The War Years
 

I was born in a small town in south Wales called Glyn-Neath, on the 8th of December 1931. The winter was very cold, food was scarce and there was no work for my father who worked as a coal miner.
In 1932 my family moved to a town in England called Shirehampton near the seaport of Avonmouth. We had no home of our own so we moved in with my Grandmother (Williams) , the home was a large stone and brick building with a large front garden. It still looked good in 1995 when I last saw it. We lived at this home for a year. My aunt Maryann and uncle Llewellyn lived in Avonmouth three miles away, they had two children, Peggy the oldest, and Ira a little older than me. My Dad soon found work on the docks at Avonmouth as a Fireman on the Dock Locomotives
Now that my father was working, we started looking for a home of our own. You could not buy homes back in those days; you rented from the local or city government and when your name came up on the list you moved into a home. We finally made the list in 1934 -we were were offered a place to live. We moved into the lower part of the village of Shirehampton, called the Bank, as it was named because the homes were situated on a high bank over looking the main street. They were row cottages, very old, built wall to wall, coal fireplaces, and no water (you got your water from a tap in the middle of the yard). We had a living room downstairs, a kitchen, and two bedrooms upstairs. The only good thing to say about that place was that it was close to my father’s work place that was only a two-mile walk every day. Oh yes, I forgot to say the toilets were also in a building outside in the courtyard ,a six hole wooden seats deluxe model, for a bath we would have to boil the kettle a few times to pour into the galvanized tub.
. We lived at this place until 1938.
In the summer of 1938 we got lucky! The Rogers name came up again on the waiting list for a house and this time we hit the Big Time a three bedroom, living room, large kitchen, electric lights, running cold water, a real bathtub in which we heated the water in gas boiler and pumped it through a pipe to the bathroom. We had a large back garden that we grew just about everything. Dad was a
hell of a gardener. The house was only about five years old and it was freshly painted when we moved in. I can still smell the paint even to this day, as it was the cheap type that rubbed off on your clothes when you bumped into a wall. It was a mixture of powder and water, but it was quite a step up from what I was accustomed to. Our home in Shirehampton, was the place I grew up and what I remember most about my childhood.
The village of Shirehampton has quite a long history dating back to the Roman days. Old Roman forts and camps are scattered all about the place. Avonmouth, which was located two miles away, Bristol was the port seven miles up the river Avon,Avonmouth was where the ships all waited to go up the river Avon to the port of Bristol with the tide. We were taught the history of the village while in school. Of course, back then none of that history meant anything to me, but now when one thinks back it was a nice place to grow up and play in those places.
One thing nice about living at Shirehampton was that it was close to my first school. It was about seventy-five yards from my house and it was not a long walk to and from school. I can remember going to school, as a matter of fact; I have class picture of my first class with my classmates. I have remained in touch with some of them, not as often as I would have liked, but every few years we make contact.
I remember one time I was leaving for school and as I stepped out of the front door my Dad picked up the morning paper and the headlines read ENGLAND GOES TO WAR WITH GERMANY! I can still remember that day as if it were yesterday. I can remember the bomb shelters they built under the school and the small one they built in our back yard. I had to stay and sleep in that shelter many times in the cold of winter, looking out and seeing the firebombs hitting our house, catching it on fire, and the firemen putting out the fire. The front bedroom was completely burnt and smelled like hell for a long time. It is funny how certain smells can trigger your memory. The smell was the same as the white phosphorus (WP) Willie Peter as we called it in Vietnam.
Well, 1940 came and Dad goes off to war in the Army. The German planes were still bombing us day and night. We only lived two miles from the docks, which are full of ships and sometimes the German pilots, would miss the targets and the bombs would fall all around us. Sometimes they would just dump their load so they could get the hell out of there, as the ack ack gunners were very good. We lived very close to a lot of prime targets -- the docks, oil storage tanks, the aircraft factory and an Army camp all within a five-mile radius of our home.
While the war was going on the government changed the daylight summer time to two hours so it was daylight at 10 o’clock at night. All of the kids stayed outside and played because it remained daylight. Wintertime was the worst, as we had to put on extra warm clothes and move into the bomb shelters and stay the night.
It was bad at night. We would watch the German planes be caught in the beams of the Army searchlight units and the anti aircraft guns blow the hell out of them! Of course what goes up, must come down and did it come down! The shrapnel did lots of damage to the rooftops. The next morning, we children would go around picking it up for souvenirs for show and tell. However, the police cracked down on us and started confiscating our loot. Some of us were picking up exploded anti aircraft shells. Kids will be kids and we had no fear of anything. One day my buddy and I were watching a dog fight between a Spitfire and a German plane that had come over to take pictures (not of me). They wanted intelligence pictures of the ships in the dock and the harbor. The spitfire shot the German plane down. The Germans bailed out safely, but the local women got to them before the authorities did and beat the hell out of them with broomsticks and rakes. But guess who was first at the scene of the crashed German plane looking for goodies? My buddy and me. We got some really good stuff from the plane, but the police took it all away from us, kicked us in the ass, slapped our ears and ran us off. They said they wanted the equipment for intelligence purposes. Now that I am older and wiser, I believe them. I did not then, of course, because I was only eleven years old.
In the summer of 1941 through 1942, the German bombing became worse, so they decided to ship all the children to places in the country to keep them out of harm’s way. The evacuees, as they were called, were placed with families that had farms and were located far away from any targets. I knew of kids that were treated like dogs or slaves and they ran away. I also know of kids that loved it -- they got plenty to eat, loved the families that took them in, and kept going back to see them after the war. My Dad decided that I needed a firm hand on me to keep me out of trouble and keep me out of danger from the bombing, so they shipped me off to Brecon, Wales, the home of my Grandparents, Dad’s Mother and Father.
I Lived in Brecon for a year with my Grandparents. It was only sixty miles away from my home, but it was out of the way and at the base of the Brecon Beacons There were a lot of trout streams, and I hunted small game. But most of all, there were no air raids. Life was kind of quite in Brecon. I did not know any other boys my age and at school I was the outsider, so I went up into the mountains to fish and hunt rabbits with my Grandfather, sometimes I would go off by myself. I would stay out late, sometimes for hours past my curfew. That was when Grandma would whip my butt with the riding crop she kept along side of her chair and she would make that thing sing. She was very good to me but was very strict.
About ten miles from our home in Brecon was a special training camp for soldiers. I would take beer up to the troops and earn a few extra pennies. I would have to sneak it to them on the QT because they were in special training. I found out later that they were commandos. Today that same camp is operating, but as a Special Air Service, or as we know it be, the Special Forces, one of the most elite military organizations in the world.

Part 2.

