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Towards the end of 1939 I was working as an engineer on motor torpedo boats and different types of landing craft. On 13 March 1940 a bomb fell near my house on the outskirts of Glasgow but there was very little damage. The next night the bombs fell again and blew out the windows and the roof slates. My brother and I retrieved the slates and used them to cover the windows.

However on 26 May (I think it was) the Germans dropped a 2000 lb bomb on my house but it did not go off for four hours. Of course when it did my house was completely gone. That same night Belfast was bombed and a certain young lady that I knew nothing of then survived……seven years later I met and married her.

I later read an account written by the Luftwaffe Airman who had commanded the raid on the Clyde. He had reported back to Reichsmarschall Goering that following the attack no more ships would be built on the Clyde and he was rewarded with the Iron Cross. Later Goering found out through his spies that the raid had missed the Clyde entirely. Instead, in error, it had bombed the boulevard that ran parallel to the Clyde and the many adjacent houses which included mine. Of course we had been extremely lucky to have survived for many people were killed that night.

Alexander McNeice, Fairfax, Virginia, USA.

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