1941-08-11 — Page 9

THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 11, 1941.

AN AMERICAN SAYS:

NAZIS

DREAD

BOMBINGS BY BRITAIN

ON MARCH 12, THE NIGHT THE BRITISH ROMBED 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.

You could hear passing phrases as people hurried past you in the blackout. The British They're coming tonight

to-morrow

or

As you come out of the brightly lighted subway into the blackout you have to stand still for a few seconds until your eyes get ac- customed to the blackness. For

the wind it is even after dark, trolley and bus clear. You kept hearing things Traffic is quite heavy in Pots-like that in the streets, in restaur- damer Platz and their dim, bluish ants, in theatre, and you knew lights have a way of bearing down that the people of Berlin were in on you suddenly like speed roats 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 I had had a late dinner and had Kone up to the bar for a drink

I

about 10.45. There was some kind of a party going on that night. never did Bẞnd out, but I think it was being given by one of the big shots of the Propaganda Min's- Lry.

There were two soldiers in the room. One of them was a leutenant 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 fleutenant, who told me he

deal about it.

HIS £25,000 THANKS

Lord Nuffield has sent a £25,000 cheque to the First Lord of the Admiralty as Q thanks offering for the destruction of the Bismarck.

The money is to go to benevolent funds of the Navy, Fleet Air Arm and the Mer- chant Navy.

DODGED

WORK, FINED

Evidence of the Government's determination to ensure maximum I had been waiting, too. I was production was given at the Man- curious to find out whether Ichester Court when four young could take it. The first thing I did |men were cach fined £5 for hav- when Fleischer said there was an 'ing gambled in a shelter during alarm was to go to the men's working hours at the aircraft fac- washroom and throw cold water tory in which they were employed on my face. I don't know why I as engineers. did that.

When I got back to the bar the The magistrate referred the case man from the cloakroom was to the Minister for National Ser- vices. Mr. Bevin. to decide whether the mer, should be called up for the Army.

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.

Anished He had just 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."

"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 boltum."

Listening To The Report

Freda, i

The

at

port superintendent Manchester suspended 500 dockers demanding who went on strike double pav for overtime. The superintendent threatened to em- Corps on the the Pioneer

work.

sus-

In similar circumstances at Liverpool, 1,000 men were pended. He port superintendent telling them that a refusal to work at night would result in dismissal.

ed black or gray as protection against the searching lights, but that night their silver bodies seemed to glint like fireflies high began

I saw as many candelabras above the earth.

the waitress,

had been in the Holland cam bringing But large paign the spring before. He and putting them on the tables. as six of them caught in the 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. incredible that they We It seemed "I remember the way the pop- the room was quiet now. pies looked in Holland," he said.į were all listening to the

could keep going but they did. guns. "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 be, came in waves with-perhaps 30-three raids I watched over Ber- any war at all. It was just ike' second intervals of silence, and lin, I never did see a British 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 hit at least seven or eight. defence to brought of anti-aircraft

west,

said they were

None Shot Down Someone else probably headed right for us. He pointed out that we were in a great place to get it and that we were centrally situated for a good blitz. Two railway stations, the Potsdamer Bahnhof and the An- halter Bahnhof were only a few blocks away. And we were prac- tically next door to Hitler's Reich Palace, Ribbentrop's Chancellery and Goebbel's Propaganda Minis- try. He wasn't just talking, either. more in-

A German acquaintance of The firing became terize. As it did, I had a curious mine, who has a friend on one of surge of/" "happiness-that's the the anti-aircraft crews, said the only word I can think of. I was fire has been consistently slow

the attacking happy because I had been afraid always behind

The lieutenant had some phonograph records to the party with him. One of them was "We're Going to Hang Our Wash- ing on the Siegfried Line." He had Charlie play it over and over again on the machine bark of the bar. He thought it was very funny. So did Charlie.

I think they must have played that record at least 15 times when Jack Fleischer of the United 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."

41

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 everyona alsa In Berlin, I had been waiting for the Bri- tish to come." It was now March I was curious now, I wanted to 12 and they hadn't bombed Bor- see what was going on. With some tim since the night of Dec. 19. of the others...I left the bar and Everyone was expecting hell. went into a darkened room on the was a large Revenge for London, The new same floor. There American bombers..

window: there which looked out over the city toward the west and Brandenburger Tor,

Full Moon

I talked to other American correspondents about that. They Bald that last fall when the English were bombing Berlin steadily for 40 nights--night | after night-they had seen as many as eight or ten 'planes brought down during a single rald. But not one of them baw a British bomber hit in the raide this spring.

to long that I would be afraid, planes. The only explanation for and now I waen't. I mention that, he said, was that the British this only because I think it is must be using faster bombers probably the normal reaction than they were last fall and that. to ale it's the difference between äring of the average -person

at pheasants and wild ducks.... ralda.

The raid that night lasted, for six hours, until 5:30 in the morn ing. While I watched, I saw several fires flare up against the sky to the west. Later, I tried to poke around, the city and see what damage had been done. But it was impossible to get near the bomb- ed aren. Street cars and taxis were rerouted. Police: barred the way. "Smell The Fear"-

I do believe, however, that heavy The light of the full moon seem- damage was done that night tol For the last week, during the ed to pale even the powerful factories and rallways 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 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...