The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-09-17

age In others. buC as the perspective, emphasis must be placed on London's power of resistance. It would be perfectly possible for a stone-deaf person, unable to near the internal racket each night, Wno lived and worked within certain sec tions of the city, to have gone through the last 10 days without Knowing anything about what had happened and without having ex- uerienced any inconvenience beyond the late delivery of his morning paper.
 A group of neutrals got together to roughly estimate the damage. Al! of them had seen many sectlons oA London since the attacks began:
 They estimated that 2,OOO buiid- ings of all kinds had been destroyed, 3.0OO seriously damaged and 1O,OOO damaged to the extent of holes n walls, loose bricks, vanished rooi tiles or shattered glass.
 There are probably more than 100000 structures of all kinds m Greater London. That would mean that Is per cent of all buildings naa been damaged and that l-5 of ! percent had been destroyed; that at the present rate it would take about one year and 10 months to damage every building in London and about 14 years to level it as the Germans have threatened to do, assuming that no repair or building work was fan,1A meantime
 What Raiders Did
 The following results have been accomplished by the raiders:
 l-Serious damage to large sec tions of the dock area in the east end as well as to the small residence and small shop streets surrounding it.
 Considerable traffic dislocation both of railroads and Subways as well as of street traffic = disloca- ton, not stoppage. Some rail serV- ices have been suspended pending repairs of direct hits on tracks, to the inconvenience of commuters but not to the point of cutting them oil from the city. One big rail station has lost considerable glass from its doomed trainshed because of nearby concusSions. Not one big station has suffered a direct hit. At many spots main road traffic must swing out to skirt bomb craters. Repair gangs work day and night. Mean while the traffic moves on. The worst snarl was caused by the time bomb outside St. Pauls Cathedral because traffic between east anc weat ends swirls through the already congeSted ''city" area around the base of Wren's masterpiece. Traffic now is almost normal. Some streches of the subway are closed in almost all cases because buildings above or nearby have been damaged not because of damage to the lines
 In all cases there has been soms alternative route.
 3-No public utility has been pu' out of commission for any length o1 time in any large area. It is obvt' olls that if 1000 bombs are dropped in . single night there are bound t be some telephone and power line: down, some gas and water mains cut some sewage pipes broken. Anyone who has ever watched the constant tearing up of any big city's streets for repairs knows how often thai happens in normal times. One resi-. dential section was without watel for three days and is still without gas. That is exceptional, due to : very lucky hit.
 4The life of nearly everyone 1T London has been disrupted to on' extent or another by lost work, loS sleep, damp cold nights in garder shelters or hot stuffy nights 1T some apartment house basement. II thousands of cases jobs have beer bombed out of existence but the vas majority of homeless concerns carr! on somehow. Nobody likes bomb ing, but nobody I have talked t intends to let 1t get him down.
 The most cheerful feature of thu "battle for London = comparattvel. small amount of damage the bomb l apt to do = arises from the Englisl passion for living in house with garden. This scatters homes over wider area than in any other capi tai. Greater London's total area 1 692 square miles more than 2 miles by 25 miles in area. only | per cent of 1t is built up. The re mainder is in streets, parks, play grounds and private gardens. Evel the l2O square miles of the count. of London is only 22 per cent occu pied by buildings and this include the close built east end and the con \ gested "city".
 Two-story house fronts often forn