大象传媒

The Bombing of Norwich during Second World War

My mother lifted me out of my bed and stood me up. I was still asleep, when she pulled a jumper over my pyjama jacket. She told me to put on my socks and shoes. No lights had been put on, but I saw on the floor beside our gas masks, the small cardboard suitcase. This case I found out much later contained documents and a few photos etc., which my parents considered important and I was forevermore to associate this case with the war and the bombing.
鈥淨uick鈥� she said as I struggled to get my overcoat over the jumper and pyjama jacket. She was fully dressed when she ushered me down the stairs from our upstairs flat above my Grandfather barber鈥檚 shop. We went through the back kitchen and out into the yard, then through the gate and into St Augustine鈥檚 Street. The moon, which had shone through the bedroom window to allow us to see to dress, now seemed even brighter, as though there were lights in the sky. The air raid siren was wailing away.
There were a few people in the street most of them were running. Mother held my hand very tight as we quickly went up the street and into Catherine Wheel Opening towards a public air-raid shelter. A Warden stood outside the door with a dim torch. He directed us inside the pitch-black interior. The smell of body odour, ashtrays and urine was awful. I knew there were others inside when, I tripped over somebody鈥檚 feet, I could also hear talking. We eventually found a seat on a wooden bench and my mother put her arm around me in an attempt to comfort me.
We sat for two or three minutes with our gas mask cases still around our shoulders before suddenly, without saying a word, she got up and made for the door. The Air-raid Warden in charge of the shelter, tried unsuccessfully to stop us going outside. I was pleased to be out in the air and comparative brightness. I think the siren had stopped. We heard aircraft overhead. Mother ran back down towards our home with the little suitcase in one hand and dragging me with the other. I heard explosions and machine guns as we dashed through the back door and into the kitchen.
Instead of going up the stairs to our flat, she unlocked the interior door, which led to my grandfather鈥檚 hairdressers shop and we went in. The smell of shaving soap and hair oils was far better that the awful shelter. The lights were not on and although there were of course no street lights during the war, some light was coming from outside because the blackout curtains were not drawn. At the far end of the shop on the opposite side from the street was a cupboard, mother opened the door and dived in pulling me behind her.
It was totally dark inside once the door was closed behind us. I sat cross-legged on the floor, my mother was crouched beside me as we heard the noise and explosions of the falling bombs getting louder and louder. The vibration of the floor beneath us was in time with the noise of the exploding bombs and we crouched lower and deeper into the back of the cupboard as the noise became louder and louder.
My mother was by now in a kneeling position 鈥淥h Lord keep us safe this night, secure from all our fears. May angels guard us while we sleep until morning light appears. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name鈥�. Etc. Over and over again my mother was reciting these two prayers. But the bombing did not stop, the droning of the planes overhead, the constant noise of the exploding bombs, some distant, some near and some very, very near went on and on. One bomb must have fallen very close indeed when the shop window was blasted in, the cupboard door slammed shut against the frame, boxes on shelves crashed down hitting us with debris, muck and dust which showered down from the stairs which formed our roof.
As my mother prayed on and on, I don鈥檛 remember crying, but I do remember being very much afraid. I had a stick in my hands, which I intended to use against the German parachutists who I expected to march into the shop at anytime. I was five and a half years old.
The bombing and the drone of the planes finally ceased and some long time after, the single note of the air raid siren signalled the end of the raid. My mother did not lead us out from our hideaway straight away, not because she was afraid of the return of the German bombers, I think it was because she was afraid of what she would find if we came out. We managed to push the cupboard door open despite the furniture and glass, which was strewn about the shop. We stretched our legs and I slept where we lay together in the debris.
I was awoken very early the next morning by the sound of my uncle鈥檚 voice. He had come to check to see if we were OK. He was telling my mother of the destruction of many houses nearby and of bodies in the street. When he realised that I was awake he told me that the school about 100 yards from where we lived was gone and told us we were lucky and should have stayed in the air-raid shelter.
The 44 bombing raids on Norwich, which occurred between July 1940 and November 1943 have thankfully been fairly well documented. The raid to which I refer to above was the very first I can remember and was the first of the two 鈥楤aedeker raids鈥� on the city on Monday 27/28 April 1942 and Wednesday 29/30 April 1942, so called because Norwich appeared in 鈥淏aedeker鈥檚 British Isles鈥� as a place of historic interest and it was deliberately bombed for that reason. On the first night alone 162 people were killed and over 600 injured. A further 70 lost theirs lives on the Wednesday night. Over 2000 houses were totally destroyed during the war and over 2600 seriously damaged, 10 places of worship were destroyed and 28 public houses were burnt out or seriously damaged.
The true extent of the death and devastation of the City of Norwich was played down by official sources and indeed the media, for propaganda reasons. Only when what people saw with their own eyes and related by word of mouth the experiences of individuals and families of what had actually happened to them, did the true picture gradually emerge.
What happened to Norwich at the end of April 1942 and indeed to many British cities is easily of the same proportions as those terrible events which occurred in New York in 2001 and which have become internationally know as 9/11.

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