大象传媒

One night during 1940, Mr Harold Pacey was happily saying goodnight to his future wife when the pair of them were suddenly thrown backwards, almost into the house, by the blast of a fallen bomb. It had dropped straight onto the metal bandstand in the middle of the Arboretum Park in Alvaston, Derby. The bandstand was completely destroyed. This tragic event claimed the lives of many RAF Barrage Ballon personnel who were sheltered beneath the bandstand at the time. These were the people responsible for maintaining and operating the anti-aircraft barrage balloons sent high into the night sky to hinder enemy bombers. They would stop the bombers from dropping to a sufficiently low altitude for the accurate deployment of their bombs. It is unlikely that the bandstand was the intended target of the German bomber crew, who would presumably have been looking for the nearby Rolls-Royce works or other important industrial or military target. Mr Pacey- who was then only sixteen years of age and an A.R.P messenger who regularly reported to the Cavendish Cinema HQ for his duty- attributes the attack to a returning bomber loosing off its last few bombs to enable a safer journey home that night. In fact, had it not been for the unfortunate failure of part of the cities air-defenses, the attack may not have happened at all!
Throughout the war, it was a common occurence for large tanks of diesel to be set alight and, with the aid of tall chimneys, the smoke allowed to drift through the Derby night sky. Despite producing an overpowering smell of burning fuel and undoubtedly bad for the health of nearby citizens, this simple method of obscuring the ground to enemy aircraft proved invaluable.
However, on the night in question, one of the diesel tanks burned out of control producing flames that could clearly be seen from the air. Mr Pacey feels sure that this would have presented the enemy aircrew with what they will have assumed to be an important target and so they attacked.

To subsequently prove the effectiveness of this primitive form of defense, and the fact that it may well have saved a city that was undoubtedly a potential target for bombing raids, Mr Pacey was later to serve with the R.A.F. near to the Baltic Coast. After a succcessful attack on an enemy airfield in that area (greatly assisted by the 11th Armoured Division), maps were discovered showing the entire Derby area (showing everything from the Rolls-Royce works to the city centre itself!). Had the Pioneer Corps not diligently maintained and operated the smokescreen it seems likely that Derby would have been a more frequent target for enemy bombs. Who knows what damage could have been done, or lives lost, had this been the case!!!

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