Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1941-03-15
Bombs Dropping on London Sound Like Wall of Tortured
Woman; Crushed Ambulance Girl Thinks Only of Others
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A vivid firsthand account Of life
In London under German bomb
lngs Is given in a letter received
by Julia Norton McCorkie, assist
ant professor of English at the
University Of Southern California.
Part Of the letter, written by a
young business man Miss McCOrkie
and her mother met in London
while wintering there three years
ago, follows:
Dear Mrs. McCorkle and Miss Nc
Corkle: AS I write, IN the morning
there Is an air raid going on, the sec
ond today. The guns are making quite
q lot of noise, but not so near that
we deem 1t necessary to do anything
about taking cover. There Is a roof
spotter who win blow his whistle when
he considers the danger to be rather
imminent, and then the staff VIII go
quietly down to another floor where
there is an air raid shelter. For my
self, I am quite convinced that any
one part of this building Is as strong
or weak as any other part, and as
dislike shelters very much indeed, I
obStinately stay where am and carry
on with my work.
''You say that you listen to aero
planes overhead and try to imagine
what it must be like when they are
hostile ones. Let me try TO give you D
pen picture Con the typewriter) Of
what it is actually like to be in q
London air raid. viii only deal with
night raids, because. daylight raids
don't worry us any more. Let us there
fore take an average night raid on
London, the kind of thing we have en-
dured and become used to for about
four months.
Moaning Minnie"
soon after dark you win hear the
air raid warning, affectionately re-
ferred to as Moaning Minnie. This is
q factory hooter of rather high pitch
with an undulating tone, dying away
to almost nothing and rising again to
a high-pitched crescendo, only to die
away once more. These are situated at
certain points throughout Greater
London and operate more or less
simultaneously. They wall for a min
ute and then die away altogether.
There will then be dead silence prob
ably for a minute or two. But soon you
will hear the distant, rather uneven
throb of planes, and the anti-aircraft
guns go into action. At first they are
some little way away and sound like
a banging door, but as the planes get
until they sound as If they are firing
from your back doorstep.
1.-THE noise and vibration Is terrific,
like the most violent thunder storm
you've probably ever been through, and
then some.
Unpleasant Sound
For about 80 seconds after the gun
has fired you can hear the shell rush.
ing through the air like an express
train, gradually dying away into the
distance. Three minutes later the frag-
ments from that shell will be dropping !
down again and they are things to
avoid Sharp-edged and sometimes Ii
feet long, they are deadly If they hit
anybody direct. Our ears, however, are !
cooked for other noises. We listen for /
the sound of bomb on its way down /
ward BY that sound we can tell lot /
Of things. Whether it is near enough |
to justify turning your face away from
the glass, or even to warrant throwing /
yourself down on the floor with your
face In the carpet This is a foolish
game and only practiced in private
amongst intimate friends or wives and
husbands.
Land Mine Is Worse
1.-THE noise of q dropping bomb is
very unpleasant, like a last Shrek of
3 tortured woman, coming nearer and
nearer until it ends with tremendous
A land mine is even worse,
because it is sent down on parachute