大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygatherer Kate Langdon on behalf of Joan Frances Brown. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Great Bridge is situated 10/12 miles from Birmingham. A canal goes through the middle of the area and we lived very close to it.

When the moonlight hit the water it was transformed into a silver path - straight into the heart of Birmingham. The German bomber pilots used this as a navigational aid of course, so moonlit nights became times of fear for us and normally we went into our Anderson shelter at bedtimes.

This particular night the air raid warnings were silent, so my sister and I were allowed to go to our comfortable beds. I fell asleep to be awakened much later by our parents shouting to us to come down and into the shelter. My father was an ARP Warden and being on duty that night had been on his way to the ARP post when he heard the unmistakable thrum-thrum of planes - German planes. Remembering he had forgotten to fill the buckets of water/sand always kept ready for use putting out incendiary bombs, he turned back home to do this, thereby saving his life!

Meanwhile I was trying to waken my sister, who really did not want to leave her warm bed. I happened to look out of the window and saw a most amazing sight; the silvery water, the moonlit landscape, the dark blue of the sky and a long, silver cigar shape "thing" floating oh so gently, it seemed, down and forward. For a few seconds I was transfixed at the beauty of the night, then intelligence and reality snapped in. That beautiful silver shape was a death-dealing bomb.

Mother and dad were still yelling at us to "get down these stairs at once" but somehow I knew there was no time to do that. I grabbed my sister and pushed her under the bed, still protesting, went in behind her and then pulled bed clothes and somehow the mattress down to protect us a little bit, just as the bomb hit the ground. The noise of impact and explosion is quite indescribable, as is the utter silence which followed, for how long I don't know, then everything that had gone up came raining down.

After what seemed like an eternity to my 14/15 year old mind, the noise stopped and I heard the frantic voices of my parents below. I called that we were ok and pulled aside the mattress and blankets to see that our window was scattered all over the floor, with shards of glass stuck into the stuffing of the mattress, broken furniture, door listing over on one hinge. Luckily our slippers were under the bed with us so we were able to walk, with care, out of the room and downstairs, which were also covered with broken glass and bits of wooden frames, etc, to be greeted by very relieved parents who also had had very lucky escapes.

Mom had at the very last minute practically flung herself into the shelter and my father, who had turned back to fill the buckets when he had been halfway to the ARP post, he was really lucky! As he bent down to pick up a bucket the bomb landed and he was thrown against the wall hitting his head against the stone window sill, but he was wearing his tin helmet and that saved him. There was a deep groove in the helmet just above the brim but had he gone on to his post earlier he would have been blown up and killed, as were the other wardens who were on duty that night, as was the doctor and his family, as were many more in that area. It had been a direct hit on the ARP post. The bodies of those people were never found.

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