大象传媒

This contribution is taken from the collections of the McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock

"With the beginning of ARP (Air Raid Precautions) in 1935 I was the Chief Assistant in the Town Clerk's office and was chosen to make the arrangements that the Government was requesting in respect of precautions to be taken in the event of a war. I attended various training schools, the first being in Cromwell Road, London in 1938. On my return, very impressed by everything the Government was arranging even though it was being done in a hurry. I made up a report advising the Corporation to take steps to combat the effects of a war. For example we measured up all municipal buildings for black out blinds, we prepared a control room in the basement of the municipal building, we took over a large sugar store in the East End, erected racking in it to store gas masks and materials such as sandbags, etc.

When war broke out we had the control room in operation and arranged accommodation throughout the Borough for all the personnel who had been trained during the previous 2 years. That means the setting up of first aid posts, decontamination centres, and wardens posts. I estimate that at the start of the war we had approximately 3000 volunteers.

We had no problem in obtaining volunteers for all the services and we recruited heads for each, largely the Medical Officer of Health responsible for first aid posts and hospitals, the Fire Brigade, the Building Director who was responsible for the rescue squad and an official from private industry who was in charge of the decontamination squads. The Chief Constable was ARP Controller with two deputes the Deputy Chief Constable and myself. The Chief was not young so most of the work devolved upon his depute and myself. I was largely involved with everything connected with ARP. As can be imagined we had many meetings with Home Office officials in discussing our activities and how these could be improved.

When the Greenock blitz came on 7 May 1941 we were excellently trained with the exception of one department which failed us on the night of the raids. On the night all the other services performed admirably and afterwards in a review with the personnel they told us it "was just like an exercise." This was because we had an ARP Officer who was an excellent organiser and training instructor. The housing of the homeless was the only service which did not come up to expectations. A number of schools and halls had been earmarked and we understood that personnel would be available at each place. It may not have been the fault of the person responsible - it may have been that mostly middle aged and elderly people who had been allocated failed to appear because of domestic circumstances. We did not come out of that aspect of ARP very well. I was due for all night duty on the night of 7 May 1941 and I arrived at the control room at 9 p.m. At 12 midnight or shortly afterwards, we received the red warning and about 12.20 am the bombs began to fall.

The first wave of bombers ringed the town around to Helensburgh and behind Loch Thom. The second wave arrived about 陆 an hour afterwards using medium to heavy bombs 1,000 kilos most of them. They concentrated on the docks and the East End of the town and unfortunately one of the earliest targets which they hit was the distillery in Ingleston Street. It provided a beacon for the attack and many bombs were dropped in that area of Greenock.

In the control room we were getting in the messages from wardens as to what damage had been done and we were sending out squads to help in whatever was taking place. As messages came in and we took action it was recorded on the board, where strength details etc. were also noted. There were about 30 people in the control room dealing with all this.

We relied not only upon telephones but also on volunteers with cycles who were on duty at the various wardens posts. Quite a number of our phones were "out" because of damage to the GPO telephone system so we had to use the messengers. I can well remember some of them were only young boys braving the hail of bombs and shrapnel and they did a wonderful job. They were only boys of 16 and 17 or 18 years.

At the mortuary at Princes Pier we had the unclaimed bodies of 8 infants not any of them older than a year or 18 months. We photographed them all. They were never claimed and we buried them privately in the Greenock Cemetery."

"After the raid?"

"After the raid the clearing up took months and months. The immediate necessity was to get people out of the borough and billeted in areas around. Liaison was very good and we managed to send many families to parts of Ayrshire and Argyllshire. We had an excellent billeting officer in, Mr William McKinley who was headmaster of the Mount School. He did a yeoman's job and while we had great difficulties, he managed excellently to get his billeting operation in full swing.

The parachutes from the land mines became very popular when people could draw breath. The parachutes were made of excellent silk material and many a Greenock household had clothing made from them after things got a bit back to normal. My wife and I were left with the clothes we stood in. All our furniture was destroyed but certain articles of our clothing were rescued by salvage parties. My brother and his pal who were helping discovered in a cupboard two bottles of whisky which were undamaged and they appreciated very much the refreshment which had been left by the Germans.

By the time of the attack we had built a control room on the north side of Dalrymple Street just opposite the Municipal Building. It was a spacious control room holding 30 - 40 people and about 1.30 and 1.45 in the morning a bomb landed 20 feet away on the roadway. The building jumped into the air and came down again and we all grabbed for our steel helmets. We had been working without them. I went out just after the bomb had dropped to see what had happened. I got to the bomb crater just at the foot of William Street and in it was a motor cycle which I recognise as belonging to one of the older boys acting as a messenger. I knew him well and all I could see was a motor cycle. I thought he had been killed but it turned out that he had scrambled up from the crater and gone back to his post leaving his motor bike behind.

The scene when I went out was frightening. The whole town from the East End to nearly the Well Park appeared to be in flames. Bombs were still dropping in the East End. Fortunately for us, HMS Hector was lying at the Tail of the Bank and a photographer aboard took a photograph just about the same time and this is now in the Provost's Room. It shows the town burning right across the East End.