After about a year, Dad came home on leave to visit. We started talking about how the bombing had slacked off somewhat and he asked me if I would like to go back home. It's strange how I was just beginning to be accustomed to Brecon, but I wanted to see my old school mates. I packed my bag and was ready to go home.
When I got back to Shirehampton, I found that some of my mates had returned from Devon. That is where most of them were sent when the bombing got bad. Some of the families at the end of the street had lost their homes and one of the kids who ran around with us had been killed in the house. He was younger than I was. His name was Billy. It is funny, kids did not care much about the blitz and in the bombed out buildings we played hide and seek, and cowboys, where people we knew had been killed. My Aunt living in Avonmouth had lost her house to the bombing also. All of my uncles were away serving in the military, some even as far away as Burma, fighting the Japs whom we did not even know.
Through the years of 1943-1944 things didn’t change that much. Only a few German planes came over and dropped a bomb load. They started to lose too many planes. I had seen the skies black with planes to now only a few. The shortage of food still remained, and there were no cars on the road because there was no gasoline. Shit, I didn’t know anyone that owned a car anyway; only the military drove around town. The port was getting more ships in daily, loaded with warplanes and tanks. The highways were cramped with planes that they had off loaded. They built a very large American Army camp on the places where my mates and me played. It was near an old castle. Hell, we thought we owned that land, but I guess not. So we decided to do greater things in life like stealing from the yanks, but that did not last long. After a few well-placed rifle shots firing over our heads, we kept away from the camp at night.
We began to do favors for some of the troops, sneaking beer up to the wire fence and taking love letters to the girl friends whom they could not get to see for a while. They gave us candy, gum, cigarettes, and food from the mess hall. They even gave us and the other kids from the village a Christmas party.
Most of us boys that were in the boy scouts were converted to Army cadets,
We were issued one uniform and a set of web gear, we would train on weekends, and we would train with rifles and set up roadblocks along with the home guard. The first rifle I was issued was an old Canadian Ross; it was as tall as me, I finally got a rifle that matched my size a 303 short Le Enfield we also got to fire it every other month. All this took place because we were expecting an invasion by the Germans. In December 1945 the Army cadets were eliminated; it was fun running around looking for Germans.
We did other stupid things sometimes we would swim down the river into the docks and take a little of the cargo, such as sugar, canned fruit, and bananas, any thing that we could eat or trade on the side. It was crazy, but everyone was doing it. We did have some close calls though, like electric fences, strong water currents and guard dogs and very large wharf rats some as big as cats. June 1944 came and we began to see the tide of war start to change, troops were starting to move down to the docks and load on to large landing craft, we waved to them as they marched past, we were not sure where they were going. Then one day the sky was full of planes towing gliders, they never stopped coming; most of them were the old Gooney bird C-47s full of paratroopers off to jump into France. That night we found out that D-Day had started, people began to say the war would soon be over, but it took almost another year.
In early 1945 my Robin Hood days came to and end. The minimum age to leave school was fourteen and some of my buddies had left school to begin working. Me, being thirteen, was left behind. I found a job in a butcher’s shop. My duties consisted of cleaning up at first, but then the butcher let me make the sausages and I would deliver them to his customers on a bicycle with a basket on the front. After a few weeks of this, I made more sausages than were required and built up my own clientele. I made a little on the side you might say. I did that for almost a year and Mr. Newman the owner was sorry to see me leave school and quit the meat enterprise. Mr. Newman and I remained friends for several years, up until I left England. His son still runs the store to this day.
The war was slowly winding down, as there were no more air raids over our town, or even in Bristol, the big city seven miles away. But London, which was about one hundred miles east, was catching hell with the Buzz bombs, V-1 rockets and V-2.
In December 1945 I found a job at the large oil facility on the docks and because of the war, all of the oil companies had merged as one big company called “The Pool” and they were beginning to separate and reform as private organizations. I landed a job working for the Shell Oil Company. I did not get the CEO job but I was told I would be able to work up to it if I worked hard and kept my nose clean.
My job consisted of taking fifty-gallon drums that had once been filled with heavy crude oil, and steam clean them. It was a nasty, greasy, slimy, messy, and very dirty job. My work clothes consisted of wooden clogs for shoes so I would not make sparks when I walked, coveralls that were way too big for me, and a pair of goggles to cover my eyes because I was using extremely hot steam. Oh, how I had wished that I were a butcher boy again, delivering the meat to all the women. Young men out of school at that time did not have many choices. We worked for the pool; go down in the mines, or at age seventeen we could join the Army for two years.
My break came after about two months. They needed assistant drivers on the tanker trucks. I did not get to drive, as I was too young, I helped the driver unload the oil or gas when we hauled it around the country. It paid good money for a young person of fourteen years of age. I held on to this job for one year and then around December of 1946, I quit and went to work for a contractor along with an old friend of mine.
We made big money tearing down concrete and brick walls that were built around the huge oil tanks to protect them against German air attacks and shrapnel. Good money, yes. Hard work, Hell, yes! That’s where I learned to drive a wheelbarrow and a jackhammer.
One day on my lunch hour I went over to the lock gates to see all the ships coming into port. On this day there was this little boat that was waiting to be tied up on the pier and one of the guys shouted at me to catch the rope, pull it in, and tie it up. So I did. When the boat was alongside me, I asked this guy if he needed any help on this boat. The Captain said, “Yes, when can you start”? I answered, “I all ready have." He gave me a stare and said, “Do you want to go out to the sea”? “Yes," I replied.
The next day I started working on this little coastal ship called the Hanna from the port of Bideford, Devon. That was the start of my sailing days. I sailed on board the Hanna for two months, then she was due for a complete overhaul and the captain could not keep me on the payroll. But being the good guy he was, he knew another captain and sent me to him for an interview.

Part 3.

William Ashburner, so before the Hannah sailed for home the good captain arranged for me to meet my possible new boss at the Shipping Pool. I went to meet Captain Sinnott as planned and as I entered the Pool Office where all seamen went to stand for a ship there stood this big man with a sailor’s jacket, a small peak cap on his head and looking every bit the old mariner, the type you expect to see on an old sailing ship. That was my first surprise, the second was when he signed me on his ship and I was issued with my first discharge book
.
As we walked from the Shipping Pool back to the William Ashburner he told me what my duties would be and that there would be a crew of five, all from Ireland accept me. We didn’t have to walk very far in the dock as the vessel was moored at a nearby berth where she loaded grain and maize. When we turned the corner to the dockside low and behold I got yet another surprise, there was this little ship with three wooden sticks sticking up from her belly, it was a sailing ship, a wooden one at that, at least the Hannah had been made of steel.
The William Ashburner was a three masted schooner, she had been built in 1876, and her gross tonnage was 205 tons, her length 115 feet and with a beam of 25 feet. She flew the Red Ensign but was owned by Captain Sinnott from Limerick and was crewed by an all-Irish crew consisting of a Mate from Sligo, two Able Bodied seaman (AB’s) from Waterford, and one junior deckhand, (Me).
The captain took me to his cabin to give me instructions as to what my pay would be and what my duties on board would consist of, and these included the task of lighting the fire in the small galley at 6:30 every morning ready for the first mate to cook the crew’s breakfast. Apparently the mate liked to cook but the problem was that his repertoire was limited to about three dishes with his favorite being “Schooner on the Rocks” and this name turned out to be the fate of this grand old sailing ship a few years later.
The galley was a small box, six feet by six feet, with a small coal burning stove on the aft end with a coal bunker alongside, on the other end was a small work bench with the potato locker alongside which was also the seat. The washing up was done in a small wooden bucket outside on the hatch cover. The bucket was similar to the ones issued to each member of the crew for their own use, washing, bathing and laundry. Rather like a personal portable bathroom
The only washbasins on board were aft in the Captain and Mate’s cabins.
During heavy weather or rainstorms the galley was the warmest place on the ship so we would close the sliding door and use our buckets to do our laundry, (we didn’t have many clothes,) and take our baths in this tiny snug space
The year previously to me joining, the ship had been re rigged by removing the mast top extensions that carried the square rigged spars and the top sails to make her a cut down version of a schooner. She then had what they called a Foremast, Main and Mizzen to carry the three main sails and with a jib and stay sail, a rig that was perhaps easier to handle than the original, especially when sailing relatively short coastal passages.
They had also installed a small diesel engine, which was used mostly for maneuvering when entering and leaving port and I think she had a top speed of about 5 knots under power. Captain Sinnott would usually order the sails hoisted as soon as we cleared port and the congested areas so that the ship could show her paces under canvas. In her original fully rigged heyday she had once covered 240 miles during a 24 hour run with a full cargo of coal so she was not a slow ship in the right weather. We sailed around the Bristol Channel ports, mostly Welsh, plus up the river Severn to Sharpness, with grain or maize and on one trip we sailed to Dublin and returned with a cargo of large wooden barrels of Guinness.

