大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Sue Sutton on behalf of Alan Rodliffe, the author and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Dad, George Rodliffe was a farmer at Rosedinnick, St Columb. I was born in 1939. I vaguely remember going to school when I was 5 at St Columb Major Primary. There was an air raid shelter at the back. My mother said we were directly in line with St Eval airfield and the dummy aerodrome set up to confuse the Germans. They caught the moors on fire and Lord Haw Haw said they flattened St Eval, but they'd only caught the moors on fire.

One night 33 bombs dropped on our farm aimed at the airfield. One landed to the west of us only a few yards from the farmhouse. Lots of slates went but no casualties. Father heard the planes and the bomb drop and stuck his head in a rabbit hole to protect himself. A lot of bombs father says dropped with a 'plop' on the moors and didn't explode. Father and the farmworks hid behind ricks of corn to protect themselves from the bomb blasts.

Harry Ellery was working for father (from Talskiddy) was going home one day and he heard an airplane coming down the valley. It had the Nazi sticker and was way down below him hugging the valley and following the river looking for the aerodrome and under the British reconnaisance. Harry heard the bombs drop soon after.

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