大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Age Concern Dorchester, on hald of Mr Peter Wood and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Wood fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

It was 2.40 p.m. on Sunday May 31 1943 when tragedy struck. I know the exact time because the clock on the tower stopped.
My brother and I were at Sunday School in the Church Hall; our sister, being older, was in the church. The siren sounded; we younger ones were led into a passage by the side of the stage; our sister, with several others, hid under a pew at the back of the church. Suddenly there was a quick succession of explosions. The fire exit doors in the passage blew inwards, a gaping hole appeared in front of the stage, the porch at the end of the hall had disappeared. When we clambered over the rubble, we found the church, apart from the tower, had gone. My brother and I ran home to tell our parents. We rushed back to learn that our sister had survived, and after some time discovered she had been taken to a nursing home for treatment to a leg injury. She was one of the lucky few. Twenty-nine children and three adult teachers perished that afternoon: they had all been in the front of the church.
The victims were buried in a mass grave, near to which the German pilot was interred. Controversy raged over this decision, but anger and anguish relented somewhat when witnesses recounted the pilot鈥檚 vain efforts to avert the tragedy. His plane had been crippled by anti-aircraft fire. He had turned inland, clipped the spire of the neighbouring Roman Catholic Church, and realised he was rapidly losing height. He decided to jettison his bomb, hoping it would fall into the churchyard, and not onto a highly populated residential area. Tragically it missed by about forty feet. The plane staggered over the church and plunged into the ground at the bottom of the hill a quarter of a mile away.

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