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Imagination, v. 1, issue 3, whole no. 3, December 1937
Page 11
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IMAGINATION! #3 DEC 37 Poleon's peculiar planes fell like beebeed birds but still there seemd no diminution in their nos. Then--without warning--the translucent airterrors raind destruction. From Cragmont we saw it all. soul-shattering sight! One minute the strong city lay lazyly on its many mountainets, serene, secure; the next it was an exploding inferno of smoke & flame! "Mike God!" I groand, gripping Wanda's white arm. Then the hazy hail of horror swept down upon the Pacific battlefleet & a leviathan of the deep blew up with a thunderous crash. Shrapnel raind around us. A huge chunk of solid steel crasht thru the roof of our cottage. Miraculously neithr my wife nor self was hurt. Othrs were not so fortunate. A man standing on the road was killd instantly by a flying mass of metal. An auto was overturned seriously injuring its passengers. All this within 100 yds of where we stood stunnd by enormity of the onslaught. In Berkeley the damage was even greatr to life & property. Oakland too sufferd terrific losses. At Goat Island naval station--where an antiaircraft corps had exactd its toll of airterrors--the result of that incendiary assault was appalling. A munition dump detonated; tank after tank of gasoline exploded as did tankt oil at Martino, a small port farther on up the east shore of the Bay. Flung to the lawn, partly by our frantic efforts to flee the damaged house, partly by the concussion of the continuous explosions which seemd to rock the world, we lookt fearfully Bayward. San Francisco was a crippld corpse encarminated by crematory conflagration; the Brobdingnagian Bridges mutilated monarchs, broken, twistd wrecks; Goat's Island a swirling smoking crater. Where the proud Pacific Fleet had swung at anchor nothing was to be observd but a few batterd hulks heaving, some sinking beneath the waves even as we watcht. All around lay a scene of ruin & desolation awful to behold... In the sudden silence following the first earsplitting explosion--which seemed emfasized by the dull detonations spacing this silence--we could do nothing but cling to one anothr expecting at every moment to be hurld ourselves into...eternity. But aftr that initial onslaught Poleon's planes loost no furthr thundrbolts. Hi in the heavens they swung, banking, dipping, circling; 100s of them it seemd, 1000s; terrible in triumf... & then...in the very moment of their overwhelming victory...as if possest of a common insanity they went amok, crashing into one anothr, tailspinning, plunging down in strickn scores! In 60 secs the sky which but a brief moment bbefor had been obscured by their blanketing bodys was empty of all save drifting smoke & a few white clouds! We who witnest the inexplainable, the almost instantaneous destruction of the awful aircraft, only could stare astounded. Poleon's planes crasht on the Berkeley Hills, spiraling into the streets & bldgs of the citys of Alameda, Oakland, Berkely, & Richmond, causing untold damage & loss of life. I have befor me a record of that terrible time as I write & there is acct of planes pitching all over the Sacramento & San Joaquin valleys. Smashing skybirds startd a disastrous fire in the heart of San Jose. But most astounding was the unanimity with which the accurst craft crasht & with wht hapnd to the "invincible Army".
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IMAGINATION! #3 DEC 37 Poleon's peculiar planes fell like beebeed birds but still there seemd no diminution in their nos. Then--without warning--the translucent airterrors raind destruction. From Cragmont we saw it all. soul-shattering sight! One minute the strong city lay lazyly on its many mountainets, serene, secure; the next it was an exploding inferno of smoke & flame! "Mike God!" I groand, gripping Wanda's white arm. Then the hazy hail of horror swept down upon the Pacific battlefleet & a leviathan of the deep blew up with a thunderous crash. Shrapnel raind around us. A huge chunk of solid steel crasht thru the roof of our cottage. Miraculously neithr my wife nor self was hurt. Othrs were not so fortunate. A man standing on the road was killd instantly by a flying mass of metal. An auto was overturned seriously injuring its passengers. All this within 100 yds of where we stood stunnd by enormity of the onslaught. In Berkeley the damage was even greatr to life & property. Oakland too sufferd terrific losses. At Goat Island naval station--where an antiaircraft corps had exactd its toll of airterrors--the result of that incendiary assault was appalling. A munition dump detonated; tank after tank of gasoline exploded as did tankt oil at Martino, a small port farther on up the east shore of the Bay. Flung to the lawn, partly by our frantic efforts to flee the damaged house, partly by the concussion of the continuous explosions which seemd to rock the world, we lookt fearfully Bayward. San Francisco was a crippld corpse encarminated by crematory conflagration; the Brobdingnagian Bridges mutilated monarchs, broken, twistd wrecks; Goat's Island a swirling smoking crater. Where the proud Pacific Fleet had swung at anchor nothing was to be observd but a few batterd hulks heaving, some sinking beneath the waves even as we watcht. All around lay a scene of ruin & desolation awful to behold... In the sudden silence following the first earsplitting explosion--which seemed emfasized by the dull detonations spacing this silence--we could do nothing but cling to one anothr expecting at every moment to be hurld ourselves into...eternity. But aftr that initial onslaught Poleon's planes loost no furthr thundrbolts. Hi in the heavens they swung, banking, dipping, circling; 100s of them it seemd, 1000s; terrible in triumf... & then...in the very moment of their overwhelming victory...as if possest of a common insanity they went amok, crashing into one anothr, tailspinning, plunging down in strickn scores! In 60 secs the sky which but a brief moment bbefor had been obscured by their blanketing bodys was empty of all save drifting smoke & a few white clouds! We who witnest the inexplainable, the almost instantaneous destruction of the awful aircraft, only could stare astounded. Poleon's planes crasht on the Berkeley Hills, spiraling into the streets & bldgs of the citys of Alameda, Oakland, Berkely, & Richmond, causing untold damage & loss of life. I have befor me a record of that terrible time as I write & there is acct of planes pitching all over the Sacramento & San Joaquin valleys. Smashing skybirds startd a disastrous fire in the heart of San Jose. But most astounding was the unanimity with which the accurst craft crasht & with wht hapnd to the "invincible Army".
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