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Torpoint, Cornwall

My home at 9 years old in 1941 was in Newquay but I had three uncles called Reynolds. My father was away in the RAF and Mother and I went to stay with one in Torpoint. One night there was and air raid and I was woken and we all went to their air raid shelter in the garden, I remember the night sky lit by search lights and completely covered with mushroom clouds from bursting anti-aircraft shells. That was the first of seven nights in the blitz that did so much damage to Plymouth. We went home the next day. But Churchill visited later and was furious that Plymouth could burn when it was surrounded by water so thenceforth the streets had iron water pipes beside the pavement.
My uncles owned four tugboats that moored in the Tamer between Torpoint and Devonport. These tugs towed in and out ships to and from the docks. Sometimes in the Sound they turned ships 360 degrees so their magnetic compass could be checked, they also had the job of opening and closing the anti submarine nets between the breakwater and the Cornish and Devonshire shores, and relieving two man crew of the Edystone lighthouse. Before D-day (enemy bombing having ceased) I was again staying with one uncle and allowed to go on one of the tugs (the ‘Antony’) while it did chores around the Sound which was choc a bloc with hundreds of ships of all types and sizes. This was very thrilling and I was even transferred to a huge US ocean going tug where I was given some food from the galley.
My Father, A N Williams, joined the RAFVR just after the outbreak of war as an engineer officer initially as a PO then rose to Flight Lt. Early in the war when he came home on leave to Newquay because of the danger of German landings he had to have his Colt .45 American revolver with him. He let me use it to aim at light bulbs at the end of the garden but its weight and recoil meant I never hit them! However when cocked the sensitivity of the trigger and the weight meant I once accidentally fired into the ground near my foot! In the RAF he helped design a catapillar tractor that had a tough inflatable air bag on top to run under heavy bombers that crash landed on return from 1000 bomber raids. Two were rushed under the wings, inflated to lift the aircraft so it could be quickly moved off the runway.

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