大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Lynn Hughes on behalf of Betty Cooney (Boon), the author and has been added to the site his/her permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

On Sunday 12th January 1941, exactly one week after my 20th birthday we had a long and bad air raid.

It had been a cold but sunny and bright day; I had spent a pleasant afternoon on Plymouth Hoe. There had been a raid the night before, but it didn鈥檛 seem too bad as we watched it from the steps of our front porch. We had a good view of Plymouth from the River Tamar on the left to Laira on the right.

After our sunny afternoon on the Hoe we went home to tea, as the evening came the moon rose and it became so bright with moonlight that we said 鈥淎ir raid night鈥�! Sure enough, shortly after the sirens went and the raid began. At first it did not seem too bad, we stood in the porch and watched the searchlight. Then came the planes. Throbbing of the German planes sounded quite different from ours.

Then came the shower of incendiary bombs, the explosion of bombs moved in the direction of Plymstock. We moved like a flash into our shelter, my father had dug. Long ways into a thick heavy hedge that ended just outside our back door. We used to creep along inside the hedge into the tunnel that we had covered with old carpets etc and sit as comfortably as we could on the floor. We spent many hours in our dugout in the nights that followed through the months to come. We would take it in turns to creep along to the entrance and report what was happening.

It was soon obvious that Plymstock and Oreston were having a rough time. Incendiaries, fires, shrapnel whistling down, bomb whistling down and exploding. We could not tell exactly where or how much damage was being done. Over everything were the flashing beams of the searchlights. At long last came the 鈥淎ll clear鈥� and we went to bed by candlelight. The next morning 13th we found that the telephone and electric wires were all down. There were no buses, as I walked to work there were other people plodding along with me. We were all tired after a long night, we heard that Oreston School had been bombed and lots of houses. The information was all very vague.

Back in the office work went on as usual we were expecting to work until 8 0鈥檆lock as usual, but at 6:30 the sirens sounded and we had to go to our shelter with our usual armfuls of records, documents, gasmasks and steel helmets etc. We sat there until the 鈥淎ll clear鈥�, which sounded at about 9:15. Outside it was still the dreaded bright moonlight that greeted us. It took some time to get out of the Dockyard and into the street. I was too tired to even consider that long lonely walk back to Plymstock. I just waited and waited until the buses started coming, at last one came along and the conductor shouted out the number, that told me it was on its way to Plymouth. I climbed thankfully aboard and was dropped off at Derry鈥檚 Cross-, as before.

Once again I walked to my bus stop in Basket Street, and once more I met up with my friend Kath. She was exhausted; too she had been much nearer the Oreston bombs than I had been the night before. So we just waited and waited until a Plymstock bus came along. All the still burning ruins shocked us as we were carried through any suitable side street. We reached Plymstock at last, Kath had left the bus a few stops earlier and I got off at Plymstock School. There was a great commotion going on. As I stepped from the bus two figures detached themselves from the smoke. They were my younger brother Bill and our East Surrey solider friend Bill. They were black with smoke and were carrying hatchets. Their work was now done and they had stayed near the bus stop in the hope that a bus would come along and that I would be in it. My brother took me the rest of the way home on his motorcycle; the other Bill followed us. It was still as clear as day and we were glad to sit down, eat and drink by candlelight. We learned more about the deaths and disasters at Oreston the night before, and about the bomb that had narrowly missed our Plymstock School.

The next morning (14th) there were no buses, I walked part way to work and was eventually picked up by a bus that took me to Devonport. It was along and tiring journey, I did not get to the office until 10 0鈥檆lock two hours late. All the working time that we lost through raids and sheltering in our Dockyard shelter had to be made up for by extra overtime. But I was excused overtime that evening, I got a bus to Prince Rock and walked from there to my home. When I reached home I had a hot drink and a quick meal and went straight to bed that was Tuesday 14th over.

The next day it was work as usual, there was a raid that night but I cannot remember any of the details and I was too tired to write in my diary. It was very pleasant to go to bed knowing that I was having a few days of my annual leave on Thursday and Friday so no office. We had quite a heavy snowstorm during the day on Thursday. An air raid in the evening, on Friday I went for a long walk by myself in the snowy white countryside. It was wonderful.

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