Bristol - The Blitz (2)
Keith Hallett emailed me with these memories of the Blitz :-
"I sure remember going to bed in my "Siren
Suit". We all slept in the cellar. Bristol Council offered to reinforce the
cellar at 29 Midland Road. If Dad allowed them to place a SHELTER HERE sign
outside the shop, he agreed and they came in and erected steel posts which
held steel I beams, to hold up a corrugated steel ceiling in the cellar. The
idea was that if the shop was hit this steel shelter would protect the
occupants. If you go by the shop sometime you may still see under the right
side shop window a steel plate with ventilation holes that was placed by the
council to provide escape from the shelter.
My Dad and Uncle built two tier bunks all
around the cellar for us to sleep, and a wide stairway was constructed for
quick access just inside the shop door. When the air-raid siren sounded we
might have about 25 to 30 people down in the cellar until the all-clear. My
Aunt & Uncle's home was damaged at Filton, so they moved in with us. Then
other friends lost their home. Dad welcomed them in, so we had 3 families -
10 people living above the shop for quite some time during the Blitz.
In the cellar we felt pretty safe from
incendiary bombs, but if the Jerry's started dropping their heavies, we ran
to a big warehouse situated behind 29 Midland Road with the entrance around
the corner on Waterloo Rd. This company built a bunker covered with sandbags
about 20ft high, and considered pretty safe. This is where the Siren-Suit
came in handy, we were already bundled up warm enough to run outside and
around the corner to the bunker.
I remember really being afraid of the Blitz
when we had to do this maneuver. The distinctive sound of the Jerry bombers
overhead, the sound of bombs exploding in the area, our mobile guns firing
back as the searchlights tried to pick out a Jerry, just a frightening
experience for a little chap age 6 or running for his life, along with his
parents. One of the things the Jerry's did that really scared us was
dropping the parachute flares, they floated slowly down and lit everything
up like daylight. We felt much more vulnerable when our homes were
illuminated like this.
Bombs burst water and gas mains. When the
water was on we filled the bath tub, and every available bucket. Leaking gas
caused many a home to explode. Later on during the war I remember water
pipes being laid in the gutter along Midland Road and elsewhere in Bristol,
to make them easily accessible in the event of a bomb hit.
I'm sure you have heard about the heroism of
Mr. George Jones, he was employed by the Bristol Gas Company and lived at
Folly Lane, not far from my Grandparents who lived at 13 Alfred St. and
Queen Victoria St.
One of the first major raids on Bristol was
in November 1940 and incendiary bombs landed on top of the large gas storage
tanks at the corner of Days Road and Folly Lane - St. Philips. George
climbed to the top, some 70ft high and kicked the incendiary bombs off.
During the raid he again climbed up to seal off holes in the tank sustained
by flying shrapnel. These acts of heroism earned George Jones the George
Medal. This part of Bristol was home to so many families who owed their
lives to this man. I am proud to say I knew him personally."
Mr Hallett also sent me these pictures of Bristol during the blitz :-
Bristol ablaze after a bomb raid
The King visits bomb torn Bristol
Wine Street
Bryan Bignell, who provided the photographs on the St. George pages, provided this account of the the Blitz.
On page
one on the blitz you mention the worst raid which happened on the night
of Sunday 24th November 1940. Me and my parents were attending the evening
service held as usual in the Evangel Mission, King street, about half a mile
up the road from our home. The service was interrupted by a Air raid warden
coming in and shouting for everyone to get in the shelter nearby as the raid
was getting more intense. I clearly remember the preacher who was a Mr.
Everson, saying he was surprised by the lack of faith the congregation had
as they all moved towards the door.
However my father had to
report for duty at Air Balloon school where he
was based as a warden, so he and my mother and me ran back home.
Considering my mother was pregnant with my sister Janet (Philip Budd's wife)
[Philip Budd provided information about Len "Uke"
Thomas], it was quite a risk to take.
I will never forget as we ran
down past the Kingsway cinema towards the brow of the hill by the Rodney pub
from where you can see a good view of the city, how much it was like a huge
firework display as literally hundreds of German flares were floating down
illuminating the city. While we were on the way home a bomb landed on the
junction of the Kingsway and the main road not far from the chapel which we
had just left, but we were to far away by then for it to effect us.
Dad told us to keep in as
close to the wall as possible and as soon as we arrived home saw a safely to
our Anderson shelter at the bottom of the garden, while he went of with his
tin hat on to put out the incendiary bombs etc. We were in the shelter all
night on that occasion so there was no school on the Monday.
The Blitz was a period
between September 1940 and May 1941 when the German air raids were a nightly
event sometimes they lasted most of the night. There were also quite a few
during the daytime and one in particular affected us as a family. One of the
main targets for the bombers were airfields and Aircraft manufacturing
plants of which Bristol had one of the largest at Filton, and my father
worked there as foreman in the Toolroom. He also was one of the companies
team of Air Raid wardens whose job it was to patrol the site during air
raids, to put out incendiaries (fire bombs) before they could set buildings
alight. The rest of his mates from the Toolroom went to two air raid
shelters allotted to that department, half in each.