One of the less enjoyable duties on-board was when we were loading grain. The hatches openings were very small and when the grain was being shot into the holds we were sent below with a very large shovel, there we would constantly shovel the grain (Trimming) towards the sides of the hold to keep the vessel on an even keel as the cargo constantly spewed into the ship. This backbreaking work was done while lying on your back or side while the grain kept pouring in until it reached the top of the hatches. The dust was stifling and the hold black as pitch as we shoveled and prayed that we had not been forgotten in the dusty darkness.
Back in those days there was no such a thing as Health and Safety Board regulations or any dust masks and goggles, just a large bandanna around our faces and that large shovel. We did get extra money for this work, called a cargo bonus, thirty shillings, on top of my eight pounds a month pay. There was one other thing the older members of the crew received that I didn’t and that was a nice tot of rum from the captain as we crawled out of the hold, I was under 18 years of age and he would not allow me to drink.
My duties shipboard while at sea included learning how to hoist the sails, all done manually, and taking them down which was the hardest job especially on your hands and fingers when the canvas was wet from rain or salt spray. When the canvas was dry you folded each sail in the correct way before stowing it.
We used the Holy stone on the wooden decks which required you to get down on your knees and with a large brick block of sand stone and sand away at the decks until they were smooth and clean, sometimes the seams would require re-caulking to maintain water tightness and this was done the old fashion way using oakum which is hemp rope fiber and placed between the deck planks using a special caulking iron and mallet before sealing with pitch or hot tar.
There was no electricity so I was taught how to trim and re-fill with oil all the lamps and navigation lights each day. I also learned how to sew and mend canvas sails with a palm and needle under the watchful eye of the captain. I was scared of the Captain for some reason, but it was an unfounded fear because he turned out to be a fine gentleman and always had nothing but the best of interest in making a sailor out of me.
While I did my spell at the wheel he would be standing behind me barking at me if she yawed off course and for me to keep her steady until I was able to hold as good a line as the more experienced hands. There were many other daily duties including keeping all the brass work polished and as on most ships of the day there was a lot of brass to clean.
To the rear of the captains quarters the small hatch (Lazarette) had been modified to except the small engine and fuel tank. The Captain always manned the engine, he would fire it up by placing a big iron rod in the flywheel and turn it until the engine fired then it would give off a puff of smoke and would go putt-putt-putt as the exhaust came out of the exhaust pipe. I’m glad it wasn’t used very often, as it was so nice sailing under the canvas, no noise, just ships gentle motion, the breeze and the sound of the waves.
Anchoring was always a special nightmare as the very heavy chain had to be hoisted out of the chain locker by hand and laid out on the deck before dropping the anchor over the side. To hoist the anchor we had a windlass that was motor driven but that was unreliable so most the time we used the hand windlass. Thank goodness we did not anchor very often.
Our navigation was very basic, a compass stood in front of the large wheel and the captain had a small domestic radio that allowed him to listen to the weather forecasts. No doubt he had a sextant and some additional aids when crossing the Irish Sea.
For the crew’s entertainment there was just a deck of cards and checkers, but Barney, one of the AB’s played the Irish fiddle, and Mick the other AB played a little squeezebox. Of course all the songs ever played were Irish songs or Anti-British ballads but never with any malice against me, I learned many an Irish song and remember them even now. We never felt deprived and were generally a quite content crew, some of my fondest memories are of when we would sit on the hatch under the stars playing the old time Irish music and singing songs, no beer was ever allowed on board, only the rum for those special occasions and that was locked up in the Captains cabin.

We were never in port any length of time as the loading and unloading of a small ship was very fast, the captain and the mate would always do the shopping for food, just plain eating on that ship, lots of pork and sandwich meat, hamburgers were not thought of in those days, and as I have mentioned, the favorite dish the mate cooked was Schooner on the Rock. This consisted of a large joint of pork or beef, mostly pork, and he would place the meat in the middle of the roasting dish surrounded by as many vegetables, Carrots, Potatoes, Onions, Swedes etc that would fit in the pan then slow roast it all in the oven.
It was a good hot and filling meal.
.
I sailed on the William Ashburner for almost six months and although Avonmouth was my home port and we were there quite often I never had the chance to go home because of the quick turn around. The rest of the crew had been away from their home port for almost a year so about mid December Captain Sinnott decided he was going to lay up the old girl until after the New Year (1948) and the whole crew return to the old sod for Christmas.
I paid off with a nice wad of bank notes; the old captain had kept good records of the money I earned plus all the bonus times for trimming in the hold.

Cond.
In February 1950, in a heavy fog the William Ashburner ran aground on the rocks while sailing up the River Severn to Sharpness, the crew got off safely but the ship re-floated herself and floated down the river only
To run aground again and this time she was stuck for good. Vandals started to strip her of anything they could sell, and eventually she was sold for scrap to a police officer who burned the wooden ship where she lay and then reclaimed all the copper cladding and plugs from her hull.
The William Ashburner was the largest wooden sailing vessel built at Barrow-in-Furriness, and the only schooner built by the Ashburner shipyard that traded across the Atlantic or south of the Equator. In her first nineteen years, mainly under the command of Capt. Robert Charnley and Capt. Evans, she voyaged frequently to Uruguay for beef and bone meal, and to the West Indies for sugar, also to New York and to the Mediterranean. She later went into the coasting trade and had a long working life that lasted until 1950, a working life span of 74 years which did her proud.
Construction of the William Ashburner was started in March 1875 and took only 19 months. She was launched on the 19th October 1876 and her command was given to Capt. Robert Charnley. Her first voyage was to Cardiff and by the end of the year she had visited her first foreign port,*Palma on the island of Majorca. In the following year her hull was yellow-metaled at the Ashburner shipyard, and she was relaunched on the same day as the Mary Ashburner
In these years under Capt. Charnley the William Ashburner was considered to be a fast ship, it being claimed that she once covered 240 miles in 24 hours with a full cargo of coal. In 1878 she took 40 days to make her first passage to South America, going from*Liverpool to Parahiba, Brazil. She continued in transatlantic trade until 1894, when her final deep water passage was from Antwerp to Parahiba, returning to London by way of Trinidad and Barbados. Thereafter she existed in the general coasting trade, being retained under the management of Thomas Ashburner & Co.

In 1943 she was sold to Capt. Nicholas Sinnott of Limerick, and he employed her in the Bristol Channel grain trade. By this time the schooner had had her masts poled off and the square rig spars removed. On 1st February 1950, traveling in thick fog from Swansea to Sharpness to pick up a cargo of grain, the William Ashburner grounded on the Chapel Rock. She was beached at the mouth of the River Wye where she was examined and declared a constructive total loss. It is believed that her wheel was salvaged and is now on display at the Avonmouth Seaman's Mission.

In 2008 I was reading the local paper from the Avonmouth area and there was an article about trying to find out where the large ships wheel had come from, who owned it, and what ship. I wrote to the editor and told him that I had sailed on the ship that the wheel belonged to, explained how the wheel was on display in the Seaman’s Mission plus the owner’s name. I further stated that since the Mission was being torn down the wheel should go to the family of Captain Sinnott back in Ireland. I received a reply from the editor of the newspaper telling me that the Sinnott family had been contacted and the wheel would be returned to the family.
After nearly fifty-seven years of hanging on the wall the wheel that I had cleaned and handle sixty years ago had finally found its rightful home, and I feel good that I had done something to make that happen.

John, Thank you, that was an utterly compelling account of your formative years, felt I had travelled with you all the way. An absolute joy to read. Marian.

Hi! John,

I see we have a few things in common, the main one being the war years. When I was 2 years old, our house, and a lot of the rest of the street was flattened by German incendiary bombs. It was by God's good grace that we were away for the weekend. I too was an evacuee for a time, being sent down to Bridgend in Wales to live with an Aunt. After we got into another house, the all clear had sounded and we were coming up out of the shelter at the end of the garden, when a Buzz Bomb (V1) putt-putted overhead running out of fuel. Grandma, and rather portly lady was halfway through the low, narrow door to the shelter and as she turned around to get back into the shelter, she got her bottom end stuck in the door. There was a bit of a panic on as no-one could get down there. The Buzz Bomb landed in a "sanitary landfill" (we use to call it a garbage dump) about a mile away, blowing out a lot of neighbouring windows, but no other damage.

