|
COVENTRY HOMELESS SLEPT BY ROADSIDE THIS MORNING NOT A MORTAL BLOW ~ WORK WILL RESTART Coventry has been the victim of the most concentrated, if not the worst, raid since the war began. I have just come back from the center of the City, which now looks exactly like one of those French towns that were laid level during the last war by an intensive bombardment. The cathedral is in ruins, except for its tower, and over a large area surrounding it there lies the stench of burning houses. The number of casualties cannot yet be determined, but it is certainly large. (Preliminary reports, says the Ministry of Home Security, indicate that the number of casualties may number 1,000.) The damage which has been inflicted on this city must run into millions of pounds. I was told by one of the inhabitants that the noise of falling bombs was practically continuous, and that after a short time everyone was literally dazed by the noise. I approached the city from Rugby, and a few miles out of Coventry I encountered the first large body of refugees walking along the roadside exactly as the Belgians and French escaped from the last German invasion. Children were being carried in their fathers' arms, and pushed along in perambulators. Luggage was piled high in perambulators. There were suitcases and bundles on people's shoulders; little families trudged along hand in hand with rugs, blankets, and, in fact, anything they could have saved from their ruined homes. UNDER THE HEDGEROWS Nevertheless, those with motor cars will be luckier than those without. For despite the hospitality of surrounding towns and villages, it will have been impossible for everyone to get a bed or even shelter. I saw several people making preparations to lie down under the leeside of buildings or against hedgerows. Very soon after the raid began the Germans succeeded in starting their first large fire, and from then onwards they had no difficulty in sighting their targets. Fires in the center of the city multiplied and spread rapidly despite the most magnificent work by the fire brigades' auxiliary fire services and the A.R.P. - indeed, all the services which could be called out to deal with this tragedy. I was a miracle that the firemen confined the fires as they did. In one place they had to blow up a large building with dynamite to check the path of the flames. Extra police and A.R.P. also rushed in. Every conceivable assistance to Coventry has been rendered by her neighbors. But nothing can minimize the appalling extent of the tragedy, which has rendered scores of thousands of people homeless and severely damaged the heart of the city. On my way to the cathedral I encountered a girl of, perhaps, 12 years of age, and I asked her what she was doing. The air was thick with smoke and a fire was still blazing in a house not 20 yards away. "Oh," she said, "I'm just having a look around." I asked her where she was going to sleep that night and she replied, "Why? Here, of course. We were lucky." "Have you got any water or gas?" I asked. "No," she said, "but we'll do some cooking on an oil stove and the water will turn up from somewhere. WORKMEN WERE THERE Then she admitted with a smile that she had been very frightened last night and resumed her tour of inspection. There was, of course, no work done in Coventry to-day, largely owing to the failure of the power supplies, though I understand there are some factories which manufactured their own electricity. Nevertheless, the workmen were there, ready to start again if it had been possible. This is not a mortal blow to our war production by any means, and I should not be surprised if quite soon work is resumed in Coventry to some extent. The authorities are doing everything possible to get homeless people and refugees out of the city into neighboring towns and rest centers, but their main difficulty is with transport. There is nothing like enough transport for the people who wish to be moved, and the result, as I have said, is in these pathetic streams of refugees walking along the roads. Nevertheless, the spirit of the people, without any exaggeration, is magnificent. I even saw many smiles. In every heart there is no fear, only a most passionate hatred of the enemy, and a determination to carry on at all costs. In fact, the spirit of battered Coventry was very well expressed by a Union Jack which I observed stuck over the shattered doorway of an otherwise completely ruined building. Rescue and demolition work continued late to-night beneath a cloudy sky which came as a sardonic compensation for the brilliant moonlight of Thursday's terrible experience. The walls of a burnt-out house still stood, but the interior had collapsed in a welter of beams and rafters. It belonged to an A.R.P. warden who returned from his work to find it on fire. When I met him he was grimy and exhausted, but as resolute as ever. Some of his furniture had been rescued and piled in a neighbor's yard. "NICE MESS" He gestured towards it. "A nice mess, eh?" he said. Then his wife appeared with an urgent summons to come and have a cup of tea. She was making a brave attempt - almost successfully - to conceal how much she had been shaken. On the opposite side of the street was a block of houses reduced to mere rubble. Part of the rear walls were standing. The rest was a cascade of bricks and timber that spilled over the pavement. One large commercial building was roofless and battered, and I saw a block of shops and offices with windows wrenched out of the walls. The outskirts of the city escaped comparatively lightly, though there were bomb craters. As reported by the Daily Herald
|