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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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Local Workers bombed at Guernsey Airport

by Guernseymuseum

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Contributed byÌý
Guernseymuseum
People in story:Ìý
Clarice Martel (née Mudge) and Florence Mahy, Bill Martel. Jurat Johns, Dr Eric Bisson, Bill Anderson,
Location of story:Ìý
Guernsey Airport
Background to story:Ìý
Civilian
Article ID:Ìý
A6343535
Contributed on:Ìý
24 October 2005

Clarice Martel (née Mudge) and Florence Mahy interviewed by John Gaisford 12/3/2005
Edited transcript of the video recording of the interview made by John David 28-29/9/2005

Clarice Martel. I married in forty-five, to Bill Martel. He was blown up in the Occupation, They had to work under Jurat Johns, who used to send them to work, if they didn’t work they’d be sent to Germany. So he was working at the Airport with his friend Bill Anderson, they were eating their lunch, actually, they were in a hangar, over came the British and dropped his spare bomb, so he was shot and his shoulder all down there, well he always had it, Dr Eric Bisson stitched it all up, and he had a bash on his head he always suffered with, because Mr Ferguson the bloke here will tell you, he done the operation on him three or four times, and it always come back, apparently it was cancer, and he died in the Câtel, Catel Hospital. He was in there three and a half years, and he’ll be dead March 31st.
I………. He must have been one of the only people to get war wounds….
Clarice Martel. Yes he did, but he didn’t have no pension or nothing, no, ‘cos we stayed here, he wasn’t in the army or anything you see, no.
I………. Amazing Goodness gracious me
Clarice Martel. My husband’s friend got killed, blown up at the airport, you know, but it was a British bomb. But still, didn’t matter. And they shouldn’t have been working there, you see, but we had a bloke Johns, he was in charge of all the workmen, and he just sent them where he thought, and he thought the Airport would be safe - now I ask you- well there wasn’t much bombing going on, not after the Germans were in, there wasn’t, you know, but this one had a spare one on his way back home, so he dropped it, but Bill Anderson, I was sorry because he was the only son, of Anderson, they lived in St Thomas’s Village, up at the top of Victoria Road, she was very upset.
I………. I suppose that the British pilot who dropped the bomb thought that the Airport was the one place…
Clarice Martel. Well, the Germans had camouflaged a lot of the airport to look like greenhouses and they must have thought, have a go, wouldn’t matter, so they did.

[Transcriber’s note]
See the contribution by Ray Caradeuc for another description of this incident.

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