Memories that stay with you forever Tom.

Thank you, glad you enjoyed the trip.:wink:

Thank you for sharing your story John - very interesting indeed. Good to read the wheel made it back to the owning family and your part in it - nice one!

Regards
Hugh

John, thank you fo a most interesting post!

Hi John.
Great story, I lived every minute of it.
Cheers Tugger

I'd missed this rivetting memoir, John. I now wonder what happened next in your career. It is a social history that needs to be archived in a safe place. Well done!

best wishes
Harry

A great read John . Trust you will not be too cold tonight ; States are going into a deep freeze ; a bit similar up here in Canada .
Cheers Derek

A good story and a nice read. Would that others could be as interesting and erudite.

Hi Derek nice to hear from you, yes its been cold and it keeps me in doors all day. Glad you liked my story.

Thanks for your post Harry.:thumb:

Harry,
Thanks for your kind reply. If you are interested I have a follow-up to the story.

John.

Yes, John, I'd be pleased to read it. These stories are precious.

This week I've a carpenter working for me who, when he heard I was writing memoir, said that his father-in-law was pow of the Japanese in Burma and is now coming out with stories in his old age. There's not so many of those fellows around - I hope someone is making notes.
I have the unpublished account (the writer calls it 'One Jump Ahead') of an RNVR/MN officer (first mate of The Vyner Brooke) (uncle of an old MN friend) who escaped from Singapore and traversed the Dutch East Indies swamps till he reached Australia. I don't know if I have the years left to publish his story, so I've lodged copies of the manuscript with the British War Museum and Australian Memorial archives. He throws further light on the murder of Australian nurses by the Japanese as they struggled ashore in Sumatra.

I just wish I'd shown a bit of interest in my father's experiences at the Somme - but he did not survive beyond my teenage years.

Uncle John,
Please keep the stories going! Every time I talk to my Dad, I get another story out of him and I scribble it down as best I can. As someone else said, rivetting!
Rgds.
Dave

Hi Dave,
Thanks for your post, Yes its sad that many old farts have not told their story, we are from a different generation and to tell stories it feels like bragging, my daughter has made me tell of some periods in my younger days, I will find the stories that are on CDs and try and post them here.

Well guys I tried to post the stories of the War Memories but the system would not let me post it because it was too big, so I have to break it down into several posts. I shall return.

Just saw them and read them John. So informative and a pleasure to read. Thank you.


Now looking forward to the next episodes.


JJ.

CHRONOLOGICAL LISTING OF DATES OF THE BRISTOL BOMBINGS.
JUNE 1997. Compiled By John Rogers.

20 June1940. German bombers appeared over Portishead, the searchlight battery spotted them and they remained in the area for 15 minutes, they dropped their bombs and they fell around the searchlight battery and into the mud on the riverbank. No air raid warning was given.

25 June 1940. The first air raid warning sounded at 12:30 am, bombs were dropped among the houses near Champion& Davies Factory in Lower Maudlin St, bombs also fell in Knowle at I:30 am, also in St. George and Bedminster, the target was supposed to be Temple Mead's Station; nine bombs fell on the station two of which failed to explode. The raid lasted three hours. The city was hit fifty times, five people killed, 33 injured.

3 July 1940. Avonmouth was bombed, all the bombs missed the target and fell in the farmer's field.

1/2 August 1940.A single German plane flying at considerable height, shortly after midnight, dropped propaganda leaflets in the thousands over southwest England; some fell in the Blackwell district near Bristol.

11/12 August 1940.Enemy planes dropped a crude-oil bomb on Shirehampton at the West Town entrance to the docks; many bombs fell into the mud on the banks of the Avon, fourteen HE bombs were dropped in and around the village, the children’s playground in the St. Bernards school which contained a underground shelter was hit, along with several homes that were damaged. During the same raid seven H.E bombs fell in Stoke Bishop and in line with Old Sneed Ave and Redland. The school shelter contained 10 people, all survived the direct hit.

15/16 August 1940. A dozen bombs landed at the end of the North Pier at Avonmouth Docks, eight near Rockingham Farm and 17 around Hallen.

24/25 August 1940. Avonmouth was bombed and two homes were destroyed on Richmond Villas near the entrance to the docks. Six more bombs landed in the mud on the banks of the Avon.

27/28 August 1940. At 9.0 pm. Avonmouth came under attack with Incendiaries bombs dropped first followed by HE bombs, all hit the Petroleum tanks, the other bombs fell on the fields between Avonmouth and Shirehampton. Six more craters were found out near the Lawrence Weston fields.

It appeared the targets for the month of September was the railway lines from Bristol to Avonmouth, all along the line between Sea Mills, Shirehampton, and Avonmouth several bombs fell alongside the rails all missing the rails by about six feet. Many of the bombs
Remained in the ground un-exploded and the Army Bomb Disposal recovered them. One of the bombs a 250 pounder remained in the Sea Mills Creek until April 1951.

1 /2 September 1940. Avonmmouth and Shirehan1pton was bombed again, the Miles Arms Hotel and houses in Davis St took direct hits. Two people were killed, a young woman and her daughter.

3 /4 September 1940. Shirehampton was bombed, several homes destroyed.



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10 September 1940 Shirehampton was bombed again and the bomb disposal teams were working hard to remove the bombs that landed in the center of High St. One of the team was killed when an unexploded bomb that fell near the George Inn exploded.

15 September 1940. This date marks the climax of the battle of Britain, in the course of which from August to October 1940, the Germans lost 1,733 aircraft, while the RAF lost 915 fighter planes to the enemy. This a major turning point in the war, which will ever be immortalized by the words of Winston Churchill,” Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

16 September 1940. On a Sunday night several flame bombs were dropped along with 60 HE bombs, 16 incendiaries canisters containing 3600 bombs for a total of 53,288 individual incendiary bombs. The intended target Avonmouth docks where not hit, even so three soldiers of the Gloucester regiment in the camp at Shirehampton were killed.

25 September 1940. Wednesday.-First daylight raid on Filton
It was a beautiful sunny morning hardly a cloud in the sky, when a large force of 100 German aircraft approached from the Bristol Channel, half of the aircraft made for the Welsh coast the rest turned over Avonmouth. The time was 11:40 am, the planes flying in "V" formation made an impressive site. Having no interception, those who saw them assumed they were ours. But they were Heinkel bombers with Messerschmitt long-range fighter as escorts, weaving in and out of the formation. The target was the Bristol Airplane Works at Filton, which they found without difficulty, and was completely at their mercy, without any British planes to oppose them. In 25 terror-filled minutes the alert was sounded at 11:40 am and the all clear at 12:05 pm. They dropped 190 bombs, causing a very high death- toll and much destruction. When it was over a 168 people had lost their lives and 300 other injured. In excess of 1000 were made homeless. The only consolation as far as Bristol was concerned was at 11:50 am. One of the bombers was shot down by the Portbury Gun site. All five members of the crew bailed out and were taken prisoners. The plane crashed at Racecourse Farm at Lower Failand.

27 September 1940. Friday- Second daylight raid on Filton

On this day history almost repeated itself of two day earlier, but not quite! It was a fine sunny morning once again when a large wave of German bombers with fighter escort appeared in the skies over Avonmouth making for Filton Airplane Factory, and at about the same time 11:30 am. But here the similarities of the two days ended in an attempt to repeat the same effect. This time the RAF was ready and waiting for them. A squadron of Hurricanes fighters had had been placed at Filton the day before. They took off and soon scattered the German aircraft and with the help of the anti-aircraft gunners the German planes were driven off before they could inflict any damage.

Crowds of the local villagers came out into the streets to watch the dogfights taking place in the skies above. Ten German aircraft were destroyed with the loss of two of ours. A German fighter was shot down and crashed near Stapleton Institution (Now Manor Park Hospital) both crew members were killed. Another fighter was shot down and crashed near Radstock; the pilot bailed out and was taken prisoner.



