大象传媒

JJLW 14.07.05
Stafford Bombed

I don鈥檛 remember the exact date but sometime between 1940 and 1942 we experienced the one and only air raid on Stafford and in the daytime too.
I was working in a small test department on one of the mezzanine floors which ran like galleries around the sides of the large machine shops at the extensive English Electric Lichfield Rd. site and which had about 10,000 employees.
There was a three stage warning system.
The arrangement was that, if a raid were likely, we would first hear the normal wailing siren to warn us that a raid was expected and we were to proceed calmly to our allocated shelters in the grounds around the factory.
I think a second hooter noise was supposed to tell us to hurry to the shelters as it was now imminent.
The third warning was a shrill klaxon upon hearing which we were supposed to take immediate cover where we were, under stairs, tables or benches.

What actually happened was that a few seconds after the wail of the siren, the hooters and klaxons went off almost together followed immediately by one or two shuddering crumps.
Some people had started to make it to the shelters.
My young assistant dived under a bench where there were live electrical connections and shot out again like a rocket!
After what seemed like minutes, but was probably only several seconds, there was a loud widespread rat-tat-tat pitter-patter on the glass roofs of the factory..
A few people had managed to get outside in time to get a glimpse of the German twin engined bomber as it sped away.
Afterwards several versions of the story circulated; how many bombs of different kinds there had been and how the factory had been machine gunned.
It was said that the only casualty was a girl who twisted her ankle running down some outside metal stairs.
During the war of course there was practically no reporting of such events for security reasons and rumours were rife.

My version starts with the warning system.
Perched on the top of the main office block (which had only two or three floors and a pitched roof) was a tiny turret-like look-out post for the factory plane spotters.
They were accustomed to following the progress of our twin-engined RAF Oxford training planes as they approached Stafford and wheeled round the town at a few thousand feet.
They had been watching only shortly before another similar looking plane appeared out of the broken cloud, circled, came lower and then made a bee-line for the factory area.
Only when the spotters (two I believe) saw the plane鈥檚 markings and something coming out of its belly did they push all their alarm buttons and dive for cover.
In the event the plane dropped four bombs.
The first was a fairly big one - a few hundred pounds - and it hit the outer edge of the army-tank assembly shop, making a small hole in the roof and a beautiful polished dent in the steel wall plate girder.
From there it shot across an open space into the high voltage laboratory of the Research Department, entering by the high roller shutter door. It spun round the floor space, in the centre of which stood the very tall high voltage generator for simulating lightning strokes. It did not go off or do much damage, except to the nerves of the handful of people working there.
The second was an oil bomb which was like a large oil drum which landed on the flat concrete roof of the HV lab. where it burned itself out fairly harmlessly, the oil staining the ceiling underneath.
The last two bombs were 50 pounders which landed on rough ground between the Research Dept. and the Euston - Crewe railway line.
They exploded and did most damage because as well as some windows in the Research Dept., the gravel that was thrown up landed seconds later all over the factory buildings and broke a lot of roof lights.
It was this that many employees thought was machine gunning.

If the bombs had been released one second earlier the centre of the factory would have been gutted and many lives lost.
The reason why the first big bomb did not explode was because the firing pin sticking out from its nose had been bent by the side impact of the body of the bomb on the factory roof girder.
This pin had a screw thread and was armed when a small propeller on it unwound and fell off during the bomb鈥檚 flight. The bomb shell, or one like it, was later on show at the Borough Library.
There were later stories about the plane having been shot down but little to confirm this.

And that was that - no more bombs on Stafford!

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