大象传媒

John young is my name, my mother was maisie young and my father jack young.
During the was my father was a lieutenant in the Home Guard in Glasgow and we lived at 345, Alderman Rd near Yoker, about a mile from the Clyde where major shipbuilding at yards such as Yarrows, John Brown etc. Across the river were the aero engine works at Hillington for Rolls Royce where the Merlin and other engines were manufactured. I cant remember the exact date but in 1942 when I was 7 years old, there was a major bombing raid on the Glasgow Clydeside area. I remember hearing the sirens and my mother lifting me out of bed upstairs in our semi detached house,in the dark. We had just reached the living room when the bombs started falling. There was no time to go to our air raid Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden and so we took shelter under our dining rom table, luckily made of solid oak. There was an earsplitting explosion and the bricks of our chimney scattered into the room. All our windows were blown in a the roof ripped off. The bed I was in only a few minutes earlier was shredded with glass. I was screaming at the time, and the next thing I knew was my father breaking into our house to rescue us. He had been on patrol with his seargent and spotted what he thought were 2 paratroopers on parachutes. He instructed his seargent to intercept one while he dealt with the other. He noticed that it was falling towards our house. When he got closer he was able to see that it was three parachutes supporting a long black cylinder,a land mine. Destined for the shipyards to destroy the ships there. He had only enough time to run up our driveway before the landmine exploded 3 houses away. My fathers life was saved as he was between the houses which acted like a blast wall. He was concussed and his hearing damaged. Our staicase had collapsed and the front door smashed. With difficulty he managed to get to the living room where we were. I remeber him picking me up and shaking me saying''Stop screaming!' At the sound of his voice I knew I was safe. He then put me over his shoulder and carried me to the doorway. I can still see it now, etched forever in my memory. The whole of Clydeside was ablaze from horizon to horizon. And silouheted in the flames were the bombers of the Luftwaffe dropping black strings of incenduries onto the ships. The anti aircraft guns were silent as they had only about 4 rounds each, all that could be spared from the war effort. We made our way to the Air raid shelter, across our back garden, where unknown to me was our next door neighbour lying dead with his brains scattered over the lawn. The bomb had taken his skull off as he ran to our shelter.
My father had a lucky escape as my mother wanted him to join the ARP (Air Raid Patrols) which she thought was safer. The local headquarters had a direct hit and all inside were killed. Next morning dressed only in my dressing gown and slippers, we left the shelter to find the road covered with glass and shrapnel. We made our way to a friends house which had not been hit having lost about all that we possessed.
I still have a piece of the parachute and a pice of the casing of the bomb that so nearly killed me and my family.
I believe that night several thousand died in the inferno that was Clydeside.

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