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Show Vivid Description Of Air Raid In Letter From England Editor's Note; Following is excerpts of a letter from Harry Greaves in Claughton, England, Eng-land, to Harley Greaves and and family in Preston. He is a cousin of Mr. Greaves and the following is a Vivid description des-cription of an air raid in England. Eng-land. Home rrom work about 5;30 p. m. and alter a meal, read the paper and change into AR.P. uniform, uni-form, then sit clown for a short rest.' About 7 p. m. there is a sudden sud-den noise like a car starting up a hill on low gear which rises to a cressendo, and the air raid siren booms out. I grab my gas mask, tin hat, and say Cheerio! And go on duty to my vantage point which is not very far from home,, hammering ham-mering at a house door on my way where they are showing a chink of light in their black-out The siren 1 ceases and all is quiet and dark. You hear the patter of feet as some persons runs for home or of a warden war-den going on duty. A short spell and then there are some brilliant flashes of light around the horizon and the guns begin to bang. Now you can hear the rumble of the plane engines many of them judging judg-ing by the volume of sound: the searchlights begin to fel about here and there. My two colieagues and myself watch the shells bursting burst-ing in the sky and realize that the barrage has forced Jerry to turn aside and circle away from our point. The next wave comes along and there is a loud noise like a boy drawmg a stick along an iron fence and the incendiary bombs drop in hundreds all around us. Giving the signal to the fire watchers watch-ers we dash to the nearest bombs which may start fires and smother them as quickly as possible. Soon all is dark and quiet again. There is a constant drone of engines as wave after wave of Jerries go over, then bright lights appear as the enemy begins to drop chandelier flares, clusters of bright lights which float very slowly to earth lighting up the ground like day. As they fall one can see the tracer bullets being fired at them by pom poms, machine guns, rifles, etc. Then the bombs begin to fall. There is a loud whistling which sounds directly di-rectly overhead, and we crouch down by a wall watching to see whether it will fall in our area. A terrific flash, followed by an ear splitting detonation it has come down quite close and we run towards to-wards it, to find that two lovely houses are now a heap of rubble. A fire watcher shouts that there are people buried, and one warden runs for the post to phone for a rescue squad. We got out one little lit-tle girl, 3; years old. an eye blown out and the bones of her knee and ankle protruding, a terrible sight in her little pajamas. ,The warden curses Hitler as we send the little mite express to get an ambulance. The upper part of a man is lifted to one side and covered up. Then the rescue squad arrives and take over while we return to our vantage van-tage point. A few minutes later another packet pac-ket whistles over and falls within I 50 yards of our house. We found it fell In the garden, wiped out the outhouses and uprooted the air raid shelter. Five people were in Hi and two young children were unhurt, un-hurt, being covered by the adults. Two adults were badly injured and one less so. Ordering them to be put on stretchers I dashed up and brought Doris from her shelter to render some difficult first aid. She had a tin hat on, which was lucky, as we were down in the bomb crater and another big whistler came over and landed in the same garden, throwing soil and pebbles all over us. (parts deleted by censor). cen-sor). Picture to yourselves the scene: the dark night is light as day with flares, gun flashes, and a large fire about half a mile away; ear splitting split-ting detonations of guns, bombs, etc., the rattle of machine guns, crack of rifles, and the roar of the fighter planes searching for Jerry up above and sometimes the rattle of machine guns high above, and sometimes a brilliant flash and a roar as a Jerry is accounted for (there were 13 brought down this particular night) ; showers of shrap nell like hail. A modern battlefield is a terrible affair and it is the civilian population popula-tion who are in it, and sticking it marvelously. The bombing continues and we continue to round up t he wounded and administer first aid. Then the welcome "raiders passed" signal booms out and we troop back to the post. It is 4:30 a. in. We have a cup of tea and check out to sleep like a log for a couple of nonrp. Then off to work again and Ihe hum drum jobs. I have 30 voluntary volun-tary wardens at my post absolute ly the salt of the earth. Then we have 20 voluntary women wardens In the daytime, but fortunately Jerry doesn't dare anything here in the day time since, his decisive defeat over the channel in the bat tie of England last fall. I could of course go on giving you many Intere: ting episodes, but some of them would give information informa-tion away which would not do. If we are spared to come and see you after the war we shall be able to make your eyes "sland out like or gan stops.'' One old man of SO odd years who had lost his eye said, 'Thumbs up. what's an (-ye, I've got another, and we'll beat him yet !" That's about the spirit over here the peo pie are magnificent. |