大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by a volunteer from Lincoln CSV Action Desk on behalf of Ray Evans and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Evans fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

By now we were listening anxiously to the radio for all the news and we would huddle around the table awaiting the news bulletins. When the air raids started it was very frightening. The sirens wailed constantly and it was time to pack up what little food and extra clothing we needed to spend some time down the shelter. We had made a step to go down into the shelter and had put some chairs but now at our first visit we found it very uncomfortable and very damp. Condensation was glistening all round the corrugated shelter.

We heard the sound of German planes overhead and then the anti-aircraft funs fired up at the planes. The ack-ack guns as they were known were stationed at the Harry Mitchell Centre. The noise was deafening and very worrying. We were in the shelter all night long because that was the length of time the bombers were overhead or bombing some other cities before returning back to their base. Dad was on air raid duty whilst there was a raid on but would look in on us from time to time during the night. Raids on all cities north of Birmingham meant that the Germans flew over Smethwick and so we got the air raid sirens for what seemed every night for a very long time.

So far we had escaped serious damage but then it was our turn, with Birmingham being the target. About 100 planes, mostly JU 88 heavy bombers came and bombed all night, with the ack-ack guns firing at them all the time. It was quite a din and nobody could venture out of the shelters because of the shrapnel that was raining down from the guns.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.