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W. Earl Hall World War II stories, 1944
Letter #41
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slug-Pinas on Big -4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 41 London, England--It is rather generally agreed here that if the robot bombs with which London has been visited since June 15 has come in 1940 along with the blitz bomb assault on this great sprawling city, it would have been impossible for even a courageous people to stand up under the siege. That happens to be my own belief and I was strengthened in this belief last night when, with Col. Ronald F. Fallows of Mason City, Maj. R. F. Kennedy of Cedar Rapids and my mid-western newspaper colleague, Fred Christopherson of Sioux Falls, I was privileged to visit the subterranean control center from which both blitz bombs and flybombs were combatted. Deep below the murky Thames nearby, I watched a large staff of women telephone operators in constant touch with every section of greater London, we well as with the coastal points over which the buzz bombs must pass in their piggy-back launching from over the North sea. But the thing that attracted my attention was a giant map on one of the walls. It was literally filled with broad-headed pins--2,308 of them, each showing the exact spot where a robot bomb had fallen on London. On the head of each pin was a number indicating the date, with respect to June 15, of every bomb that had fallen. There were 9 pins of a distinctive coloring. I could only guess what they represented. No area of this great city has been free from these devilish bombs. But the area south of the Thames, in the direction of the launching platforms in the Pas-de-Calais country, has an inordinate number of the pins. That's why it came to be know as "bomb alley." In another room in the same lower level I was shown maps revealing how London in the time since the 1940 blitz has extended its water protection through a maze of great pipelines and by thousands of "static" tanks. Then I was privileged to see the fire department's own unexpurgated films of the 1940 blitz--as fine a saga of human courage and endurance as I've ever seen. It was then that block upon block in the region about St. Paul's cathedral was laid waste--by bomb and fire but more by fire. From that grim experience, the London authorities resolved never to be caught twice by the same Nazi trickery. Goering's bombers had struck when the Thames was at low tide. The fires spread because there was a water shortage. In my first few days here--even when the bombs were falling about me, right and left--I wrote a bit disparagingly about the effectiveness of the robots. That wouldn't be my attitude today, on the eve of my departure. Then I hadn't gone through the residential sections where the single bomb has brought destruction to upwards of a dozen homes and damage, in varying degrees, to as many as 200 homes. I was judging by the damage wrought in business sections where buildings are steel-reinforced. I once was on the scene 3 minutes after a robot landed squarely on a newly completed business building 2 blocks from my hotel. It was true, as I reported then, that a sizable crew of masons, carpenters and glaziers could have the building fully repaired in one week's time. But residences, even of brick or stone construction, are something quite different. I hesitate to think what would happen if a robot bomb fell in a Mason City residential section where houses are of wood. The plain fact, made plainer by my visit last night to this fire control center, is that flybombs have wrought tremendous damage in London--staggering damage. Thousands of homes have been destroyed, more thousands--hundreds of thousands--severely damaged. Only a brave people, such as the Londoners have proved themselves to be, could stand up. The whole world stands eternally in their debt. A salute too, to London's firemen--regular and volunteer, to those who flew the spitfires out over the channel, to those who manned the ack-ack guns in the costal area and, not least, those thousands of barrage balloons which were a last line of defense against the robots. -- 30 --
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slug-Pinas on Big -4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 41 London, England--It is rather generally agreed here that if the robot bombs with which London has been visited since June 15 has come in 1940 along with the blitz bomb assault on this great sprawling city, it would have been impossible for even a courageous people to stand up under the siege. That happens to be my own belief and I was strengthened in this belief last night when, with Col. Ronald F. Fallows of Mason City, Maj. R. F. Kennedy of Cedar Rapids and my mid-western newspaper colleague, Fred Christopherson of Sioux Falls, I was privileged to visit the subterranean control center from which both blitz bombs and flybombs were combatted. Deep below the murky Thames nearby, I watched a large staff of women telephone operators in constant touch with every section of greater London, we well as with the coastal points over which the buzz bombs must pass in their piggy-back launching from over the North sea. But the thing that attracted my attention was a giant map on one of the walls. It was literally filled with broad-headed pins--2,308 of them, each showing the exact spot where a robot bomb had fallen on London. On the head of each pin was a number indicating the date, with respect to June 15, of every bomb that had fallen. There were 9 pins of a distinctive coloring. I could only guess what they represented. No area of this great city has been free from these devilish bombs. But the area south of the Thames, in the direction of the launching platforms in the Pas-de-Calais country, has an inordinate number of the pins. That's why it came to be know as "bomb alley." In another room in the same lower level I was shown maps revealing how London in the time since the 1940 blitz has extended its water protection through a maze of great pipelines and by thousands of "static" tanks. Then I was privileged to see the fire department's own unexpurgated films of the 1940 blitz--as fine a saga of human courage and endurance as I've ever seen. It was then that block upon block in the region about St. Paul's cathedral was laid waste--by bomb and fire but more by fire. From that grim experience, the London authorities resolved never to be caught twice by the same Nazi trickery. Goering's bombers had struck when the Thames was at low tide. The fires spread because there was a water shortage. In my first few days here--even when the bombs were falling about me, right and left--I wrote a bit disparagingly about the effectiveness of the robots. That wouldn't be my attitude today, on the eve of my departure. Then I hadn't gone through the residential sections where the single bomb has brought destruction to upwards of a dozen homes and damage, in varying degrees, to as many as 200 homes. I was judging by the damage wrought in business sections where buildings are steel-reinforced. I once was on the scene 3 minutes after a robot landed squarely on a newly completed business building 2 blocks from my hotel. It was true, as I reported then, that a sizable crew of masons, carpenters and glaziers could have the building fully repaired in one week's time. But residences, even of brick or stone construction, are something quite different. I hesitate to think what would happen if a robot bomb fell in a Mason City residential section where houses are of wood. The plain fact, made plainer by my visit last night to this fire control center, is that flybombs have wrought tremendous damage in London--staggering damage. Thousands of homes have been destroyed, more thousands--hundreds of thousands--severely damaged. Only a brave people, such as the Londoners have proved themselves to be, could stand up. The whole world stands eternally in their debt. A salute too, to London's firemen--regular and volunteer, to those who flew the spitfires out over the channel, to those who manned the ack-ack guns in the costal area and, not least, those thousands of barrage balloons which were a last line of defense against the robots. -- 30 --
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