The Air raid in question was
on Monday 25th September 1940 it was a big one by German standards, and they
lost many planes shot down by our fighters or guns. The raid was totally
directed at Filton and there was much damage; although he was outside, and
not in the shelter my father was unhurt physically. When he returned home
much later than usual, he broke down in tears and wept for quite a while....
one of the shelters in which half of the men in the Toolroom were situated,
received a direct hit from a German bomb and everyone was killed. He was
late home because he had been recovering the bodies of his friends from the
debris.. .it was the only time I ever saw my father weep.
I was attending school at
Summerhill on the day in question, because the raid was in the afternoon we
had to go the school air raid shelter. Our teacher was one of the school
wardens and was outside on patrol with his steel helmet on, which was lucky
for him because he was hit on the head by a piece of Shrapnel (bits of
exploded anti-aircraft shells). I and several of my mates did see some of
the air fights between our fighters and the Germans, as the view of the sky
over Filton was good from Summerhill.
My mother had gone down to
town to do some shopping and was in Jones' department store when the raid
started. She, like everyone else had to go to the shelter, and while she was
there someone said she had heard that the works at Filton were being heavily
bombed. Mum always said afterwards that it was probably one of the worst
moments of her life, and she prayed.
I remember that we went down
to Paignton in Devon for a few days break and the first night we were there
they had an Air Raid, and everyone rushed to the Bomb Shelters except us
(because we had grown so used to it). We didn't get much time on the beach
because all the promenade was fortified with barbed wire, but they removed a
special section for 1 hour in the morning and again in the afternoon so that
people could go on the beach for a quick swim.
In the article above Bryan mentions the Anderson Shelter. These were devised by Sir John Anderson and by September 1940, 2,300,000 had been distributed. They were extremely tough and the basic corrugated steel construction was still in use for defensive works when I was in the army in the 1990's.
Two civilians emerge unscathed
from a battered Anderson shelter.
Image from the
Home Sweet Home Front website
More about these shelters can be found at the
these sites.
The corrugated steel
construction being used 50 years later
Me in Denmark, around 1990
A family friend, Marge Hodgeson, remembers that the authorities built a heavily reinforced air raid shelter in her parents garden. The shelter was meant not only for her family but the neighbours as well. She remembers that when the house was demolished after the war it took a couple of men with sledgehammers just over a day to complete the work but that they had to call in a crane with a demolition ball for the shelter, even then it took them three days to remove it.
Mr Hallett also reminded me that much of the rubble from the bombings in Bristol ended up in New York. It was used as ballast in ships returning to America during the war.
Plaque in New York
The plaque reads :-
BRISTOL BASIN BENEATH THIS EAST RIVER DRIVE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK LIE STONES, BRICKS AND RUBBLE FROM THE BOMBED CITY OF BRISTOL IN ENGLAND... BROUGHT HERE IN BALLAST FROM OVERSEAS, THESE FRAGMENTS THAT ONCE WERE HOMES SHALL TESTIFY WHILE MEN LOVE FREEDOM TO THE RESOLUTION AND FORTITUDE OF THE PEOPLE OF BRITAIN, THEY SAW THEIR HOMES STRUCK DOWN WITHOUT WARNING.... IT WAS NOT THEIR HOMES BUT THEIR VALOR THAT KEPT THEM FREE........
And broad-based under all
Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood,
As rich in fortitude
As e'er went worldward from the island-wall.
ERECTED BY THE
ENGLISH-SPEAKING UNION OF THE UNITED STATES
1942
I believe the Bristol born film actor Cary Grant was present at the dedication ceremony of this memorial.
POWs
On my Bristol Help pages, a lady named Irene asked about the POW camp in Ashton Gate. In February 2008, I was delighted to get an email from Kathleen Woodward who said...
I lived in Bower Road, Ashton from 1937 until 1956 and well
remember the number of POW and Polish camps in the district. The Polish camp was
near Ashton Drive - my friend and I used to walk by it on the way to Pit Ponds
where we fished for tadpoles. The Germans were often seen in the neighbourhood
walking around in their distinctive POW uniforms. Some of the neighbours
befriended them which caused a lot of bad feeling, as they were encouraged to
try and sell small wooden toys they had made in the camp. I remember one time
two of them leaned on our front gate looking at my little sister playing and my
mother rushed out and took her into the house. I recall towards the end of the
war the German speakers in my class at school were taken to a hall in Bedminster
to entertain German prisoners by singing German carols , and taking around
refreshments. I still remember being surprised while we were singing "O Tannenbaum" a group of them joined hands and started singing rather loudly what
I later realised was the Red Flag.
Americans had been stationed in the Bond Houses in Winterstoke
Road, Ashton Gate, and when they had gone back the buildings were used to house
POWs.
The
Fishponds Local History Society
website must contain the definitive guide to the
air raids on Bristol.
Tom Fletcher has written of growing up in wartime Bristol at his site
Civvy Street in WWII
12 miles away, Bath also suffered. See the Bath Blitz Memorial Project
This page created 6th December 2000, last modified 2nd February 2008