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This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of Wallace Davidson and has been added to the site with her permission.Wallace Davidson fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Wallace Davidson

Bombs over Beachley

One Saturday morning I was walking up to town from Garden City where I lived. I was on a weekend pass from Beachley which didn鈥檛 come all that often but were very welcome. It was a dull cloudy day and as I approached the road junction (now a subway under the road) I heard the drone of an aeroplane鈥檚 engines above me. Through a gap in the clouds I saw quite clearly the unmistakable shape of the black cross with white roundels on the side of the plane. It was a German bomber without doubt.
My first thoughts were for my family and I raced home to give the alarm. I told my mother, brother and sisters to get under the stairs. I leapt up the stairs to the back window which faced Beachley. I was just in time to see the plane begin its bombing run on Beachley Camp at very low level. As it pulled out of the dive I heard a tremendous explosion and the blast blew me across the room. This was followed by the chatter of machine gun fire. The tail gunner had spotted a group of Apprentices doing P.T. (P.E.) on the square. They would have been easily spotted by their white vests and navy shorts. Fortunately only one of the boys, Thornton, was hit but, sadly, fatally. He died on the way to hospital from gunshot wounds and is buried in Beachley churchyard.

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