大象传媒

This contribution is taken from the collections of the McLean Museum and Art Gallery, Greenock. Inverclyde Council

Mr Jim Reynolds recalls:
This brings me on to the other side of it in the night that will remain in the memory of every Greenockian - the 6th and 7th May. A strange thing I remember on the Sunday previous to the Monday night, that would be the fifth of May, there was - the sirens went at three o'clock on the Sunday afternoon. And I always remember we all rushed out into the streets, I remember the ARP warden for our area, a Mr McCrane with his helmet and his gasmask slung over his denims or his battle dress, telling us all to get into the shelter. This was a laugh. The shelter consisted of the close mouth having corrugated iron in the roof with iron stanchions holding it up and the cellars, or what was called "down the dunny鈥�, were reinforced and this was the shelters.

In any event on this particular Sunday the sirens went about three o'clock. We all ran-out to the street and as we looked up we saw this plane which must have been flying at 25,000 feet. It just flew slowly and surely right over the Whin Hill and disappeared from our view. It was obviously a reconnaissance plane.

The other strange thing was on the night of Monday 6th May - you have to remember that prior to that there was a raid on Greenock and a bomb fell on Ladyburn in Milton Street where a house or part of a house was demolished and there wasn't much great activity regarding air raids - and on the Monday night about eleven o'clock a strange thing happened. There was no sirens; suddenly we got up and heard this noise, looking out from Belville Street we could see across to Cardross Point, which is a wooded promontory outside of Helensburgh. It was all on fire. Apparently there was an anti-aircraft position here and it was firing. You see the normal sound you heard was the sirens going and the second sound you heard after that was all the lavatory chains in the tenement buildings being pulled before they went to the shelter."

"Of course on this Monday night, 6th May 1941 when Cardross was on fire the sirens went about ten past eleven (p.m.) but the bombs fell at eleven o'clock.

In any event on that particular evening we had a habit in Belville Street, where all the boys, all teenagers, like myself, gathered in No 45. Because - we stood in the close there and we blathered and we smoked and we tried to keep our spirits up in some way or other. It was amazing, there was no great fear, it was all a great adventure, a great experience.

But this night in particular, two of us who stayed in 41 Belville Street ran down to the back green because as we were about to leave the close to go into No 45 someone had shouted that a German bomber had got caught in the searchlights and so we ran down to the back green and looked up and lo and behold here was a searchlight from the ack-ack position on the Whin Hill had caught this German bomber.

A funny thing - it all sort of lit up or reflected as if there had been no paint on it and the aluminium they had was reflecting the searchlight back again. And of course, we stood there shouting, waiting to see a shell hitting it and the whole lot exploding, as you know, boys are at that age, you know. But nothing dramatic happened. Suddenly the searchlight switched off, the sirens of course had gone by this time and then, there was four small steps, just before you came to the back door. I found myself suddenly at the top of these four steps and the only other sound I heard was a - shh ou - and we ran up onto the street.

On reflection, it must have been the blast that carried me up the four stairs because I never, ever recall going up them. But when I got to the street and ran out, a sight struck me there that I - one of the most dramatic sights I'll probably ever see. There was a gaping hole where the 43 and 45 Belville Street was. And on the other side 37 and part of 39 had disappeared
By the way, if you look at the Greenock Old Photographs Vol. 2 page 9, you will see the situation I've just referred to, probably taken the following morning. However, at that time - its strange how things you recall now - it was the smell. The smell, not of cordite or of fire, but the smell of the lathe and plaster walls and the smoke from the burning wood.

There was a gas main burst in 43 and it was flaring up all over the place. And we could see Helensburgh through the gaping hole. You have to remember that for twenty or thirty years before that, this had been used, a closed street with high tenement buildings and here suddenly in one second, here was two large gaping holes where you could look right through to Scott's Yard, across the river to Helensburgh.

