DEVONPORT BLITZ
April, 21st, -- 23rd, 1941.
By Victor, SAUNDERCOCK.
There had been a lot of Air Raids on Plymouth which meant that Devonport was getting its share of the raids. We would take shelter in the brick air raid shelters in the courtyard, armed with a candle, and a flask among other things, any thing of value my mother would take down to the shelter. We, being my mother and sister, I was 13 years old when the raids got started in 1940, my stepfather and brother were out with the Fire Guard team fighting fires in the area.
The big raids came on Thursday and Friday 20th and 21st March 1941, I remember it well as the King and Queen came and visited the City on the Thursday, it was after they had left that the siren went. The block of flats where I live in Clowance Street was bombed, we had no water, no gas, no lights for many weeks and of course, we had no windows. A water tanker brought water. All this was going on and I still had to go to school.
In
1939 the Army wanted our school for a military hospital we were moved to a
school in King Street Devonport, where we share the school with girls. It was
arranged that we went to school in shifts, girls from 9am to1pm, boys, from 1pm
to 5 pm, we change over each week.
We had air raids all the time, but worse was to come on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, the 21st, 22nd and 23rd of April 1941. I lived right behind the signal tower on Mount Wise. At about 9-30pm on the Monday night, on the tower, red and green light’s came on, warning ships that a raid was imminent, this was followed by a red light, this meant a raid was about to start.
The siren sounded, we, my mother, three year old sister and I went down to the air raid shelter. We lived in a block of flats, we were a prime target, the flats were painted white. During the three days of raids my stepfather, he was a “Fire Guard Leader” with other men had climbed onto our flat roof and threw incendiary bombs, which had landed there, into the front garden below.
The Ack Ack and the noise of the bombs coming down, followed by the explosions was hell itself. I remember we put cotton wool in each ear it did very little for us.
There were fires everywhere and to make matters worse, with the main water supply gone, the firemen were trying to get sea water from Mutton Cove but the tide was out, which meant low water and no means of fighting the fires.
The noise went on all night until dawn, when the all clear sounded and we were able to leave the shelter. That night –Tuesday – around 9-30pm the planes returned, again the raid went on all night and continued until dawn when the all clear sounded. We left the shelter and the area was full of smoke from fires that were still burning.
On Wednesday evening my stepfather came home from the Dockyard, where he worked, - with news that all women not otherwise engaged in defence, were to take their children - boys under 14 years – to Chapel Street, Devonport, wait outside Chas Coombs, the bookmakers office at 6pm, where there would be buses to take them outside of Plymouth. With my mother, sister and others, we went to Chapel Street and boarded the Corporation buses that were waiting for us.
We were taken to Plympton College, as it was then. We were given a blanket and a cup of tea and taken inside, where we tried to get some sleep, something we had not had since Sunday night. At around 9-30pm, the sirens went off and we could hear the noise of the bombing coming from Plymouth. A man asked my mother where we had come from, she told him Devonport, he took us outside and from a mound in the garden we could see the sky over Plymouth red in colour, the man said, I’m afraid there is very little left by the look of that.
The next morning we had to make our own way home on foot. At Marsh Mills a lime lorry came along and gave us a lift into Devonport, he could only take us to King’s Road railway station, as there were a lot of Unexploded Bombs (UXB’s) around, there were fires everywhere. We walked up Fore Street, it was still burning, we turned into Chapel Street and Chas Coombs place – where we had left from the night before – was in ruins. A lot of people had gone into Coombs air raid shelter, but a bomb exploded in the entrance and they were still trying to get people out. We wondered if our block of flats was still standing. It was, but again most of the windows were gone, there were houses around still burning.
That night – Thursday – we were told to get out of town again. We were taken to King’s Road station for a train to take us to Tavistock, but there was a problem, UXB’s on the line. We were put into buses and taken into St. Budeaux Railway Station and taken by train to Tavistock. We spent the night in a Church in the square I understand it was called “St. Eustachus.” When we got home the following morning “Friday” we found out that the planes did not return on Thursday night after all, they never did come back in great numbers again.
Nearly all of Devonport had gone, - the Whole of Fore Street apart from a few buildings – and that is how it remained until the US Forces arrived and built a camp in Fore Street.
There was a lot of sadness you could go to the Police Station in Ker Street where the list of dead and those missing were posted on the wall outside, looking for school chums and friends. One family’s son was in the front room of their house, waiting to be buried. He had been killed by an Unexploded Bomb (UXB), all his family was killed in an air raid shelter, but the house was not touched.
My school had gone, we were here there and anywhere, to try and get us together, at last we were given the Devonport High School for boys at the top of Albert Road, the boys of that School had been evacuated before the air raids ever started. After the war the Army gave our School back, but not to us –Stoke Senior Boys School- but to Devonport High School for boys, they are there to this day. Oh yes, I left School 1942, age 14 years and at 15 years went to sea until the war ended, and in 1946 I joined the Army. In 1951 I found myself in another war, the Korean War.