed inches of their tails. they incredible that "I remember the way the poo- the room was quiet now. We. It seemed pies looked in Holland," he said. were all listening to the guns. could keep going but they did. "We went rolling along the roads They sounded like thunder, mov- That night, I didn't see a single In fact, during the in the early morning, and it didn't ing closer and closer. The sound plane hit. seem to me that there could he came in waves with-perhaps 30- three raids I watched over Ber-

I never did.

British of silence, and lin, any war at all. It was just 'ike' second intervals riding through miles and miles of someone told me that the bombers 'plane fall, although the next day poppy gardens."

were passing over the outer ring the Germans always said they had The lieutenant had brought of anti-aircraft defence to the hit at least seven or eight. some phonograph records to the, west.

None Shot Down party with him, One of t'em was Someone else sald they were "We're Going to Hang Our Wash- probably headed right for us. He ing on the Siegfried Line,” He pointed out that we were in a had Charlie play it over and over' great place to get it and that we again on the machine bark of the were centrally situated for a good bar. He thought it was very funny. blitz. So did Charlie,

I think they must have played halter Bahnhof were only a few that record at least 15 times when, blocks away. And we were prac- Jack Fleischer of the Press came in.

"There's an air-raid alarm out- side," he said to me. "Don't say anything to the bartender or he won't give us another drink."

Fleischer had been through the air raids of last fall and winter but I hadn't. This was my first. I had a curious, tight feeling in my stomach and my heart began to pound, harder. I looked at the clock behind the bar. It was 11.35. The phonograph was still grinding out "We're Going to Hang Our Washing on the Siegfried Line."

see a

I talked to other American correspondents about that. They said that last fall when the English were Two railway stations, the

bombing Berlin nights-night steadily for 40 Potsdamer Bahnhof and the An-

after night-they had soon as many as eight or ten 'planes brought down during a single United, tically next door to Hitler's Reich

raid. But not one of them, saw Palace, Ribbentrop's Chancellery

a British bomber hit in the raids and Goebbel's Propaganda Minis-

this spring.. try. He wasn't just talking, either.

A German The firing became

acquaintance of 'more in. tonɛe. As It did, I had a curious mine, who has a friend on one of Burge of

happiness that's the the anti-aircraft crews, said the only word I can think of. I was fire has been consistently slow- happy because I had been afraid always behind the attacking co long that. I would be afraid, planes. The only explanation for and now I wasn't. I mention that, he said, was that the British this only because 1 think it is must be using faster bombers probably, the normal reaction than they were last fall and that of the average person to air it's the difference between firing

at pheasants and wild ducks, •·.

The raid that night lasted for six hours, until 5.30 In the morn- ing. While I watched, I saw. I was curious now. I wanted to several fires flare up against the see what was going on. With some sky to the west. Later, I tried to of the others I left the bar and poke around the city and see what went into a darkened room on the damage had been done. But it was same floor. There was a large impossible to get near the bomb- window there which looked out ed area. Street cars and taxis were nver the city toward the west and rerouted. Police barred the way. “Smell The Fear!!" Brandenburger. Torsta

I do believe, however, that heavy The light of the full moon seem- | damage was done that night to For the last week, during the ed to pale even the powerful factories and railways yards to first, clear nights of the new searchlights which criss-crossed the west of the city. The bomb- moon you could smell the fear the skies. I saw the lights picking was concentrated in that area. Long before midnight the streets up the Britihh pinnes several They kept it up for hour after were empty. There were only a times that night. I had always hour and they started a lot of fires, few stragglers in the subways, thought the bombers were paint- I saw that with my own eyes. } }

Like everyone else In Berlin, I had been waiting for the Bri- tish to me. It was now March 12 and they hadn't bombed Ber lin since the night of Dec. 19. Everyone was expecting hell. Revenge for London. The new American bombers,

raids,

Full Moon

U.B

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