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s i .Wednesday, January 7, 1942 THE FLESHERTON ADVANCE THE FLESNERTON ADVANCE Published on CoUiocwood Btrat, Flea*rtoa, Wednesday ol eMSi weak, Circulation over 1,000. Price in Canada SZ.oo pw year, hen paid in advance Si 60; in '.' 8. A. S20 per year, whn paid in advance $2.00. F. J. THUR8TON. Editor. Canadian Editors Were Bombed And Understand British Sentiment Cow Has Six Sides Writes Boy Seeing One For First Time An i-hsay on a cow, written by a 10-year-old boy from the sluing of London, has been released by Ern- est Brown, minister of health. The boy wa gent to the country where he saw a cow for the first time. "The cow is a mammal," he wrote "it has six sides, right and left and upper and below. At the back ithas a tail on which hanpes a brush. With this he sends flies away so they dont fall into the milk. The head is forthe purpose of growing horns and so his mouth can be somewhere. The horn.- ahe to butt and the mouth, to ' h&nges milk It ia arranged for milking. "When people milk, milk comesand there never is an end to the supply. How the cow does it I have not yet realized but it makes more and more. The cow has a fine sense of smelland one can smell it far away. This isthe reason for the fresh air in the coun- ry. A man cow is called anox. The cow does not eat twice so that it gets cow doe not eat much ibut what it enough. When it is hungry it moos and when it says nothing at all His because ite insides are fullup with gras*.* This is Uie sixth of a series of articles about conditions in Great Britain and other countries visit- ed recently by a group of twelve Canadian editors. It was written for the weekly newspapers by their own representative on the tour, Hugh Templin, -of the Fergus News-Record. As the days passed in Lendon and no German bomber came near the city* the Canadian editors grew restive and impatient. They did not want to go home again and have to admit that they had never heard a bomb burst in anger. Our hosts were most obliging in every way. If there was anything we wanted, we had only to ask the British Council, and it was arranged. We wanted to see the Canadian Corps in action and we saw it travelling over ;h,e countryside on large-scale man- oeuvers. We desired to meet Prime Minister Churchill face to face: in two days word came that we would not only meet him but we would also hear him speak in the House of Commons. We wanted to see a blitz but it seemed that the British Council wasn't able to manage that for us. after being blown out of his car one night. He didn't tell me 'till I asked him. The Savoy itself had six or seven bombs, one of which blew the end out of the restaurant. Canad- ian Military Headquarters in Cock- spur had suffered more than the Active Army in the field. So it went everywhere. At the Press Club one night, I listened to amazing stories of Fleet Street in the blitz. It had been hammered almost to destruction, when great land mine came floating down on a parachute. If it had gone off, every (Building for blocks around would have gone over like a row of domin- oes. The parachute caught on a wir e across the street and the gre^t land mine swung in the, breeze until the demolition squad took it care- fully down. Then there was the woman who sold purses to Major Christie and me in Liberty's. Somehow the talk drifted around to bombing. "I went home one night and the roof was off my house. The con- stable says to me that I can't go in there. I says, I am going in: I live here and by sister lives here and we're going to keep on living here. And we're there yet, though its in- One night, I sat in convenient in winter not having a the office of roof on vour no " e -" Mr. Robertson, editor of the Daily Express. A "The yellow messenger came in. light is on." That OUR PART What have you done to help in t'.e war? What have you done today? Have you knitted a bit on a warrior's sock, Or sewed at a seam on a British frock? Have you worked a row on an afghan block? What have you done today? What have you done to help in the war? What have you done today? Did you lend all yeu can to beat the Hun? Will you lend and give 'till victory is won? Is that what you'll do today? For over in Britain they fight and give That's what they do today! They knit and work as the days go by, While death comes down from an open sky; Why should we live while heroes die? Let us do what we can today. ELECTION Card of Thanks To Electors of Osprey: I take this means of thanking you for your splendid support at the polls on Monday. I will endeavor to serve you faithfully and well. Compliments of the reason to one and all. CLAYTON SPROTT ELECTION Card of Thanks To the Electors of Osprey: I take this opportunity of thank ing you for your hearty support at the Polls on Monday. Wishing you all the compliments of the season, I am, yours truly, W. C. McCUTCHEON. ELECTION Card of Thanks To the Electors of Osprey: I wish to express my appreciation of your splendid support at the Polls on Monday, by electing me as your Reeve for 1942. I will continue to carry on the work of the Town- ship to the best of my ability. I wish you all health, happincs and