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"This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jean Sharman, Scotland CSV on behalf of Ernest Bowie of Aberdeen and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

Ernest says:-
I was a fourteen year old when the Hall Russell shipyard at Aberdeen docks was bombed. The bombing happened during the day. I was at home and heard the planes coming across and the bombs dropping. I went out onto the street along with many other people who were drawn outside to see what had been hit. My memory is a vivid one of the bodies being taken up the Denburn by horse and cart to the Woolmanhill Hospital, which was the main hospital in Aberdeen at that time.

Another time I remember was the bombing at Loch Street, Aberdeen. I was in the city cinema at that time and the film was cut off and an announcement was made that people should stay where they were but if anyone lived close by then they could leave. A lad I knew, Robert Cowie, decided to go home. He was hit by shrapnel from the bomb falling in Loch Street and he was hit in the eye.

I also remember quite clearly when they were building an ice rink in Anderson Drive. It was during the day and this German plane came across and everybody just stood and watched. It was shot down and it landed in the new ice rink which was never completed and was demolished after the war.

We lived in a tenement and the cellars were underneath the ground and that鈥檚 where everyone went during the bombing raids. I remember some of them were done up with chairs and some home comforts.

On my nineteenth birthday I went into the Gordon Highlanders and the war finished about eight months later when the 2nd Battalion of the Gordons came back from Germany and went to Libya and I was in Tripoli with them for about two years.

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