ENCHESTER, one of Britain's most important industrial centres, was turned into an inferno last night and the carly morning light today revealed it to be a city pitted with craters ud. whole blocks of ruins as a result of the devastating raid car-vied out against it by hundreds of German bombers.
The centre of the city was the chief target last night of the hundreds of German craft that rained thousands of incendiary and high explosive bombs, converting the area into a terrific conflagra~ tion that caused whole blocks in the business district to be razed to the ground, Many were killed in the streets and hundreds were reported hopelessly burled in ruins throughout the city. Sixty persons were trapped in one hotel alone.
"The Germon planes swept over the city' in wave after wave, spreading their bombs apparently without concentrating on any part of the city.
Manchester this morning was a charred skeleton of its former self many spots, for the huge tres caused Inst night took a terrible toll in destroying buildings and homes.
"The city was still thick with the pall of smoke and firemen were still turning their hoses on stubborn, smouldering heaps of debris that once were some. of the city's finest offices and buildings.
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