大象传媒

Coventry 1938 鈥� 1941

Where We Lived
We lived in three places in the Holbrooks area of Coventry. They were Lauderdale Avenue, Roland Avenue and Hen Lane. I think they were probably all council houses and I do not know which order we lived in them, although I do have a number of first hand memories of those days.

The First Air Raids
After we had been there about two years the first air raids on Coventry started on the 25th June, 1940, the day after my sixth birthday and did not end until August, 1942 when Hitler stopped bombing English cities to use his aircraft against Russia on his eastern front. The first raid was a very mild affair when five bombs were dropped on Ansty airfield just outside the city, but on August 18th they started for real when Coventry itself was first hit. A much heavier attack occurred on 25th August when hundreds of bombs caused considerable damage to houses, but there were no deaths. Nineteen people were hurt and had to go to hospital and the Rex Cinema in Corporation Street took a direct hit but was luckily unoccupied at the time otherwise the casualties could have been horrendous. Three nights later 56 casualties were sustained, 16 of them fatal, in the Hillfields district.

Wartime in Coventry
In addition to the concrete air raid shelters provided by the local council at the end of most streets, many houses had their own shelters, the half oval 鈥淎nderson鈥� which people had in their garden, or the 鈥淢orrison鈥� which was sited inside the house and resembled a four-poster bed under which the occupants slept during air raids and used the top as a table at other times. One night while going to the shelter at the end of whichever street we lived on I can remember seeing a group of lights in the sky floating down and presume these were the land mines which were being parachuted onto Coventry. I have read since that a large piece of shrapnel from one these mines destroyed four houses in Dunstar Place which was near Lauderdale Avenue. Also I have read that a damaged German bomber just cleared the roof top of 105, Hen Lane and barely missed the houses in 鈥渢he Dales鈥� opposite before crashing.

By this time sirens were sounding every day or night and on 12th October, 1940 high explosives fell on the city centre causing widespread damage to factories and houses including Ford鈥檚 Hospital which was a home for elderly people. It took a direct hit which killed the matron and seven residents.

The first major Coventry blitz happened on the night of 14th November, 1940 when a string of German mines on parachutes descended upon Holbrooks and the city centre was extensively bombed. The siren went at 7pm and the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� did not sound until after 11 hours and a third of the city was completely destroyed. It is estimated that 1200 high explosives, 50 parachute mines and 30,000 incendiaries were dropped there. My mother鈥檚 parents, Harold BONSOR and Harriett (nee ORTON) lived near us at Houldsworth Crescent, Nunts Park and one of the mines dropped nearby destroying several houses and killing a number of people. The assault continued on houses and industry in the whole of Coventry until 6am the following morning. 75 factories were destroyed, well above 2,000 houses were left beyond repair and many thousands more bore signs of damage.

These raids continued on and off for the following five months leading to another heavy blitz in April, 1941. As mentioned, most nights were spent in the air raid shelter and many days at school in their shelters. I cannot recall doing much in the way of lessons but spent most of the days in the shelter doing a type of knitting with scrap wool on an empty cotton reel with four nails in the end. The end product then came out through the hole in the bobbin. I believe the lengths were then sewn to form blankets for the troops.

My Wartime Memories
My first memory of the war was saving newspapers and waiting for a vehicle to collect them and 鈥渞anks鈥� were awarded to children depending upon how much had been saved for recycling. I do not remember being too good at this as I didn鈥檛 get the one stripe (lance corporal). All scrap metal had previously been collected from houses, including railings and any old pots and pans which individuals gave.

I recall a number of things from around this time. The first is going to see a German aircraft which had crashed in Green Lane. I can recollect not understanding why the street was not green! The second memory was being photographed with a load of other local children in a huge bomb crater at the end of the street where we lived. I remember seeing the photograph upon which I could be recognised as having the lightest of blonde hair which appeared as almost white. I still have it in mind to try to trace a copy of the picture in the archives of the newspaper which I think must have been the 鈥淐oventry Herald鈥�.
A鈥橞rave鈥� Hun Pilot
The first daylight raid happened on 26th September, 1940 when a lone aircraft took advantage of low cloud and quite a number of people were injured although none seriously. It is reported that on one or two of these missions German crews machine-gunned people on the streets but no-one was hurt. This generates a very vivid memory for me, as my sister, her friend and I were walking on what we believe was Lythalls Lane taking shoes for repair to a cobbler who lived there. A German aircraft suddenly appeared and began machine-gunning the road. We dashed to the cobblers who put us under his thick wooden work bench. As we were the only ones on the road and the windows in the cobbler鈥檚 garden workshop were subsequently smashed, it seems obvious that the aircraft was deliberately gunning after children! It was this incident which was responsible for us leaving Coventry and returning to live in Tamworth. My mother rang my father鈥檚 works, Alfred Herberts, to leave a message that we were leaving and, so the story goes, she was in such a panic that she forgot even to lock the door.

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