About 3am just as the raid was ending, a message came in stating that a land mine had fallen on 25 Bawhirley Road. My house was adjacent in Helen Drive and I knew that my mother and father were sheltering in a deep shelter, where I had had it built as an encouragement to others to take the necessary precautions. I knew then that something had happened but what I did not know. However, a message came through to say that Helen Drive had also been hit by a mine and I knew then that something serious must have occurred. My father and mother were in my shelter in the garden and my next door neighbour had 2 Anderson Shelters about 6 yards away from mine. He had taken there his wife and family, married daughter and son, and their in-laws. There were 12 people plus 2 dogs in the Anderson Shelters.

When my wife and I went out the next afternoon to look at what was there our house was completely gone. It was all in a heap and there was a large hole in the two gardens about 20 feet deep and 30 feet across slowly filling with water from a hidden spring. We knew that all the Oliver family had been killed. A week later the police, who had to verify all reported deaths, produced the finger of one of the boys with a peculiar ring which my wife recognised as being his. They also produced the married daughter's hair which my wife again identified as being hers. That was all that was found of that family.

I went off duty about 10 am when my wife arrived from the first aid post where she had been operating. We both knew in general what had happened, so she and I went round the first aid posts and hospitals to find out where my mother was. We discovered that she had been removed to Ayrshire just a short time before we arrived. We then went out to Helen Drive and saw without any personal reactions that our house was completely demolished.

My concern at that time was for my father but no-one could tell me where they had taken him. So the next day I went to the mortuary which we had at Princes Pier. I looked at every dead body in the mortuary hall. There was quite a number. I think the number was about 200 in this particular place. I could not find my father.

I was arranging a funeral for the Friday after the raid but with not being able to find my father's body I had to cancel the funeral. He was the General Manager of the Co-operative and I had the resources of the S.C.W.S. who helped me to delay managers coming from different parts of the country. Then on the Saturday a police sergeant identified his body in the mortuary. His face was so twisted that I had not recognised it. So I then arranged the funeral for the Tuesday.

I had visited my mother between the time of the raid and the following Saturday, so she knew of the funeral arrangements . On the Sunday I visited Ballochmyle Hospital in Ayrshire and had to tell her what happened at a funeral which had not taken place.

We buried him on the Tuesday as stated earlier.

We stayed for a time in my mother-in-laws house in Port Glasgow which was undamaged. I was inundated with offers of accommodation from people who had been evacuated and were afraid the Billeting Officer would use their house. I chose one in the upper West End of the town and we stayed there until July. We then took a house in Dunoon and we lived there until my father)s house in Bawhirley Road had been reinstated. With the knowledge I had of contractors I was fortunate for this was the first house in the area to be repaired and my wife and I took up occupancy in August.

Months after the raid after considerable pressure on the Air Ministry they informed us that approximately 250 German planes in 3 waves had taken part in the raid of 7th May 1941. In the 6th May raid 60 planes took part. As a result of this first raid on 6th May many people had gone to the 2 tunnels in the East End on the night of 7th May. This had been going on for some time since the raid on Clydebank in March 1941 and as the local authority we tried with great difficulty to dissuade people from taking shelter there as we knew if a bomb or mine fell at the end of a tunnel it would wipe out all those in the tunnel. But despite our efforts people persisted in going there night after night. However, it was fortunate in reducing the number of casualties."

"As a result of the raids you mention that there were over 200 corpses in the mortuary at Princes Pier. How did you deal with these?"

"We had appointed the Superintendent of the Cemetery as being in charge of the mortuary in the event of anything happening. He had in store a number of coffins but not anything approaching what we required. But we had great help from the District Commissioner from Glasgow. He arranged to send down staff from the Glasgow mortuary there were about 5 men involved and they gave us a great amount of help as they were experienced. We had to arrange a contract with Glasgow Corporation, very hurriedly, of course, and the contract was they would be paid a fixed amount per day plus a bottle of whisky for each man."

"How did you deal with the problem of house repairs as about 10,000 of your housing stock was damaged?"

"That was a tremendous problem which was only carried out over a number of years because we hadn't the personnel to do all the repairs at one time. The actual duty of repairs devolved on the Ministry of Works, I think, as we called it in those days and the local authority was their agent. What they did was they used as much labour as was available here and they brought in squads from all over Scotland. Mostly temporary repairs were done first to enable as many people as possible to get back into their own houses but the actual proper repairs took, you could almost say, 3, 4 or 5 years.

Most owner/occupier houses were done by the squads who were brought in although there was an option on each one to have his or hers own house repaired and the expenses were met by the War Damage Commission.

"What about industry?"

"This was the problem which the Government viewed as a first priority. Lord Bilsland and his staff established an office in the town about 3 days after the blitz. He appointed a committee to ensure that industrial damage was immediately restored. He appointed a small committee of which I was made a member. it consisted of:-

Lord Bilsland, Ex Provost Drummond and One Industrialist and Myself.

It was the best committee I was ever on. We had no restrictions, whatever we said was to be done irrespective of expense, had to be done and was done. In consequence industry, which had been badly hit in certain parts of the town, was restored very quickly and I am safe in saying that within a week to 10 days industry was back to its natural output in respect of those factories and yards which had been damaged.

No expense was spared. The Government instructions were get it done and do it immediately. We did that.

As a result of my house being badly damaged and my father killed, and so on, and with my two brothers in the forces I made up my mind that I would not make another application to be considered as being in a reserved occupation. I therefore refused to apply but to my surprise about 2 months after it had expired I received instructions from the Ministry of Labour that my application had been approved and that I was in a reserved occupation again. I discovered later to my surprise that an application had been made privately by Lord Bilsland and the Chief Constable and I was therefore compelled to remain in my job."

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