prosperity in the year which has just commenced. MORT. SAVERS. means that an enemy plane has crossed the coast somewhere. It happens nearly every night. A few minutes later, there was more ex- citement. The purple light had gone on. That indicated that the plane was headed definitely toward Lon- don. All over the city, in A.R.P. posts and newspaper offices, mem watched for the red light to come. That would be the one that would send the sirens screeching through the streets. There had been no red light for months. With the Watchers on the Roof The editor, who had graduated from the University of Toronto in 1914, thought we might see a raid after all, so we hurried up to the roof. George Drew was there and John Collingwood Reade, as well as several of our own party. With the light of electric torches, we went up metal stairs, past great tanks of water in the top storey and out on the roof, where two men in steel hats kept a constant vigil. I stayed with them for an hour but the Jerry never reached London, Out to the eastward we saw flashes from the anti-aircraft guns, but thai was all. The others went below bu1 I remained, listening to stories oi the days when London was the hot spot. These men, veterans of the last war, were in the thick of it then, but they had the same philos- ophy that carries all London through its dark hours; "If a bomb hasn't got your number on it, it won't gel you: if it has, it does not matter where you are." On my last night in London, came out of the brightness of th< Royal Automobile Club into the blackness of Pall Mall. For the firs time, I saw the long fingers of th searchlights waving across the Lon don sky. In daylight, I had seen the guns and the searchlights i Hyde Park, but this was the firs night there had been any sign o life. The purple light must have been on again. They faded out after awhile but walked hopefully along Pall Mai and through Trafalgar Square anc down the Strand, and nothing happened. It was nearly one o'clock when wakcnud suddenly in my bed in th Savoy. I thought I heard the gun going outside. Carefully, I wen into the bathroom, shut the door ELECTION Card of Thanks To the Electors of Osprey: It ii my wish to take this way in thanking my many supporters for electing me at the head of the Poll la the election on Monday. T will attempt (n every way possible to warrant the confidence yon have placed in me. Thank you. FRED HALE turned off tfie lights, opened th window and looked out. There was nothing to see and no guns to be heard. Hal/ an hour later, I wakened again and dressed. After all, it was my last night in London and one more walk in the blackout would be pleasant. But outside, all was still and I walked to Waterloo Bridge with two Canadian soldiers hurrying to catch a train, then went back to the hotel. Survivors of The BIltB It wasn't hard to get stories of the blits second hand. Nearly every- body had been bombed. Nobody tittafced about it. It fa welu before I knew that Toby O'Brien, oar host from the BrKteh Council, had hMn carried infto a hospital The amazing understatement of all these people was what impressed me. I found it, high and low. One night, a Canadian editor suggested to Col. Astor that we would like to see a bit of bombing. Said the Col- onel: "I would not advise it. We have found it a slightly uncongenial experience." On a Train in an Air Raid We left London on a Southern railway train without hearing a bomb burst. With their usual horoughness, the British Council ad reserved two compartments. Five editors took one of them: Major hristie, Grattan O'Leary and I had room to spare in the other. Out- side in the corridor, a man from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and his girl stood in the corridor We invited them in. The girl was able to knit by the dim radiance ol a tiny light in the compartment anc the man talked to us rather guardedly. We must have been near the South Coast when the train slowed to a crawl and the white light went out, leaving only one dim blue bulb burning. "You're in an air raid," the young soldier said. We didn't believe it. There had been too many false alarms. "All right," he said, "but if you hear machine guns, lie on the Ifoor.' It must have been nearly half an hour before the lights came on and the train speeded up. In no time we were out on the station platform at Bournemouth. An Imperial Air- ways officer was there to .greet us. "There has been an air raid, but the All Clear has just sounded." Perhaps he thought we looked disappointed. "No bonVbs were dropped." he added. Two Plane* Across the Sky Just then, two planes went over, quite low down. The long finger of a searchlight swept across, picking up one of them directly overhead. That was strange, I thought. They don't put searchlights on our planes. Could it be another German? Had they returned? Bishop Renison and Dave Rogers went away in the officer's ca". Tee other six of us piled into a station wagon and followed. A few blocks away, we came over the top of the hill and saw the Channel in the moonlight. Suddenly there was a terrific ex- plosion and a great fan of yellow- light covered must of the sky ahead. It had come. I knew it as