- Contributed by听
- Len_W_Crawley
- People in story:听
- Len Crawley
- Location of story:听
- Purfleet, and Coryton Essex
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A2930492
- Contributed on:听
- 19 August 2004
We lived in West Street (now Charlton Street)South Stifford. I was about 10 or 11 years old then. There was an air raid one night. We all slept under the table, and in the morning when we drew the curtains we thought there had been a very bad storm, but when we looked again we realised that The Oil Tanks at Purfleet had caught light. When we went into the garden droplets of oil the size of half crowns were falling out of the sky. The NFS were in attendance trying to put the fire out. The groundwas stained for a long time by the oil.
I also remember when the oil refineries were bombed at Shell Haven at Coryton and my father in law to be was a fireman in the National Fire Service based at Coryton, fighting the fires. This particular event, one of his mates slipped into a blazing ditch of oil, my future father in law luckily was able to pull him out, and he survived.
漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.
Recommended story
Story with photo