大象传媒

An incendiary bomb through the roof.

I grew up in Saltash on the Cornish side of the river Tamar near Plymouth. At the height of the 鈥淏litz鈥� on Plymouth in April 1941 Saltash got hit and most of the main street was knocked down or on fire. The house I lived in was hit by an incendiary bomb and one of the bedrooms was burnt out, and an unexploded H.E. bomb landed in the road outside. The blast from the bomb landing outside shifted all the slates on the roof facing the road. We were all evacuated from the house because of the unexploded bomb, and went to live with friends. We were lucky to have a dry period in April of that year so after a few days my Brother in Law, who was home from the Army, and myself decided to go back to the house and repair the roof before the rains came. We had to remove all the slates section by section, clean them, make new wooden pegs and then replace them (the slates were held on with little wooden pegs similar to tiles of today). I sat on the roof laying the slates as my Brother in Law brought them up to me through the inside trap door. Whilst I was on the roof along came the Army Bomb Disposal Squad and started to dig the bomb out. I had a grandstand view all the time until they got it out and took it away.

We finished repairing the roof and the family moved back in. Our school had been hit and we were off school for about two weeks until somewhere else could be found for us. We ended up sharing an out of town school on alternate half days. I was 14 years old at the time and shortly after this episode I joined the A.R.P. as a Messenger.

In the following year when I was 16 years of age I joined the Royal Air Force, but that is another story!

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