大象传媒

15th August 1940
One of my first memories is of an air raid during the Battle of Britain, one of the few times the Luftwaffe came in strength to bomb the North of England.
It was a bright and sunny day and I was standing at the front of the house and can remember looking at the planes with the black crosses on their wings flying north to south when my mother came and rushed me into my grandmother's house. She lived next door to us. Mother, sister, grandmother and myself got under the table but there was no room for grandfather so he stood in the passage at the front of the house. By this time the Germans were dropping their bombs anywhere just to get away from the R.A.F. who were shooting them down all over County Durham including one at Barnard Castle six miles away.
The first bomb dropped at the front and grandfather shot to the back of the house but the next was at the back blowing the windows out. He didn't know where to run to now. Funny now sixty years later but not at the time.
When there is bombing on th T.V. from Baghdad I tell my own grandchildren I have been bombed they look at me as if I am mental.
Accounts of the cost of the raid to the Luftwaffe do vary but they lost fifteen aircraft over Northumberland and Durham on the 15th August 1940, the first and last large scale daylight raid on the North. From that time large scale raids in the area would be launched in darkness.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from Blackhall Library on behalf of Raymond Race and has beenadded to the site with his permission. Mr Race fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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