大象传媒

(This story has been submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from Radio Northampton and has been added to the site with Geoff Abbott's permission through the Rushden Historial Society. Mr Abbott fully understands the sites terms and conditions).

As I recall, it was a grey overcast day with very low cloud cover. My companion (Mr Frank Burton) and I were delivering milk in Prospect Avenue when I head the sound of a German aircraft. Looking up, I suddenly saw a Dornier 17 coming out of the clouds almost above us. I called to Frank to tell him that a German bomber was over the top of us. His reply was to say the least, a little negative, but as we watched, a stick of bombs began to fall from beneath the plane.

My reaction was to climb on to the roof of the van to see what was happening. The van was at that time was parked between the two white houses on the left of the avenue, along the row of houses that went from there to the corner shop. From that point, there was a view right across Rushden, and from the van roof I was able to see every bomb stike.

The first as we know, landed at the bottom of Shirley Road, shattering the gas main, the second clipped the then Victoria Hotel, the third hit the junction of High Street Station Road, (the shrapnel scars could still be seen on the row of cottages up to their demolition) Bates fish and chip shop was next, and so on.

Within minutes, the news reached us that Alfred Street School had been hit and Frank realised that his son was at that school. We jumped into the van and made out way with all haste to the scene, where Frank then remembered that his son was not at school that day as he was poorly. A miracle indeed, as it was his son鈥檚 class room that had taken the full blast of the bomb.

At some time in about 1996, I was talking to a German customer, as the episode I think, had been recalled in the local paper, and she said to me 鈥淥h! That must have been a mistake, as we only ever bombed military targets鈥�. The legacy of Dr Goebels lives on.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.