12 October 1940. Avonmouth was targeted again, the raid lasted two hours and the bombs


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damaged the railway near the transit station and a few trucks were derailed.
15/16 October 1940. Shirehampton was bombed, H.E bombs and incendiary were scattered in the Park, Henleaze, and Westbury-on- Trym were heavily damaged, the raid lasted 3 hours.

14 /15 November 1940. A bright moonlit night saw the start of a new phase in the Luftwaffe bombardments. Previously their mass aerial attacks had been reserved for London, but now started a series of heavy night attacks against industrial and military targets.

24 November 1940. Sunday Bristol's First Blitz.
The Sunday worshipers had hardly any time to get home before the sirens sounded the alert at 6:21 pm. with the arrival of 60 Henkel’s led in by pathfinders dropping flares. By the time the enemy planes had left at 11:59 pm. Bristol the Mediaeval City was a raging inferno. The hostile planes attacked in waves, raining down thousands of incendiary bombs. The red sky of Bristol burning could be seen for miles around- as far away as Stinchcombe Hill at Dursley. A thousand years of heritage perished in this one night, as did Wine St and Castle Street, Bristol's renowned shopping center. The German High Command reported that Bristol had been wiped out, and certainly the City of Churches had in one night become a city of ruins.
A high wind was blowing across the target area and it certainly contributed to the destruction of the most ancient parts of the city. .The situation was further handicapped by the water mains being destroyed, the reserve water from the tanks was soon exhausted, and the only supply came from the River Avon and the harbor.

7:0 0 pm. 25 November the bombs began to fall again. A building at the canning factory was hit, the smelting works was set on fire, and the dock sustained minor damage.


26 November 1940. In the evening between 6:35pm and 7: 30 a shower of incendiaries preceded by flares were dropped over Avonmouth and Shirehampton, the majority of the bombs fell on Shirehampton Golf Course. One person died in Shirehampton.

2 December 1940. Bristol's Second Blitz.
This large-scale raid lasted from 6:15 pm until 11:00 pm. this raid was to finish off Bristol according to the German high Command. The casualty figures for the night were 156 killed and 279 injured; it included the death of people in Shirehampton where stray bombs were dropped.

6 December 1940. Bristol's Third Blitz.
Bristol's third big air -raid in quick succession, began just after 6:30 pm and lasted until 11 :28 pm. Casualty figures for this raid were 100 killed and 188 injured. A H.E. bomb struck the railway alongside the 7.10 train from Bristol to Salisbury , which was derailed and accounted for many of the dead and injured.

2, 4.5, January 1941..
The bitter cold weather added to the horrors of the fires and bombs that fell in the past three days. Avonmouth came only second to London, (with Bristol third) in the number of tonnage of H.E. Bombs that were dropped in raids. These dusk to dawn raids, to that date were Bristol’s longest lasting raid, 12 hours, the weather was ice cold ,water froze on the uniforms of the firemen; water froze in the hose adding to the plight of the brave men fighting the fires. It was during this time


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that the Germans dropped the largest bomb on the city, which fortunately did not explode, the bomb named SATAN, a 4,000 pound monster, which fell at Beckington Road, Knowle, measured 8ft 11 in long (without tail) and 2ft.2in in diameter. When the bomb disposal unit recovered it in April 1943 they had to dig down 30 feet. Satan rode in the Victory parade through London. . Not the plan the Germans had for the bomb. People killed in these raids were 149 dead and 260 injured.

5 January 1941.
Avonmouth was the target again this night; the attack began just after 7:15 pm, and was concentrated on Avonmouth docks. German records confirm that a 103 aircraft were over the target that dropped 82 tons of H.E. Bombs and 735 incendiaries containers (26,460 small bombs). The raid ended at 10:00 pm. One man died in the raid from Shirehampton.

10 January 1941.
A short raid on Shirehampton lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes, 6:30 pm to 9:15 pm. Two H.E. Bombs were dropped in the center of the village, and one up on Penpole place, near the army camp.

16/17 January 1941. Avonmouth Blitz.
Bristol had something of a respite from the bombing from mid-January to the end of February 1941.but not so for Avonmouth. Germany confirmed that Avonmouth was the main target and planned a concentrated attack on the docks. A 126 aircraft dropped 124 tons of H.E. Bombs and 1.480 incendiary containers (53.280 bombs) on the docks and surrounding area, not a house or street in Avonrnouth came through unscathed. The raid lasted 11 hours, from 7:08 pm unti15:39 am the next morning with only a lull in the bombing around mid-night, people thought the nightmare was over, but the planes were back for a repeat performance. The pathfinder planes came first dropping the flares to light up the ground, followed by waves of planes dropping incendiaries, and last but not least came the bombers bringing the H.E. bombs. Considerable damage was done to the dock and the village, 50 homes were destroyed, and bombs hit several ships. The Parish Church was gutted by fire bombs, in West Town near the entrance to the dock the whole village was leveled, 200 hundred people lived there, they were evacuated while the raid was in progress, the damage was so bad they never re-built the village. In comparison with the violence of the attack, the following casualty list was light; seven people lost their life.

22 February 1941.
Today's raid was very short lasting a mere 13 minutes, and was the one, which gave the people of Avonmouth and Shirehampton the most gratification. It was a wet and blustery day when the alert was given at I: 59 pm. As a German Heinkel approached Avonmouth from the Bristol Channel. Almost immediately the Ack Ack Gunners at Port bury opened up and had a direct hit on the aircraft, it banked over Avonmouth spraying the area with machine gun fire as is began to drop, there was a loud twanging noise as the plane hit the wires on the barrage Balloon then it crashed onto the mud on the bank of the river. The only survivor was the pilot who parachuted to safety, the rest of the crew was killed on impact. The bodies of the observer and flight engineer were recovered and buried in Greenbank Cemetery in Bristol, the remains of the gunner and radioman was never found. Later it was learned that the target for this aircraft was the aircraft works at Yate.

27 February and 7 March 1941.



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In only five days the enemy attempted yet a third daylight raid on Yate, and this time he was successful with disastrous results. Panall aircraft ltd factory was high on the German target list. After the war it was found out that the Germans were taking pictures of the factory in August of 1939 five days before the war was declared. At 2:30 pm. a single enemy aircraft in broad daylight and unchallenged, passed over Charfield Railway
Station, flying at a low altitude with the Swastika plainly visible. The plane followed the railway line to Yate, with the undercarriage lowered to foil the defenses, and to create the impression that he was a British bomber about to land on Yate airfield. It dropped its bomb-load of six H.E. and one oil bomb before anyone in the factory could take cover, and then escaped into low lying clouds. The casualties could have been higher had it not been for three of the bombs not exploding, and there was 4,000 workers in the factory at the time. On 7 March another daylight raid on Parnalls by a single raider was pulled off again causing much damage and stopping all production. Altogether 52 workers lost their lives in the two daylight raids.



There was very little enemy air activity at night over the Bristol area due to the bad weather; however they began again in mid march.

14 March 1941 one aircraft appeared over the skies of Avonmouth and it was intercepted by a Beaufighter and was hit by machine gun fire and crashed in flames. Following German aircraft dropped their bombs in the location of the burning aircraft; no damage was done to the surrounding area.

16/17 March 1941. Bristol's Fifth Blitz. This was a mass attack and considered Bristol’s heaviest raid of the war so far. Records indicate 168 aircraft attacked Avonmouth and Bristol dropping 166 ton of H.E. Bombs and 33,840 incendiary bombs. The raid lasted eight hours with bombs raining down on the area causing a high rate of casualties. The shelter at St. Barnabas church took a direct hit killing 24 people. At Avonmouth scores of bombs fell on the dock, one cottage near the Smelting works was set on fire and the raiders used the flames to aim their bombs as 78 bomb craters were found in and around the cottage.
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29/30 March 1941
Estimated 55 1ong-range bombers carried out a fast raid on Avonmouth lasting almost two hours. This raid was centered on the oil tanks, several were set on fire. In Shirehampton some of the bombs hit the Greyhound Inn and it was destroyed, the police station was also hit. Six people were killed in Shire that night and several injured.

