Evening star., 1940-10-09
Nozis Renew London Assault;
Many Die as Bombs Shotter
HosDito| and Air Raid Shelter
108 in Three Wards
All Feared Killed
Or Injured
(Picture on Page Az
BY the Associated Press.

LONDON. Oct. 9-Flying in loose
formation to out-Smart the cltYs
growing anti-aircraft defense. as
many as a dozen Nazi planes were
counted over London at one time
this afternoon in the continuing
siege of the city
The planes looked like miniature
white crosses against the blue sky,
with the puffs of anti-aircraft fire
dotting their trail No sound of
bombs could be heard above the
firing of the ground guns.
After a particularly heavy burst
of the "archies" one plane. flying
lower than the others, turned off
and made toward the coast-possibly
damaged.
This afternoon the sun had cleared
away the clouds that hid raiders in
their first daylight followup to over
night assaults in which heavy bombs
smashed an air raid shelter and
three wings of a hospital housing
108 patients, most of them in their
eighties
None in the hospital were believed
to have escaped either death or
injury. Eight persons were killed
In the shelter and an undetermined
number injured
The bombed hospital was described
as possibly the hardest-hit building
in London where the raiding up to
midnight was reported to be the
most severe the city has undergone.
Coast Town Dive-Bombed.
Two out of three German planes
which raided south coast town
were shot down after a series of
low-f1ying attacks in which resi-
dents said they machine-gunned the
streets and killed at least three
persons.
One plane, hit by anti-aircraft
fire, fell in a park with bombs still
aboard and the explosion blew the
plane to bits, killed its crew and
damaged chapel and several resi-
dences.
The first daylight alarm was
sounded some time after sounds of
distant firing, apparently high above
the clouds. were heard in London.
Ten high-explosive bombs fell in
one southeast district when a forma-
ton of Messerschmitts dived out of
the clouds. Two houses were
wrecked and six damaged before
British fighters drove the raiders
off.
Several persons were believed
trapped in the debris of houses on
London's outskirts, bombed in early
afternoon by single raider, which
dumped six bombs.
In the main streets of one town
In the metropolitan area men and
women fell fiat on their faces when
four bombs were dropped A few
houses were wrecked and several
persons injured.
Balloon Shot Down.
Three MeSSerschmitts dived over
Dover Harbor and shot down one
bag in the ports balloon barrage.
After the night attacks glass
strewn streets, heaps of rubble that
had been homes and workshops. and
lengthening casualty lists were re-
ported from 102 sections of England.
Thirty EIGHT of the areas of new
bomb-Wrought devastation were i'll
London, which again bore the fullest
force of the bombings that started
Engiand's third month of severe air
siege.
Next to London, the hardest hit
area was the tattered triangle down
the Thames to the barbed- wired
guarded southeast coast.
In all, the overnight alarm in Lon
don did not last as long as the night
before which was the longest of the
war.
Early Attack Most Severe.
Until midnight. however, observ-
ers in London said, the attack sur
passed any the city has undergone
previously in the early night. Raid
ers crossing the coast in groups of
30 famed out over the Thames, then
dived through the London anti-air-
craft barrage one at time.
Much of the time a dozen or more
bombers were over the city stimuli
taneously. Sometimes bombs
screamed down four or five a min
ute. "Molotoff breadbaskets" of in
cendiary bombs dumped in the sub
urbs lighted the way for the attack.
After midnight fewer and fewer
planes were heard over Central
London, the bombings eaSed off, and
the city was quiet before dawn.
Fires were started in London and
It's suburbs, where hundreds of
bombs were said to have fallen in
the first hours of the attack. A child
was killed and several other persons
were injured when a single bomb
wrecked a row of homes.
Casualties were reported in Essex
and towns elsewhere in Southeastern
England where homes we're smashed.
The streets of one town were said to
have been raked by machine-gun
bullets. In west country town a
public shelter was hit.