The Waterbury Democrat., 1940-11-15
Historic City Badly
 Wrecked By Bombers
(Continued From Page D

The glare was brighter than the moon.
 "Stabbing through the smoke searchlights tried to catch the raid CTS in their beams. Many flares were dropped on and around the target area. There was an incessant crackle of rife and machinegun f1rt as attempts were i::ade to shoot out the flares.
 "As the raid continued, the ail seemed to be filled with the noise oi planes diving repeatedly and re. leasing more high explosives and in. cendiaries.
 Tt seemed that most of the bombs hit non-military objectives."
 Famed In Legends
 The city chosen by the Na1s for their revenge is famed in both his- tory and legend. In olden times il was walled, with 12 gates. It had few medieval traces left, but many buildings of the reformation period still stood. A popular phrase ito send to Coventry"-to refuse to associate with person-derives from the city but the derivation has been forgot ten.
 Coventry is 85 miles northwest of London. Its population is 167,000 Once it was famous for its manu- lecture of Coventry Blue" thread It had famous pageants including the Triennial procession honoring Lady Godiva, the lady who rode nude on horseback, who unwittingly tempted "Peeping Tom of Coventry into an indiscretion.
 The home security ministry said last nights attack on Coventry was comparable to the heaviest night attacks ever visited on London.
 Survivors Stunned
 The survivors of the Nazi air fury today wandered through broker streets and row after row of house. and buildings shattered to match. wood and rubble by the explosion oi thousands of bombs.
 The history of this present day in. dustrial center of l67 900 population dates back to a medieval past frightened by the famous ride oi Lady Godiva clad only in her golden hair.
 Today 1t had joined the company of such targets of the German luft- waffe as Warsaw and Rotterdam.
 All night long the attack contin. ued relentlessly. Nazi bombers roaree over in formations that swooped ir dive bombing attacks every three minutes, released their cargo of ex. plosives and zoomed again to heaC back to a home base.
 Literally thousands of high explo. Sive bombs and incendiary missiles rained down upon hospitals churches, hotels, theaters, banks stores, offices and lock-after-blo of homes of Coventry's thousands oi ] factory workers and middle class
 miles.
 Every Street Hit
 Today 1t seemed that every street in the city was pocked by bomt craters. In some places the bombs had fallen so thickly that it was al- most impossible to tell where the street once had been and where the rows of little houses had stood.
 Observers could stand on long streets and as far as the eye could see every house on both sides had been damaged or blasted to bits by bombs.
 In the heart of Coventry there stood at sunset last night a cath edral-St. Michael's-a masterpiece of the light and lacely Gothic. Its central tower rose 303-feet from the pavement, a marker plainly visible over the low roof-tops of houses and factories.
 Today that tower, Spattered and pock marked, still stood but the rest of the cathedral was pile of mor- tar glass, timbers and dust at the towers foot.
 Rescue workers rushing into the stricken town from the adjoining in- dustrial cities of the western mid- lands-a region comparable to that of Pittsburgh Or northern Ohio ir the United States-said the towr looked as though 1t had been shaker to pieces by an earthquake.
 Stricken By Tragedy
 Through the streets people wan. dered, many of them walking about with the aiinless, vacant stare oi those stricken by a tragedy which the mind could not yet comprehend Some stood beside the few relics oi their household goods. snatchec from Q burning home amid the rain of bombs and anti-aircraft shrapnel during the hours before dawn.
 Others poked about in the jumblec wreckage Of what had been theil homes. looking for some few articles which might be salvaged.