1941-08-11 — Page 41

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 11, 1941. AN AMERICAN SAYS:

NAZIS DREAD BOMBINGS BY 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 bear passing phrases as lighted subway into the blackout people hurried past you in the you have to stand still for a few, d'aritout, The British seconds until your cyes get ac- ¦ They're coming tonight customed to the blackness. For in-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.

MONG MARUL TETAMUTH "GRIPE WATE

SCM 40-13

two

The attacking forces were re- gular troops, while Birmingham was defended by its Home Guards and a fores of relief troops com- or posed of British, Free French. the wind it is Deteti and Czechoslovak TC- even after dark, trolley and bus; clear. You kept hearing things gulors. traffic is quite heavy in Pots-bike that in the streets, in restaur

It was assumed the enemy damer Platz and their dim, bluishi mnts, in thea're. and you knew |foren ud two divisions and Hights have a way of bearing down' that the people of Berlin were in panzer regiments were attacking on you suddenly like speed boats, mortal fear of "der bomben," Birmingham from the south-west coming out of the fog.

I had been waiting, too. I was and to help the invasion para- curious to find out whether I troops were dropped on the south could take it. The first thing I did and north sides of the city in the when Fleischer said there was an early hours yesterday. alarm was to go to the men's The Home Guard severely washroom and throw cold water on my face. I don't know why I

The Foreign Club

I have never seen the outside of the Foreign Club except in the blackout, s4) 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 strefches 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. I never did find out, but I think it was being given by one of the big, shots of the Propaganda Minis- There were two soldiers in try the room. One of them was al 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

deal about it,

did that.

was

When I got back to the bar the

the cloakroom man from there. He was telling everyone. that there was an air raid on. He said the sirens in the streets had been going for the last 15 or 20 minutes. He had just Anished speaking when we heard the first of the guns. They sounded dull

and a long way off.

"There is an air-raid shelter In the basement,” said the man from the cloakroom. "Everyone had better go down there." "I'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

Predo.

the waitress, began candelabras out large

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

Parachute troops proved very effec Ive In holding up reinforce- ments long enough to allow the main column of Invaders to advance to the city centre. One of the city's main railway stations was taken by the invaders arrival of and held until the relieving forces.

At the close of

R. General Sir

the exercise G. Finlayson G. O C. Western Command, who was in charge of the exercise. expressed satisfaction. "The ex- ercise," he said, "has taught particularly the value of between military and civil vices."-- British Wireless.

us

liaison

ser-

ed black or gray

as protection against the searching lights, but that night their silver bodles seemed to glint like fireflies high had been in the Holland cam, bringing

above the earth. I saw as many paign the spring before. не

them caught in the and putting them on the tables, as six of didn't seem particularly proud This was in case the power plant lights at a time. The white puffs of it, and he didn't talk a great 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. "I remember the way the pon- the room was quiet now.

incredible that they 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 the early morning, and it didn't ing closer and closer. The sound plane hit. In fact, during the seem to me that there could be, came in waves with-perhaps 30-three raids I watched over Ber- British of silence, and in, I never did seg a it was just ke 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 of anti-aircraft defence to the hit at least seven or eight. west.

any war at all.

The Heutenant had brought some phonograph records to the party with him. One of them was Someone else said they were "We're Going to Hang Our Wash- probably headed right for us. Hie ing on the

He pointed out that we were in a Siegfried Line." had Charlie play it over and over! great place to get it and that we again on the machine back of the were centrally situated for a good bar. He thought it was very funny. blitz. Two railway stations, the Potsdamer Bahnhof and the An- 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 United; tically next door to Hitler's Reich 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,"

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

None Shot Down

1 talked to other American correspondenta about that. They sald that last fall, when the English were bombing Berlin

for 40 steadily

nights--night after night-they had seen as many as eight or ten 'planes brought down during a single raid. But not one of them saw a British bomber hit in the raids this spring. A German The firing became more in-

acquaintance of tence. 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-

tho happy because I had been afraid always behind

attacking

Palace, Ribbentrop's Chancellery and Goebbel's Propaganda Minis- try. He wasn't just talking, either.

to 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 I think it is must be using faster bombers. preably the normal reaction than they were last fall and that of the average person to air it's the difference between firing

raide.

Full Moon

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 outed area. Street cars and taxis were over the city toward the west and rerouted. Police barred the way. Brandenburger Tor.

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

“Smell The Fear"

first, clear nights ofżew searchlights which criss-crossed the west of the city. The bomb:|

moon - you could smell fear. the skies. I saw the lights picking was concentrated in that area. Long before midnight the streets up the Britihh 'planes 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.