DEATH OF A TOWN
By MARTIN LINDSAY
FOR a week we had been disembarking troops and unloading stores at Namsos. The work was all done at night, and at daybreak the ships had moved out of the fjord. Everything was hidden away, and the gang planks and other harbour tackle were replaced precisely as before. But we thought that it was only a matter of time before the continual air re- connaissances would discover our existence and our base would be bombed. For this reason most sensible people were living on the outskirts of the town, though some were still staying at the so-called Grand Hotel, which was but fifty yards—in fact, just a bomb's miss—from the jetty.
Whenever aircraft was seen the church bells were rung. They were rung as usual at 9 a.m. on April zoth, but, except that those who were in the streets went indoors, nobody took any notice, so accustomed were we to air reconnaissance. Breakfast at the Grand Hotel was suddenly interrupted by the deafening explosion of a bomb bursting close outside it ; the whole house shook, and several windows splintered. There was a rapid consultation as to the best course of action. Some were for running out of the town, and others for going down into the cellar. An officer looked down the steps leading to it, and said not for him at any price. Meanwhile bombs fell, one or two every minute, but though they were obviously fairly near it was impossible to tell in which direction they were bursting. For half an hour people stood in the hall or sat on the stairs, still discussing where to go. By this time the bombardment was getting so hot that something more than debate was clearly called for. A naval officer went down into the cellar and was killed when the hotel received a direct hit a few minutes later. The others ran out and succeeded in getting clear of the town by stages. A friend of mine was dodging up the main street when he saw a Heinkel in front of him release four bombs simultaneously, all falling in his direction. He crouched in a doorway as they burst one block behind him. At this time we had no anti-aircraft guns, so the enemy were able to fly as low, as slow, and wherever they liked. Low planes machine-gunned people as they ran up the streets and made their way out to the woods.
It is difficult to assess the casualties. The main attack in the morning was upon the railway station and quay, and most people undoubtedly got clear of the town, though no doubt a number were trapped in buildings and cellars. Most of us have come to the conclusion that cellars should be avoided at all costs if the enemy are bombing, though they provide good shelter from machine-gunning. All are agreed that a wood is the ideal form of cover ; at the very worst you must have at least a rabbit's chance. Machine-gunning from the air is disconcerting, but very seldom seems to have any other appreciable effect. I myself was fired at five or six times in a fortnight, but I believe they missed by at least fifty yards on each occasion. No form of marksmanship can be more difficult than shooting from a moving aeroplane at a usually moving target. It is often hard to know at what a plane, however low, is firing. A good soldier once told me that the great thing in war is to get rid of one's conceit, and that once one has realised that the enemy is probably firing at somebody else, one's offensive power is enormously increased. The bombing continued intermittently throughout the morn- ing at the rate of about fifty bombs an hour, the enemy coming over in waves. Sometimes there was a lull of fifteen or twenty. minutes. There was also a longish break when they returned to Trondheim for lunch. In the afternoon, satisfied with the damage to the station and harbour, they attacked the re- mainder of the town in earnest. A large number of incendiary bombs were dropped, and as most of the houses and shops were made of wood huge fires were soon blazing everywhere. One has heard many stories of the quiet heroism, tragedy, and even comedy that took place during this awful day. Four Frenchmen, because they had been told to do so, manned the fire station throughout the bombardment ; two of them were killed or injured. Two others, official photographers, remained in the church tower all morning, taking a film. A friend of mine heard that some suspected Nazi sympathisers were still in the gaol. An inner door barred his way to the cells. In the best cinema tradition he fired his revolver at the lock, but the bullet only ricocheted round the room, nearly hitting him in the back. Just then a man ran in to say that the prisoners had all been evacuated, and that the roof was falling in. In the middle of the fiery furnace one man took shelter in a refrigerator and froze to death. Another hid all day in three feet of water in an open grave in the churchyard. Most people huddled under trees and rocks just outside the town, crouching under any cover available, holding their breath dur- ing the whistle of each falling bomb, and shuddering as it detonated ; several grazed their faces trying to get closer into the rocks in their anxiety to avoid that rain of death. To add to their misery it was bitterly cold and damp.
About six o'clock a snowstorm put an end to the bombing, and a few people began to trickle slowly back to sec what had happened to their property. The fires raged all that night and next day, and when they burnt out the centre of the town had been, quite literally, razed to the ground, and now looks like the pictures one has seen of Ypres after two years' shelling. You can stand in what was formerly the High Street and look all round for two hundred yards or so, and see scarcely a ruin above waist-level, so flattened out is everything. After the crackle of burning timber, which sounded like odd rifle shots, had died out, one heard for a day or two the most extraordinary metallic banging and hammering sounds from pieces of scrap iron and steel that had been left partially sus- pended, not yet having come finally to rest. It sounded as if the dead were trying to force their way up through the ruins. The burning town made a tragic yet amazingly beauti- ful spectacle on that clear, cold night. The roads leading from it were thronged with men and women, some carrying in nick- sacks what little they bad been able to save, and pathetic elderly people huddled together in lorries. Outlying farms did noble relief work providing food and accommodation for the homeless.
In eight hours' bombardment a number of people had been killed, and more injured. Two thousand others had lost every- thing they possessed except the clothing in which they stood. A town representing man's effort and achievement over a hundred years and more had been destroyed in one day. Such is war.
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