Evening star., 1941-11-07

On my last night in Moscow the
raid did not start until 2 o'clock
had gone back to my room down
the hall and was fast asleep when
the sirens woke me. I went back
to the Caldwell apartment. We put
out all the lights and just sat there
until the warden came for us. Then
we told him in a very determined
voice that We were Americans and
that We were working. We did not
know how to say I'VE are working"
in Russian, so we said I'VE are
Americans and We do not under
stand Russian"-we knew how to
say that-and the word gazetta,
which means newspaper. This baf-
fled the warden. He came back sew
eral times at intervals of Is min
utes to half hour but finally gave
up.
After that he never bothered us,
and we used to order sandwiches
and beer at dinner time and set
them by in case there would be a
raid. When there was a raid we
all got together-Archie Steele OF
the Chicago Daily News usually
joined us-and after Peggy had set
her cameras on the balcony with
their shutters open, we all sat down
and ate the sandwiches and drank
the beer and waited for the planes.
Sometimes we had raspberries and
sour cream instead Of sandwiches.
Once the American Ambassador
gave us a bottle of whisky, and we
drank that. Every once in a while
one of us would get up and go out
on the balcony to see If We could
see or hear the show starting.
Air Attack Described.
1t would begin way out on the
edge of the city. and sometimes
you could see the flick of the burst
ing shells before you could hear any
sound or see any searchlightS.
These must have been fired way over
the horizon. 1t was always exciting
when they came nearer, for the
searchlights would 60 on and the
firing would grow from a rumble
to a bedlam of barks, crashes, whines
and roars. The big square made
everything echo.
The barrage was very heavy. II
plane got in over the city the
Russians seemed to let the whole
thing go at once-guns on top OF
every building for miles. They fired
so continuously that all the noises
got mixed up-the crash of guns,
the plop OF the shells from the sky,
the screech of the shells going up
and the clatter of the shrapnel COM
ing down, the echoes of all these
sounds, and the rat-tat-tat OF the
machine guns and the different
sounds the different calibers Of
Zenith guns made.
1t all blurred into a continuous
roaring, and crashing and whirring
and tinkling. The shrapnel would
come down In such rain that where
it struck sparks from the pavement
in the square it looked like fireflies.
When a piece of shrapnel fell close
to the balcony it made a noise like
OdC 1y AlS ILL Ou6ll VIC Oil
Then you had to decide whether
it was safe to stay on the balcony.
even if you wore a special helmet
the government had given Erskine.
1t had wide steel skirt on it which
protected ones shoulders. 1t was so
heavy no one wanted to wear it for
more than a few minutes.
We saw no bombs drop.
Loud Speaker Gives Signal.
Sirens like those in London an
nounce the alarm, but do not sound
the all-clear. The all-clear comes
over a city-wide loud speaker system
and echoes through the deserted
streets and squares.
Moscow's afraid precaution sys-
tenn has functioned smoothly since
the first day of the war-except on
that wonderful night when the all
clear came around midnight, People