Visitor to Shanghai Tells of Marvellous Spirit and the Will to Win By Raum snaw Shanghai, Feb. 2. 66 AS far as the ordinary man and' woman, especially those who have suffered during recent air raids, are concerned there will be no-peace until Hitler is defeated."
From the most humble of workers in England to the highest in the land these are the sentiments that are being expressed throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain today despite all that the Germans have done to break the moral of Britons as they broke the moral of others.
This news was imparted to me a few days ago by a man who had seen Londoners, Liverpudlians, Mancunians and others stand up to the worst that the Luftwaffe could hand out. He had seen them bombed out of their homes and take it with a smile on their faces. He had seen their fearlessness amid the frightful din of crashing bombs. He had seen the Britain that Hitler cannot defeat, It had filled him with pride to be able to call himself a compatriot of such folks, he proudly told me.
Many and inspiring were the stories he told of the heroism and unshakeable faith of Britons in their country, whose ultimate victory was Fever in doubt. He, too, as a'member of the British 'Merchant Navy, had faced danger from bombs and torpedoes, but of his own bravery he was loath to speak, Instead he gave me a vivid picture of England.as he found it during a month's stay' there quiet recently when the German alr force unleashed some exceptionally intense raids on London and other centres.
For instance he mentioned a friend of his in London, who had been ren= dered homeless by the explosion of 14_mine dropped by a German plane, This brave fellow, it appears, was in bed with his wife and young daughter during a heavy raid. Upon hearing the deadly" missile drop through the alr in' the vicinity of hig home he immediately ung him= salt over the bodies of wife and child, Suddenly there was a tre~ mendous explosion and the door of the room came hurtling across the bed, covering all three people. Then down came the celling, bricks and mortar. When they were dug out by Fescuo workers not one of the three people" was injured—thanks, to the 'The gas stove was' found intact in the middle of the street and, upon its discovery, there happend ' something that proves such Nazi methods wil! never beat the British people. The wife shortly before the raid had placed a rice pudding, which was to he cooked on the morrow, in the stove. Upon reaching the street her frst action was not a hysterical one 8 one would have expected after such an experience—she opened the oer of the stove quite calmly and looked to see if her pudding had es. caped unharmed, Needless to say it had not.
That fainnly of three was rendered. homeless. "For weeks that followed they lived at night in one of the shelters but in the daytime the wife hod bad the stove put back in its proper place and she was busy cooking the family meals as if nothing had happened. And she enjoyed the Joke one afternoon when a genial old gentleman poked his head through a hole in the wall and blandly informed her that he had come to "toon the planer" as ordered, "You'll find it Somewhere in the garden," she told him, "If you can tune it now you're better than I thought you were'
Then there was the story of. the naval pensioner, a watchman on hips in the London docks. His home was near the arsenal at Woolwich. 9 target the Germans often aimed at Dut always seemed to miss. He had been bombed out of house and home end had slept for several nights under Silvertown arches. Was he dismayed? Not in the least.
A Sharp Retort suppose you've gone to live somewhere quieter now?" he was asked when it had become known that he had secured another house which to dwell. "Not on: your ites" was his reply. "I've lived in Woolwich for twenty odd years, and no—Nazi alive "get me out of it' the night that my informant's ship docked in London there was a Merce Nazi raid in which his ship was hit and in which the true worth of seafarers in danger was proved: 'The bomb hit the deck, pierced it and smashed through the' cargo in the holds. "Luckily it did not explode but for all the crew knew at the time, it might have been a delayed action ing. They carried on with their jobs even though threatened with death Yad the missile exploded. Luckily it was a dud and did Tittle damage to the ship or the cargo.
At this point another seafarer, who had been on deck at the time, joined fin the conversation. When the raid was most intense, he said, there had assed by the ship a lorry load of APS. workers, all singing at the top of their voices." Their destination was 'a bombed area in dockland and their song, curiously enough (probably a theme song) "Keep the Home Fires Burning." Before morning came they. had been working for hours to put ut one of the "home fires" they had een singing about.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.