surely as I knew we were in Bournemouth I Wasn't frightened in the least. That 'eems strange, looking back hut perhaps it was because we wer all newspaper men now, on the path of a big story. Not one of the others seemed nervous either. I thought: "This is better than any fin-works at the Toronto Exhibition." In less than a second, there was another blast. That made it cer- tain. I thought ol the words of the King: "We're all in the front line now. We are really Into it at last." I wondered what the driver of a car did in a bUt*. The driver seem- ed to wonder, too. An A.R.P. war- den on the corner shouted: "Put out that light." He might have been shouting at our driver (who didn't pay any attention) or at a boy with a white lamp on his bicycle. A Warm Welcome to Bournemouth Water seemed to pour down out of the sky ahead. It was incompre- hensible, (but the gutters were full on the sides of the road. For the first time somebody spoke: "He mutt have smashed a water main." lit wasn't until next morning I' heard about that. One bomb had burst in the sea and sent water into the gky for a quarter of a mile in- land. They were not bombs, either, it seemed, but two of the dreaded land mines that had floated down on great white parachutes and ex- ploded on the beach, one in the water and the other on the side of the cliff. Next morning, I picked up a pocketful of splinters and part of the parachute cord. The cord was over an inch in diameter. The mines must have weighed 1500 Ibs. each. The station wagon drew up at the Royal Bath Hotel and we stepped out on broken glass and entered. Inside, there was chaos. The Bishop and Mr. Rogers had been knocked over by the blast but were on their feet again. Two women were try- ing to calm little dogs. The door leading to the lounge had been blown loose from the stone archway, frame and all. There was no light except little penlights which we always carried. ! walked to the arch where the door mil been and stood beside a strang- er. We looked back into he huge lounge, and as we stood there, half the fancy plaster ceiling dropped past our faces. A few feet farther in and we would have had very sore heads, if not worse. My un- known friend said: "It's not too se- cure in here." I laughed. There it was again: that British under- statement. Four people in the hotel needed hospital care. One man was nearly scalped by flying glass. A young girl was carried out on a stretcher. She was not unconscious. Through it all, the old grandfather clock in the lobby kept going. The Airways people weighed us in the only room on the ground floor where a candle could be burned The lady who managed the hotel IMMMtMMMIMMIMMMMMMMMMMIIIMIMMIl ; Keep the New Year going right by having us sead The Advance to the one away from home V 'r - Where British Bombers Lose Scars of Battle brought excellent sandwiches and i A section of the f use l a ge of a coffee within an hour. She apolo- BriUgh "Wellington" Bomber under- gized because she had no beds for us. They were full of glass and most of the windows were out. treatment at the hands of an electric riveter. Usually rt takes , only five days for British bombers, Those on the side next the sea wei ! ; damaged during raids on enemy tar . gets or by forced landings on their be repaired and soaked with water. B. K. Sandwell and I decided to sleep on mattresses on tha floor. The lady manager led us upstairs with the occasional light of a torch. She apologized that we had to sleep on the floor. "You see," she said, We've been a bit pushed about here tonight!" There it was again! Half of her hotel had been wrecked. Plaster continued to fall here and there at intervals, yej they had been "pushed about!" After an hour or so, we slept well. The only disturbance was the sound of men shovellinp: up plate glass off the streets at night. Every window within a was gone, if it faced the sea. Five miles away, windows were cracked. When we came to think it over. we agreed that if the German had pulled his bomb lever half a second sooner, not one of us would have survived. Evidently those bombs did not have our number on them. Stories from Germany nay that Hitler is threatened with a break- down. That seems to be the trouble with his armies in Russia too. sent out on the job again with the Royal Air Force. The battle-scarred aircraft are taken to repair depots, where they are examined, stripped and overhauled. If the machine ! too badly damaged, they are never written off as lost, for all usable instruments- are removed, and the rest resmelted. . > British Bren Carriers Ford Rivers During tactical exercises in NurUi : involved the crossing of rivers, and ern Ireland, many new forms of land I here is a Bren gun carrier taking attacks weru practised. One oi ineu, part in the attack. British Super-Speed Bombers in Flight The British Handley Page Hamp- den high performance twin-engined aircraft is one of the fastest med- ium bom/be rs in the world, and has been used extensively by the R.A..F. warahr^s Scharnhorst and Gneiscnau in operations over German territory. This type of bomber took part in the big British attack on the German while they were lying in the barber at Bresty France.