大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People's War website by Tim Ford on behalf of Tom Peacock and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the 大象传媒 Peoples War Project and it's aim to create the largest online archive of stories of a nation at war.

My name is Tom Peacock and I was 15 years of age when the war started, but even at that time I was very conscious of events leading up to the war as I was quite a political person. I was aware of the war that had taken place when the Nazi's had overtaken Poland in 1937 and I used to listen to broadcasts about this with interest. When it came to the war in 1939 it was a different matter altogether. We didn't really think we were going to enter into the war because of course Neville Chamberlain, on returning from Munich, had stated, whilst waving his brolly in the air "Everything is alright, there is peace in our time!"

However come the 3rd September 1939 we heard the dreadful news on the radio that we'd gone to war with Germany. We can't forget that morning for although we didn't expect it at 11 am we heard the first air raid siren and we knew there was to be a bombing attack on Tyneside.

It never did occur but my dad, who was the chief engineer for a group of collieries in the area, had been aware war was to come and he'd built quite a magnificent air raid shelter in our garage which was at the back of the house. It was strange we went down into that but we never ever used it again, because it had been the maintenance pit and when we went down into there was about six inches of water in the bottom! What's more we weren't the only ones down there - there was a host of frogs, so although it was a magnificent air raid shelter we never used it again!

As far as bombing is concerned we weren't aware of any attacks until 5th May 1941 when a German bomber crashed near where we used to live in North Walbottle. For people who know the "Jingling Gate" it crashed in the field opposite. The plane was a Heinkel 3 which was returning from a bombing mission where it had bombed Glasgow. On it's return journey it was intercepted and brought down by one of our fighters. It was quite traumatic experience for the people locally because one of the crew tried to jump out of the plane before it landed and he was killed instantly. The rest of the crew survived and the pilot (Hauptmann Eugen Eichler) attempted to blow up a bomb they were carrying. He was prevented from doing so because so many people arrived at the scene and ensured he couldn't blow up the plane.

A number of Home Guard personnel were quick to arrive at the scene that night and they drove the crew to the nearby miner鈥檚 institute where they were held and attempts were made to get them to confess what they'd been doing. There was some humour in the situation when it was noticed that a member of the Home Guard, whom I knew well, was noticed to be in full uniform but still had his carpet slippers on!

The other crew members from the plane were Feldwebel Franz Olssen - Navigator, Gefreiter Hans Schiealinski - air gunner, and Obergefreiter Wilhelm Koch. I mention their names because after the war people in our area tried to contact them in Germany but they were unable to do so. I still have photographs of the Heinkel that was brought down.

On another occasion the German bombers had come across to Tyneside ostensibly to bomb Vickers Armstrong鈥檚. It was a very cloudy night and they couldn鈥檛 locate it and bombed North Walbottle as a result. Three local people were killed that night including a train driver, his daughter and their neighbour. The daughter was due to be married and had been planning her wedding but she did not survive that night.

These are examples of some of the activity that occurred locally but I have a record of every air raid that took place between '39 and '45 which makes very interesting reading

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