It was a sight that remained in my mind ever since, however, the next thing was that the wardens and so on herded all the people that were unhurt up to the St Lawrence's School into what was called a shed underneath the school, or in basement, there was a shed in which the children played, as there was because the school was built on a hillside, there was really no playground at all, or not much of a playground and they played mostly in this shed ~ this was where we spent the remainder of the evening.

I must say that our spirit of adventure had turned somewhat after the sight we had seen and the traumatic events of the few hours previously into one of cold stark realism of what war really meant.

The following morning, as light dawned, the salvage corps. and the various services were there and we watched the bodies being extricated and strangely enough from the cellar of 37 some people were taken out. Macky Twigg was taken out alive and the boys whom we had been going to see in 45 - one was killed, Tommy Finn, and Hughie Cameron, Jimmy Hill and John Seurvine were all brought alive. They had been standing in that close.

Well if you look at that picture in the photographs I have just mentioned you will find it incredible to see all that tons of masonry, wood, household equipment living in such a heap and underneath that there was people brought out alive. It is really amazing. One of the strange things during these occasions is the humour and some of the strange things that happen. For example, in 37 Belville Street - if you look at the photograph that is the first one facing you which was demolished ~ Alec Abbott, who stayed there left the shelter, that is the dungeons down below, to go to his house, He was on the point of just opening his door on the top flat when the bomb struck and down he came with the debris with the door on top of him. He was the first person they dug out alive on top of that heap of rubble you see in that photograph.

Of course the town was in quite a state at that time. The houses were all barred. We had no home to go to. I lived with my father and my sister and on the next night we went to my other sister who stayed in 101 Drumfrochar Road commonly called 'the heid of the hill'.

Now 'the heid of the hill' contained Mill Street, Anne Street, and Broomhill Street, where the memorial is at the present time. This was what was commonly called the orange quarter.

On the second night my sister, who stayed in a council house, they had shelters round the back green, concrete brick shelters - the siren went again roughly at the same time. I probably should mention at this stage that that first raid lasted from eleven o'clock at night to approximately three in the morning, before the final aircraft drone was heard.

The same happened the second night. Each raid was of about 4 hours duration. But on the second night again, like the other young kids, young boys of our age, we were very loathe to go into shelters. I don't whether it was a feeling of claustrophobia but one wanted to be out to see what was going on. I always remember looking up and seeing a parachute. Of course the rumour went round that there were German paratroops landing. In the event what it actually was was a mine attached to a parachute when eventually landed in a field at Larkfield. That field by the way is now the Larkfield football stadium. There was a great gaping hole there, a crater, so many feet deep and so many feet wide.

One of the other humorous parts that I mentioned previously many of the young men and young teenagers were always trying with a bit of bravado to keep their spirits up. On the Tuesday night it seemed that all hell had let loose because there were fires raging all over the place. The distillery had been hit, Westburn Sugar house had been hit, and you could here the bombs whistling down then. I always recall one occasion when two characters who were keeping the populace amused in the shelter were giving a running commentary to the people inside the shelter. I always recall and still remember one of them saying, "This one is for "the heid of the hill", and his mate says, "How do you know?" - he says "Because it is whistling 'the Sash'."

This was the sort of humour that came in the midst of such traumatic and dramatic events the likes of which we hope will never be seen again. But it is amazing that of the tales and rumours going around.

The following evening the town was without everything - water, electricity and gas. As a matter of fact the stories were coming through on the bush telegraph - Woodrow, the Chief Engineer at the electricity boards place had been in an iron pill box and it was like a pepper dish with the shrapnel. He was found dead inside this pill box just up from St Lawrence's Church, which had been destroyed by incendiary bombs.

Walking round the town on this occasion, it was, again there were the smells. There was the reels of hoses lying across the streets as I mentioned earlier the water hydrants were not in use and the fire brigade had to use the water from Victoria Harbour. Of course you had all these hoses with special wooden wedges to allow the traffic to run over the hoses without bursting them all over the town. The smell of burning wood and again that smell of the lath and plaster walls at the end of the day.