3/4 Apri11941.
This was a moonlight raid centered on Avonmouth and Bristol; the raid started at 9:00 pm and ended 1:0 am the following morning. Seventy-six aircraft were reported over the target and dropped 80 tons of H.E. and 19,656 incendiary bombs. The attack began on a line between the Horse Shoe Bend and Filton. Several H.E. Bombs hit Avonmouth and Shirehampton and a military convoy was damaged on the Portway. Over a 1000 homes were damaged. The number of dead for this raid were 22, and 90 injured. One of the bombs hit the A.A Battery at Markham, and one bomb fell on the army transit camp in Pen Pole.

4/5 Apri11941.
Avonmouth was once again the target for the raiders; thousands of incendiaries bombs were




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dropped over a wide area. Many hundreds burnt on the riverbanks, and many fell on the village of Shirehampton. Several fires were started in the docks and in the Smelting Works. The sky was illuminated buy chandelier flares; fifteen were counted at one time eight were seen over Avonmouth. Antiaircraft fire drove the raiders off their targets, with the results that damage was kept to a minimum. The A.A. barrage, in fact was considered the heaviest yet put up in Bristol. Considering the scope of this raid the casualty were light, 9 dead and 22 injured. Four German bombers were shot down with crash landing at Redding’s farm, near Weston-Super. Mare.



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7/8 Apri11941.
Single raider dropped H.E. and incendiaries bombs on Shirehampton; slight damage was reported to some homes.

9 /10 Apri11941.
Raiders attacked Avonmouth again with H.E. Bombs hitting the railway station and destroying the Cinema.

11/12 Apri11941. (Good Friday) Bristol's Sixth Blitz.
This heavy two-scale raid was the sixth and final large-scale attack on Bristol. The enemy claimed to have 153 aircraft over the target, Bristol/Avonmouth, dropping 193 tons of H.E. and 34,884 incendiaries bombs. Incendiaries H.E. Bombs were dropped in waves of planes after they had broken through the heavy Ack-Ack fire. The attack started at 10:00pm and lasted 2 hours; at mid-night the all clear was sounded. Thirteen minutes later the enemy planes were back over the city and did not leave unti1 3:52 am. The second raid was far more serious than the first. Bombs fell on Shirehampton and Avonmouth, a large bomb destroyed 10 homes in Richmond Terrace, and a large land mine fell on Priory Rd in Shirehampton killing five people in their homes. Total dead for the night were 180 and 300 injured.

4 May 1941
The RAF, night fighters began to keep the German planes away taking a toll on the bombers. Thirteen of the enemy planes fell to fighter aircraft. And on 7 may 24 more were shot down.

31 may 1941
Avonmouth and Shirehampton was under attack again, bombs destroyed several buildings on the dock, and bombs fell on Park gates and Sea Mills. Two people were killed and 12 injured.

27 July 1941.
When the new RAF airfield at Broadfield Down was built (which is now Bristol Lulsgate Airport), no one in their wildest dreams could have envisioned that the first aircraft to use the new hard runway would be a German bomber.
It was a misty morning on 27 July 1941 when a strange looking aircraft circled overhead above Lulsgate Bottom, which was still under construction. The plane made a perfect landing. The time was 6: 20 am. It taxied up to the workers on the strip. The pilot stepped out of the cockpit and asked the workers what part of France he was in. Apparently the pilot had been following the coastline down from Birkenhead after a bombing mission and mistook the Bristol Channel as the English Channel; he had been driven off course by one of Britain's secret weapons, a radio


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transmitter at Weston-super-mare giving out false signals. The pilot was told he was not in France but in England, at that point they tried to take off but the workers placed the mechanical digger in front of the aircraft and it was stopped from taking off. Military attached to the field arrived with Tommy guns and took the crew prisoners. The aircraft was a prized capture, a new Junkers 88 with all the advanced equipment installed.

17 April 1941
German raiders dropped four bombs on Avonmouth docks, two fell in the mud at the entrance of the dock, and the third demolished a building near the old Passenger station. The fourth fell on the new oil-jetty under construction. There were two slight casualties.

28 August 1942.
On a sunny morning, flying at 20,000 feet above unsuspecting Bristol, a single German fighter-bomber armed with a 500-pound bomb aimed at the heart of the city. It dropped in Broad Weir; near the junction of Philadelphia Street, the time was 9:20 am at the rush hour.
At such height the plane was thought to be a reconnaissance aircraft and no alert was given until the bomb had struck. Three double-decker busses full of passengers were waiting at the bus stops, with men, women, and children going to work or school. The busses were all destroyed, and the casualties totaled 45 killed and 56 injured. It was the last bomb to fall on Bristol in 1942. .

There were no raids recorded for 1943. Although the German High Command reported that they were again bombing Bristol.

15 May 1944.
This is the last entry in the Official Record of the Battle of Bristol
German aircraft approached Avonmouth at 2: am, thanks to the heavy barrage of A.A fire the planes were driven off target and some dropped their bombs at random to gain altitude. Ten bombs were dropped in Bedminster, five in Abbots Leigh, and two in Kings Weston Lane where a soldier was killed at a searchlight site, the only casualty .The Germans planes turned, altered course for home, and they never came back. Bristol and Avonmouths ordeal was over.

The official details of Bristol air raids were published for the first time in November 1944, when it was disclosed that the total number of warnings had been 548, and bombs had been dropped 76 times. Altogether 1,299 people were killed in the city and 3,305 were injured.
Over 3,000 homes were totally destroyed, and 90,000 properties were damaged. Apart for London, only Liverpool published higher figures.
Most of the rubble was taken aboard ship as ballast and moved to New York City and became the foundation of the East River Drive.
It’s amazing that after all these years unexploded bombs are still being found in and around Bristol, as in the case of one in the playground of the Shirehampton infants school In October 1966,and another a mile from the Severn Bridge in 1988.

The information for this article' The Bristol Blitz: was researched from various sources. The Bristol Website, Official documents, and Books on the Bombing of Bristol. While searching for this data the memories kept going back to when I was a young lad living in Shirehampton and experiencing the bombings first hand. I was 10 years old when the first air raid warnings sounded and the bombs began to fall on Avonmouth. I cannot remember the details of every raid due to my aging memory, but some nights I can remember as it was yesterday. I was playing in the street as most of the kids my age did at that time, we heard the roar of aircraft and looked up to see the sky
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black with aircraft, that date was the 25th of September and the planes were on their way to bomb Filton Aircraft Factory. I also saw the German planes two days later moving in the same direction, this time we knew they were the enemy. We watched as the RAF fighters engaged the bombers and fighter escorts, for a kid of 10 it was quite a sight. As the attack progressed we were ushered of the street by air raid wardens including a smack around the ears for not following their orders fast enough.
I remember well the cold nights we spent in the Anderson Shelter, double layering of clothes to keep warm, (1 guess that was the start of the layer look). Taping over the window panes with tape in order to stop the glass from flying around in case of a bomb blast, covering the windows at night with a blanket to stop the light shinning out or a knock on your door from the warden. I remember the small stubby candles we would buy, they were called 8-hour candles and would last the night when you were huddled in the shelter, also the government said they could be used for heat if you placed the candle in the base of the clay flower pot (the saucer) and turned the pot upside down on top the candle it would warm the clay pot, all it did was to keep your hands warm when you placed them around the pot. Before leaving for the army my father covered the shelter with sand bags and put an old bed frame with springs in the shelter. Then there were the Blackouts, No street lamps to guide us; they were out for the duration.
We were given a button about an inch and a half in size, this button glowed in the dark and you wore it on your coat to stop people bumping into one another. Headlights on the cars and busses were painted black halfway to stop the light shinning into the sky at night. There was also posts Set up in various places in the village and they were painted a pale yellow, if mustard gas were dropped these yellow posts would turn green.
Who could forget the fitting for your gas mask, I see the little kids now, crying because they were scared to death of the ugly masks, and it got worse when they tried to put them on. Then there was the school lunch programs, another government idea, not a bad one, for at times it was the only good meal some of the kids got in those times, but one dessert they could of kept from me and that was the Semolina Pudding, I swear it was made out of sawdust and milk, you could of stuck wall paper up with it.

