大象传媒

The air raid alarm is sounding. We, the Dodds family, that is mother, father and six children, including me are sitting in the kitchen of our 4th floor tenement home in Dundee, Scotland. It is dark outside - no lights in the streets and all the windows are covered with blackout material.

Dad looks around at us all. our gas masks are stacked in the corner(4 normal size, 2 red "mickey mouses" and two huge contraptions that each hold one baby). He says "We're staying richt here.
We canna get this bunch and the gas masks a' doon they dark stairs tae the shelter".

A moment later we hear a frightening screaming sound comming from the sky and then an horrendous explosion that seems very close. I doubt if I'll ever again see an entire family move as fast as ours did that night.

The next day we discovered just how fortunate we had been. A German plane had bombed the shipyards at Glasgow and was heading towards the east coast and the North Sea on it's return journey. It decided to get rid of it's last bomb and dropped it on an air raid shelter in a city park only half a mile from our house. Not only had we escaped likely death but the air raid shelter was unoccupied.
Ena D Jenkins, Bowie, Maryland, USA

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