大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Story gatherer Jessica on behalf of Francis Ashton. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.
At the outbreak of war, my mother Violet Ashton had two small children, and my father was in the army away from Cornwall.
My mother had part time work with the Ministry of Works and worked for up to three days a week. The children were looked after by her good friend and neighbour Lillian.
She worked with a Forestry team. The ladies used to measure various types of wood and the men felled the trees and cut them into short lengths - most went for pit-props.
One day, whilst at work in the woods, this was in the Glynn Valley, a plane passed overhead and some of the workers waved to the pilot thinking it was one of ours (a Spitfire or Hurricane).
The plane came round and began to shoot at the workers who all hurried to a wooden shed nearby for protection. They all managed to squeeze inside the hut barring one lady whose bottom was sticking out of the door! The plane machine-gunned the hut, the bullets just missing the lady鈥檚 bottom! Luckily, no one was hurt but the episode proved to be quite a talking point for sometime, as they all had a lucky escape from the guns of an enemy plane.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.