I cannot forget the school nurse who would make her rounds with that darn( Nit Comb) looking for those little animals in your head, then she would spoon feed you a large dollop of Cod-liver oil and malt to make sure you were not suffering from mal-nutrition.

Enough of the good times let me go back to the raids. The night they dropped the bomb on St. Bernard's school my mother and I was in the Savoy cinema watching a film,

Suddenly the film stops, we thought it had broken, a very common thing back with the old projectors. The lights came on and the manager walked on stage and reported to us that a air raid was in progress and if we wanted to remain seated we could or we could leave but he would not run the film until the all clear was sounded. As he finished speaking there was a large explosion the building shook and the exit doors blew open that was the cue my mother and I needed to get the heck out of there. We ran down the street as fast as our legs could carry us to our home and the shelter. While running home we stopped a couple of times and took shelter in the gutter or a wall when the noise of the bombs and the AckAck fire became fierce, a lot of steel was falling from the sky and we could see the German aircraft caught in the beams of the search lights. Next morning I found out the bomb had hit the playground of St Bernard’s school not 50 yards from the Cinema.

It was common practice for the kids to go out after an air raid and look for souvenirs, bomb fragments, shrapnel, and tail fins from the incendiaries bombs and of the unexploded A.A shells that fell back on the ground. It was like show and tell, and we would trade for items we didn't have. Then one day at school the bomb disposal team had a little talk with us and told what could happen if that prized shell we had exploded in your hand or in your house, after that a lot of the boys were not so keen on collecting.

On 16 January 1941 my relatives lost their home in Avonmouth, they lived across the street from the park, they lost everything, but felt very lucky because two doors away people lost their lives.

On the night of 11 /12 April 1941 the family was already in the shelter when the bombs began to fall, the ground was shaking with the large explosions, we were peeking out of the shelter door when the ARP man came to the shelter and told us that three fire bombs had gone through the roof of the house and landed in the front bedroom, lucky for us one did not go off and the other two were put out very fast by the firemen by placing sand bags over them, the only damage was broken tile where they came through the roof and two burned spots on the floor. The smell of the phosphorous remained for a long time in the bedroom.

A hundred yards away a large bomb reported to be a land mine had dropped by parachute behind the homes on Priory Rd, the explosion blew down 10 Row houses, the blast was so tremendous it blew a piano in one house clear across the street, through the front wall and landed in the back room of the house. Five people were killed in the homes, one of them a little boy I knew and played on the street with. For months afterwards we would play on the rubble that once lived one of our playmates. It was years later before they re-built the homes back to where they were original. I believe one day in the future they will find many more bombs still buried in the mud of the Avon River and in the fields around the smelting works, that land was once covered with water and it is very soft.

This data on the bombing of Bristol was put together in 1970 for a Bristol Ex Pats chat board group who were interested in the air raids on the city; the paper was updated in June 1997 for spelling and dates.


FOOTNOTE:

Bristol was the fifth most heavily bombed British city of World War II. The presence of Bristol Harbour, Avonmouth Dock and the Bristol Aeroplane Company made it a target for bombing by the Nazi German Luftwaffe who were able to trace a course up the River Avon from Avonmouth using reflected moonlight on the waters into the heart of the city.
Between 24 November 1940 and 11 April 1941 there were six major bombing raids.on the city, In total Bristol received 548 air raid alerts and 77 air raids with:
• 919 tons of high-explosive bombs and myriad incendiary bombs
• 1299 people killed, 1303 seriously injured, 697 rescued from debris



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Years ago I belonged to an Ex Pats board and most of the members were from the Bristol area,
they started chatting about the Bristol bombing, I told them that I had done some research on the Bristol Blitz and I would post it for them to read
The following replies/posts were from some of the people who lived thru the bombings.

Memories of the Bristol Blitz
John
I lived in Mardyke, Hotwells Road. My family had a cafe there. We used to have a group of Cockney dockers lodging with us. They came down to work at Bristol and Avonmouth docks after London was blitzed. That night some planes came over at about 6pm and dropped flares. The dockers knew what it was, they’d seen it in London, and they knew our Blitz was coming. It was quite hellish – it lasted about 6 hours. It started before the theaters opened. I looked up the town from where I lived and all I could see was a mass of flames.
Olive C
The whole of Bedminister Down was lit up by incendiary bombs. A house was bombed near by and all these bricks came into our house and through my bedroom ceiling. When the town was bombed we used to go onto the Bridgwater Road and watch the town - it was all lit up. We would watch the bombs and the anti aircraft fire.
John
The German planes came over and dropped flares first then incendiaries to get things going.
Rhoda
The first Sunday it was mostly incendiaries there were few bombs.
John
The fire brigade concentrated on putting out houses. They let the shops burn.
Doris
I got off a tram from Westbury-on-Trym. I was going out. I spent all night sheltering in the crypt of the Quakers Meeting House. I watched Barton Warehouse collapse. All Old Market was gone. The next morning I remember walking over all these barrage balloon wires that were lying on the ground. It was very frightening.


Rhoda
I was going to a Show at the Kings Theater that night. We were having coffee in a place opposite St Peter’s church. I saw a parachute thing all alight coming down. There were some soldiers in the cafe they told us to get to a shelter. They’d been in the Blitz in Coventry two days before so they knew what was coming. We tried to get into the Castle Street shelter but couldn’t because it was locked and nobody had the key. We went to a shelter in St James instead. It was brick built and had a blast wall. We looked out and it was like an inferno. Everything was alight. As soon as the all clear went we came out and walked home. There were walls and pieces of wood falling all around us. The firemen were putting fires out.

Olive P
I heard the planes coming over. My husband made up beds for our girls in the Anderson Shelter. We spent the night in there.
Doris
You could smell all the burning.
Olive P
There was an explosive smell.
Peter L
I was 14 on the day of the Blitz. My mum had gone into town to go window-shopping with a friend. I was at home with my Granddad when the sirens went. We stood at the bottom of the garden and watched the flares coming down over Bristol. We rushed to the front door to continue watching them when we heard this noise like an express train over our heads and then a bomb dropped 20 yards from where we’d been standing in the garden. My mum came home about 2am – we’d never thought we’d see her again. Her knees were cut and bleeding. She ended up in an air raid shelter outside Temple Church – the leaning church. Every time a bomb had dropped they’d dropped to their knees.
Esme
I come from Southville. I joined the army when I was 17. When I came back to Bristol I worked on gun sites at Rodway Common, Burwalls (by the Suspension Bridge) and Whitchurch. I came out of the Hebron church in Hebron Road, Bedminister that night about 11:30, I looked over the city center and the sky was blood red. We heard bombs coming down and went into the bomb shelter in the vestry. When we came out we ran down Melville Terrace and then ran back because there was a plane above us.
Win
I was going to go out that evening with four friends. One of my friends was a sailor on leave. We were intending to go down to Temple Meads Station at about six that night to see him off. A siren went off and we didn’t think much of it because sirens were always going off and we didn’t have any bombs. Well, as we got to the door there was a whoosh bang! So we scampered back into the house and spent the rest of the night in the shelter. We sat there and we could hear all these bombs. After the all clear went, we went up onto Devon Road Bridge - it’s a high place over Whitehall. I’ve never seen anything like it – the whole town was on fire. The next morning I went off to work as usual and when I got there it was all gone. It seemed like all of Castle Street was flat – there were firemen and hosepipes everywhere. We didn’t know what to do. Then the boss came along and said, “We’ll get in touch with you, and you’ll have to go home”.

