大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Jabulani Chwaula from WM CSV Action Desk on behalf of Arthur Musson and has been added to the site with his permission. Arthur Musson fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

One evening during the bombing, I was at home when a raid took place. Our cottage was situated between Lea Village School and the caretaker鈥檚 house, near their air raid shelters, which we used at such times. For some reason the Luftwaffe decide to drop incendiary bombs across the school and our field, fortunately not one bomb fell on the building.

I understand incendiaries, when in a plane were carried in large containers known as bread baskets. These were supposed to split up and let the bombs fall and cover a large area when released.

Unfortunately, the one which fell in the field near the railway had split into two halves and all of the incendiaries were blazing away and we were afraid it might act as a target for other bombers.

My brother and I went up the road to see if we could extinguish it. On the way up where there was no cover, another load on incendiaries was dropped all around us. I was relieved to see the last one fall and to know we had escaped the load.

It was not possible to extinguish the faulty bomb, so we left to deal with the others scattered around.

I was throwing some dump soil, all that was available over, when another bomb exploded throwing soil and some shrapnel all over me, fortunately doing little damage.

The next night the first explosive incendiaries were dropped on Birmingham causing much loss of life.

How lucky we were that they had not been dropped the previous night, as I may not have been here to recount my memories.

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