大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Marie on behalf of Olive and has been added to the site with her permission. Olive fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was 17 years old when the war started, and I lived in Dronfield - a small town six miles south of Sheffield. Nothing much happened in my district for the first six months of the war but in 1940 bombing started in several cities. I remember the big blitz on Sheffield - I think it was December 12th 1940. I was walking home when the air-raid sirens went at 7pm, I heard the planes overhead and they dropped parachute flares, then incendiary bombs in the southern suburbs of Sheffield - just 4 miles away from where I was standing. I ran home when I saw the red glow in the sky and I joined family and neighbours in our big cellar.

We stayed in the cellar until the all clear went at 4 in the morning. We heard, of course, the whistle of the bombs and felt lots of thuds and shakes throughout the night and thought the whole place was coming in. But fortunately, apart from bits of plaster falling down, nothing much happened. When the all clear went, we went outside and looked over at Sheffield which was just one complete red glow.

The next morning I heard stories of some of the things that had happened from people who had survived that night. Evidently, when the flares and bombs started dropping, a lot of people had been in two big dances that were taking place that night, and there were a lot of people in the cinemas. Some people in the cinemas had taken no notice of the sirens until the police had made them go into shelters - and they didn鈥檛 realise that in one cinema the roof was ablaze and they鈥檇 all been sat there still watching the film! People seemed to think nothing was going to happen to them and just didn鈥檛 seem bothered by it all.

Anyway, the gas works were hit and a lot of men risked their lives putting wet clay over the holes the bombs had made in the gas cylinders. Soon after 8pm, the explosive bombs started dropping - and these hit hospitals, churches - but not the cathedral. 154 schools were hit, 8 were demolished and 98 damaged. The Kings Head hotel - built in 1582 - and the Angel Hotel - built in 1680 - were both hit and completely demolished. And also a seven storey hotel that was full of people, unfortunately they all died. Rows of houses were wrecked, Brammal Lane Football ground was damaged and trams and buses were burnt out, the tram lines were standing on end in the roads and there were fractured sewers, burst water mains and the fireman had to take water from the River Sheaf to try and put out the fires. They had firemen from Yorkshire, Manchester and Nottingham all helping.

So in the morning, everyone emerged from the shelters in their dance dresses and dance shoes, walking through all this dreadful mess looking like they were just going out. It was a very peculiar contrast.

The follow on raid came three nights later when the bombers tried for the East end of Sheffield, and the steel works. They had high explosives, parachute mines and one parachute mine dropped two miles from where I lived and all our windows shattered, tiles came off the roof and the doors were blown off. But fortunately no one at home was hurt. I read in the newspapers that no bombs had hit the big Vickers steelworks which was a good thing as they had the only 15 tonne drop hammer in Britain and they forged crank shank stampings for the Rolls Royce aircraft and had two teams of men keeping it going all the time. Without it we could have lost the war as it was really very important.

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