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My story concerns a day trip to Plymouth in 1941 from my home town of Penzance. My late mother, who died in 1957, asked my father, who died in 1985, to go and see her uncle James Lawrence, who was aged and also a widower, to see if he was alright, as he lived alone at Coxside. He did have sons, but they were away in the armed forces.
I was 9 years old at the time and for some reason was off school, so my father decided that I should accompany him. We travelled by train from Penzance to Plymouth North Road Station and arrived at midday, and then spent the afternoon at Uncle Jim’s house to see that he was OK. We intended to catch the last train back to Penzance. After tea, etc. we made our way to North Road Station for a train at 8:30 pm due at Penzance at approximately 11pm. The train duly arrived and we boarded but, before it departed the air-raid sirens sounded over the City of Plymouth. However, the train left on time and got as far as the dilapidated signal box on the Plymouth side of the Brunel Bridge and ground to a halt in the cutting there, and there it stayed for about 2 ½ hours in complete darkness. Steam from the engine shut off as well and there was not one light on the train.
However, there was plenty of light shortly as the bombs rained down on Plymouth — there were fires everywhere, luckily none near the place where the train was parked up. The searchlights were scouring the skies and anti-aircraft shells were exploding in the sky, plus the sickening explosions of bombs falling particularly on Devonport and its surrounds. After about 2 ½ hours, the all clear sounded over the city and we were able to resume our journey.
We were able to see Plymouth in flames shortly after we passed Saltash station and continued to see the reflection of the fires in the sky almost all the way down to St Austell.
We arrived back at Penzance somewhere around 2 am. My father heard some days later that an air-raid shelter in the city had had a direct hit and there had been a large loss of life. I think there is a memorial somewhere in the city to the victims of this particular bomb on that night.
I can also relate to various incidents to bombing raids, etc. in West Cornwall.

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