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This story was given to Conor Garrett and transcribed by volunteer Wendy Cornett

My Time as an ARP

WILLIAM HARRIS

Q Tell us about you being in the ARP

The time that I joined the ARP was in 1941; the ARP was Air Raid Patrols. There were so many men at each Patrol and they went out to keep an eye in case any incendiary bombs came down or anything like that. I remember that quite well.

One particular night the Germans did come over and they dropped a land mine in Thomas Street in East Belfast. It actually blew the street to smithereens. I went down along with the rest of the boys. We picked up and arm here and a leg there and so one; I’m not sure how many were actually killed that particular night.

By memory there were at least 10 houses blew up that particular night. To tell you the truth with my job I didn’t worry about blood because I was a butcher all my days and I was used to seeing blood. It was nothing to me, but seeing the parts of human bodies seemed to make you very sick inside. You hoped to yourself that this would be the end of it. But it wasn’t, because they came over a few weeks later and they dropped one in Ravenscroft Avenue.

At that particular time it wasn’t just as bad; it wasn’t a land mine, it was an incendiary bomb they dropped there. The reason was I think that the Germans had come over to get the Belfast shipyard. Thankfully they missed it, which was one good job then. If they had hit the shipyard then, Belfast would have been finished. There wouldn’t have been any work for anybody. There were thousands who worked in the shipyard at that particular time — thousands.

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