And so here we were the second night which was far worse than the first night with burning whisky running down the streets, the sugar house well aflame - the town seemed to be dead. It was empty. On the Wednesday night I went with my father and sister down to a house in Serpentine Walk where a cousin of ours stayed. And lo and behold again about ten o'clock there was no sirens went but the ships at the Tail of the Bank used their horns to signal there was an air raid. And so once again I went out to have a look and fortunately nothing happened that night. It must have been a false alarm.

I eventually got my bike because I had heard that some friends of ours had gone up the hill - that is the Whin Hill up by Loch Thom. I took my bike and rode up Peat Road right up to Loch Thom and here was hundreds of people walking all over the place, I never ever found these friends of ours and I eventually came back home finding two tails of incendiary bombs on the way. It then dawned on me that looking over the moors I could see a line of where there had been fires and incendiary bombs had fallen. And it struck me that if all the bombs that had fallen on the hill and in the water had fallen on the town there would have been nothing left of the town whatsoever because the Germans must have made their run- north to south instead of from east to west.

And the strange thing also was the following morning when I went to Scotts to start work again of course. there was one bomb had landed between two destroyers in the berth and one had fallen down off the berth and one incendiary bomb had burned a life boat in one of the cruisers that was fitting out in the basin. That was the extent of the damage to the war effort as far as that blitz was concerned.

I don't think one target that should have been hit was hit. The Torpedo Factory was completely unscarred. The dockyards I mentioned, received one bomb and one incendiary. It was all civilian casualties and the death toll of course, was quite shocking, because even 300, I think it was, odds who had been killed was quite a number at such an early stage of the war, particularly on one occasion. Of course later on with various other blitzes on the war at Coventry and Clydebank this paled into insignificance of course.

But for us it was an occasion which will remain in the memory of people living through those two terrible nights."

"How did people react so far as law and order was concerned because there would be lots of stuff lying about of value?"

"Yes - it was an amazing thing - that Wednesday night that I told you about I was coming, cycling down Peat Road from my visit to up the Loch Thom and the hillside and I saw a soldier with helmet and fixed bayonet standing at Drumfrochar Road just at the cross. And I assumed that they had declared martial law and having no lights of any kind on my bike whatsoever, I decided it would be prudent just to walk alongside the bike. The town was completely and utterly deserted. I never met a living soul from then on until I reached that house at Serpentine Walk,

The following day we were eventually allowed into our own house. after they had knocked down the parts of 37 and 43 Belville Street to make them safe. We were the only ones in the whole tenement at that particular time. And canteens had come into the town ~ mobile canteens had come into the town to give out soup, tea and cigarettes the Salvation Army and so on and the WRVS. In fact one was in Scotts yard.

There were very strange events happened that night peculiarities I should say - with regard to damage that was done. For instance houses you will see in the photograph I have already mentioned - you will notice that particularly so far as 41 is concerned that there is not a window broken or smashed even with the blast at such a distance.

Well the war weaved its weary way to its final conclusion and as far as we were concerned in Greenock, we went about out business and finished the jobs. The ships were built, the sugar was made ~ it was just a buzzing hive of activity. The Tail of the Bank was packed with ships - the North Africa landing, ships running back and forwards to America, even the Queen Elizabeth. Again the bush telegraph working, all grey coming down on its maiden run across the Atlantic it was a big secret and everybody was out to watch it all over the town from Clydebank right on down the Clyde. Its really amazing.

In the yards of course we were building destroyers, submarines and cruisers. Of course during the war the trades unions in the yards and the management鈥檚 were in closer joint association than they had ever been before. There had been a time of course in the thirties when the trades unions were a bad word and shop stewards were regularly victimised. In fact, there was one chap who stayed in 47 Belville Street who was telling me he had been victimised for eleven years for being a union official.

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