Mishap in London

The German raid on London in retaliation for that on Berlin (see col. 1) was routine. Only a few planes got through. A tethered barrage balloon was shot down, another was shot free by British antiaircraft. There were very few casualties from bombing. But, on the night of the raid, 178 people died in an accident more gruesome than any of its kind since the Chungking dugout panic, when 461 were suffocated or crushed to death. This is what happened in London:

A woman waited in line to be let into the air-raid shelter. She had a baby in one arm, a satchel containing blankets, sandwiches and a thermos bottle in the other.

The line moved in good order, slowly, through the blackout. The woman reached the entrance, shifted her burden, showed her ticket and went inside. The shelter was one of the safest in London--a new subway station, not yet in service, with platforms which are some 60 feet below street level and can accommodate thousands. Down to the lower level ran a stairway with 22 steps, a landing with a turn, ten more steps. Some 2,000 had already gathered below.

The woman started down the steps. The crowd was thick around her. The lights were dim. She missed her footing. To save her baby from a fall, she clutched at the man in front of her. He was old and fell forward and knocked two over. They went down clawing and pulled others with them. Humanity cascaded on the stairs.

When the people below heard the screams and saw the heap, they thought a bomb had blocked the entrance. They made a rush for the stairs. At that very moment (here and only here did the war touch this accident) something in the sky over London frightened those who had not yet entered. Some said that it was the shriek of a dive-bomber, others that it was London's new anti-aircraft shell which sounds like "100 witches going overhead at 1,000 miles an hour." The people outside surged forward and pushed down the stairs.

The crowd on the stairs and on the landing were pressed together like stalks of sugar cane in a hydraulic press. They were crushed together that way for half an hour.

William Johnes, timekeeper, and his wife were veterans of the blitz. Ordinarily, they scorned shelters. This time his children, who had been evacuated during the blitz, were in town, and for their sakes he had decided to take cover. Mr. Johnes was carrying Peter, 7, in his arms. Patricia, 11, was just in front of him. June, 13, was behind.

"Me and my kids," Mr. Johnes remembered, "were about halfway down the steps when everybody up front stopped. People kept moving forward behind us. I didn't see the fall of the woman with the baby. . . . Some of us men shouted for them to move on down below, but we all got packed tighter and tighter. . . ."

People began to fight for escape. They climbed on those who had gone down, and the pile of the fallen grew waisthigh. Those who kept their feet were gripped by fear and the mob. Patricia screamed: "Daddy, I can't stand it any more, I'm dying." Mr. Johnes tried to shove and make room for her, but he was unable to move an inch. Finally Mr. Johnes grew faint, his arms grew numb. Peter slipped down along Mr. Johnes's body until the dead boy's feet touched the floor.

Wardens and police shouted instructions, but no one could hear because of the shrieks. Those who died erect were kept standing, and live men rubbed elbows with corpses.

The lights in the blacked-out entrance were turned on. The pressure slowly eased. The crowd thinned and the standing dead fell over. Men staggered out and spoke of what they had seen. A man named Davis said: "Although I was at Dunkirk I have never seen anything so terrible." John Quorn, 22, a worker who helped build the shelter, said: "The sight on the stairs was the most dreadful I ever saw." The sight included the dead bodies of his mother, sister, brother, nephew.

The woman who had first stumbled on the steps was carried up the stairs and through the entrance into the London night. Her face was pale and dazed. There was no satchel in her hand. Her arms were empty; her baby was dead.

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