Dorothy
We were staying in Bristol the weekend of the Blitz. We had been to the Downs for a walk in the afternoon and I think the sirens went about 6pm that was the first raid. We had a brick shelter built into the bank of the garden. We had the bunks in there and we felt we were quite comfortable compared to Anderson shelters. We had a very good view of the Blitz – it was very dramatic because we lived on top of St Michael’s Hill looking right down into the city. My dad was out there on the front waving his fist at the planes. Not that it did any good but I guess that’s what he felt like doing.
Jeanette
I wasn’t scared during the Blitz. We just watched Bristol burning the whole city was red. We lived on a bit of a hill and we could hear it crackling and burning. When Castle Street was bombed, just the walls were left standing.
Peter S
My grandmother lived in Fairfield Street looking over the railway. We were all gathered in one of her rooms with an uncle who was in the RAF. When the bombs started to fall we just sat there but my RAF uncle dived under the table every time a bomb dropped because that’s what he’d been trained to do. There was a Butler’s oil depot near the station about 300 yards from us. They stored barrels of oil. It was wonderful as a kid to watch these drums explode. They were like giant Roman Candles, flying into the air and down again.
Ray
I came home one Easter in 1941 for a weekend leave and we had a big Blitz on Bristol. I lived down at Easton where we had a land mine dropped in a little narrow street called John Street, which was cobbled. My house was about a quarter of a mile from John Street and one of these cobbles came through the roof and landed on my bed. They bombed the bus depot at the back of Berkeley Street, Croydon Street, and Easton Road. They also had the railway there going up to the Midlands and down to South Wales. A land mine dropped on the Friday night (the Good Friday Blitz) and I spent my Saturday helping people trying to crawl out from under the rubble - we pulled about three out. It was our duty in the forces to help out the Civil Defense when we were home. All the windows were blown out and we had an unexploded bomb. I spent the weekend in the Church Hall.
Jeanette
I lived off Redland Road and there was a house there that was bombed right at the beginning, bombed, and then burnt out. From that day until years after the war it was still standing. There was bedroom furniture and curtains hanging out the window. The curtains used to blow in the wind. There was a lovely dressing table in the window but no one dared go and take anything because it was only one wall.
Ray
I remember they were machine-gunning the barrage balloons. The barrage balloons were there to keep the enemy planes up so the hope was they’d miss their target. They never had the sights they’ve got now where they lock on like, they had to manually drop the bombs. They had a field day bringing all the barrage balloons down, they were just machine gunning them. It was a moonlit night and I could see the bombers coming over. I remember a double-decker bus landing on the on the vicarage roof.
Jeanette
The biggest land mine dropped on the Downs was right by the ‘White Tree’. It made a crater big enough for six double-deckers to go in. We kept going up for months to see it. All the houses were blown by it. It was on that piece of grass between the ‘White Tree’ and those big houses.
Black out
Peter L
You had to whitewash the curbstone outside your house so you wouldn’t trip over it. You also had to paint your number on the house and keep a bucket of sand or water underneath it for putting out incendiary bombs. It was very difficult going out in the dark because we couldn’t use a torch and there weren’t any batteries anyway. We had to have the torch shielded. Motor vehicles had to have the top half of the headlights covered as well.
Tony
We were all issued with small phosphorescent discs that we stuck on our lapels so you could see people coming towards you in the dark.
Esme
There were no railings round the water so people fell in the docks.
Tony
There was a man called Roach used to make his living from fishing bodies out of the dock. 5/- for a person and 10/- shillings for a cow.
Fire Watching
Esme
most buildings had their own firewatchers. Each business had a rotate for their employees. It was voluntary you did a days work and then had fire watching duty in the night.
Betty
I was working in an insurance office in the center of town. We had to do fire watching duty once a week so we stayed at the office over night. We slept on the top floor - two women and one man in camp beds. We were able to hear the rats running about because the building was old. The Ack, Ack gun was in the center just a few yards from where we worked. I remember one occasion running around with the shrapnel pinging off our helmets. We still had to be at work the next morning. Soon as it was daylight we could go home and have something to eat but we still had to be back to work by nine.
Tony
There was a firewatcher’s station opposite Electricity House in Colston Avenue. Anyone unfit for military duty was encouraged to be a firewatcher or go into the Home guard.
Mabel
Some people were responsible for certain roads. It could be hard for the men who’d done hard days work and then had to go on duty over night.
Peter L
We were sheltering at a neighbor’s house under the floor when an incendiary came through upstairs. They were trying to put it out when the bucket fell over, the water came through the floorboards, and we all got soaked.
Esme
We spent hours under the stairs with a candle. It was the safest place in the house.
Tony
My dad was a firewatcher in Clifton. After one raid he came home with a mini tea chest banded with metal and made out of plywood. A warehouse had been bombed and when they went in they swept all the tea and sugar up and took it home.
Mabel
There wasn’t anything about the Blitz in the papers. The day after the big Blitz in Bristol I was taking my daughter into town to be photographed at Jerome’s in Castle Street. We got the little bus that went into town and it went a funny way round. When we got there I got off the bus and looked round and there was nothing there except smoke and rubble. Everything was down. Nobody had told us what had happened – it wasn’t on the radio or anything.
Terry
After the blitz you didn’t see buildings entirely flattened. What you would see were three or four walls down. It would be in a dangerous condition. It was all temporary buildings in the center.
3

Photos Maps Of Bombing Area.
 

That is a great archive, John. All those facts and personal evidence are a vital history. Thanks for posting it all.
I've a memory of a raid on Hartlepool:
One night, when we were fire-bombed, I'd been stopped from fighting off the bombers. The cornfields opposite our house were in flames, you could even see the blaze through the thick blackout curtains. We'd taken shelter under the heavy kitchen table. I was indignant. I grabbed my wooden spinning top and, yelling: 'Me bomb Hitler back,' rushed to the window. I was about to hurl the top at the German planes, straight through the blackout curtains, when I was grabbed from behind. Dad pulled me back under cover and held me down. The old table was our air-raid shelter that night; the proper one (the corrugated iron Anderson in the garden) had flooded.

Mam came home one night in a state. In the pitch dark of the blackout she had wandered off the path and fallen into a bomb crater. Soldiers heard her cries and pulled her out

Ah! The Anderson shelter -- ours had been covered by a generous layer of rocks and dirt -- and I don't know how it got there but it had a plum tree growing out of the top which produced much good fruit over the years. After the war, when a young teenager, I ran an electric line down to the shelter and used it as my "boy" cave. Had my fretwork saw down there, and even did my homework down there at times. Was a bit musty but worked for me. My Mum, Grandma and I moved into the house in 1942 after Dad had been shipped off to North Africa.

The plumb seed got there because of a bird, liked the shelter and made a deposit. We had ours covered with sand bags full of dirt, over the years the bags rotted and it look natural.

We had the poor relation, the Morrison shelter. A sort of steel version of a big kitchen table, with steel mesh sides between the 'legs' to form a cage. When the air raid warning sounded, the family were supposed to squeeze inside and wait for the All Clear. In our house, sitting on the track for German bombers heading for Manchester and Salford docks, it was normal to ignore that instruction and to stand at the front door to watch the aircraft go over. It was possible to see the red glow from the engine exhausts as the passed.

One night a confused bomb-aimer suffered from premature ejection and dropped a stick of HE bombs, landing in a line starting over a mile away to the East of us and heading straight for our house. Fortunately the last one of the stick fell some 300 yards short. Apart from the first one, which fell into the storage pond of a textile mill (but didn't explode and wasn't found until the mill was being demolished in the 1960s), each bomb took out a house at intervals along one road.

The Morrison shelter sat in our front room for several years after the war - my father had great difficulty in dismantling and disposing of it so that we could recover the use of the front room.

A school friend whose house also had a Morrison shelter in the front room was much envied by me. He had an extensive Hornby Dublo (three rail) layout on the top of it and was given full use of the room. We spent many enjoyable hours there after school in the early 1950s.