Memories of the Blitz

Mrs J.M.Bishop, living in Exeter during the War

On the 3rd September 1939, we heard Mr Chamberlain announce that we were at war with Nazi Germany. Even at eleven years old I was aware of the gravity of this declaration. My parents had never expected to see another conflict in their lifetime, after the Great War that was to end all wars. The future looked uncertain for us all.

Exeter Cathedral through archway

When the first air-raid siren sounded one night, we all trooped downstairs in our dressing gowns. We squatted behind the sofa, well away from the windows (as yet unprotected against breakage). My parents, small brother and I huddled under a table top which we held over our heads! Then the all clear sounded - it was a false alarm.

Some incidents were funny. Of course we laughed at ourselves. In the immortal words of Mrs Mopp of ITMA fame, "It's being so cheerful as keeps us going". Popular songs of the time to which we all knew the words, were: "Roll out the barrel", "Run, rabbit, run", "The white cliffs of Dover" and "We'll meet again". Old First World War favourites like "Tipperary" also expressed our feelings.

Another night when the warning went, for some reason my father didn't put the light on to dress. We were in fits of laughter when he appeared downstairs in a black tail-coat - and the most disreputable pair of old grey gardening trousers!

The worst raid was on 3/4 May 1942. A brilliant moonlit night, when all hell broke loose. A Baedeker raid following a RAF strike against Lubeck, as Exeter Cathedral was bombed in reprisal, and the city centre laid waste. My enduring memory is of sitting beside my blind grandfather, who calmly held my hand throughout. Dry-eyed, but numb with fear, I heard the bombs whistle down. Our home and most of our possessions were lost that night.

Next morning, a thick pall of smoke obscured the sky. A foul, sickening stench of burning foodstuffs etc. permeated the atmosphere. The devastation of the lovely old city seemed unreal as my mother took my grandparents, my brother and me to the country to stay with my godmother. It was a nightmare journey. Frequently turned back by ARP wardens because of unexploded bombs, or blocked rubble-strewn roads, we later learnt that we'd driven over undiscovered bombs anyway, thinking our passage safe. It took hours to clear the now unfamiliar landscape.

We left a ravaged city to find it was a lovely, sunny morning. The peace and tranquillity of the village was like a different world.

A bomb left this massive crater in Burnthouse Lane

No gas, no electricity, no water, but, irony of ironies, a Morrison shelter was delivered to our bombed out Exeter home within days of the raid! An unsightly steel "cage" with thick steel top and wire mesh side pieces, it was claustrophobic to sleep in. One tried not to think of being in it if the house collapsed and buried it. We two children spent many nights in it on our return to Exeter. Mercifully, it efficiency was never put to the test.

Large water tanks and public air-raid shelters were erected in the open areas of the city, and ARP wardens insisted on everyone taking shelter when the siren went. Traders found themselves make-do premises, proudly announcing "Business as usual". Blackout, rationing, shortages of many items, with Spam sandwiches, dried egg omelettes - but no bananas!

Mrs E.Curtis, living in Exeter

I was thirteen years old, when it was announced over my Grandmother's radio that England was at war with Germany.

There was a lot of hustle and bustle making blackout curtains which was a little scary but life seemed to go on much the same for some while.

I joined Boots the Chemist at sixteen years as an assistant. In those days you were given a good training especially on the drug counter, there was no National Health and people who could not afford to go to the Doctor, came to us for advice on their health problems so we had to know what we were doing.

We all took it in turns to fire-watch on the firms premises for incendiary bombs, four of us at a time. We slept in the upstairs library on camp beds. Boots at that time was on the corner of Queen Street where C & A now stands. A restaurant under C & A was our stock rooms. Everyone was doing their bit for the war effort and I joined the Women's Voluntary Service and spent two or three nights a week after work washing dishes until quite late after the evening meal at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital. No dishwashers in those days. Everyone over eighteen was in the forces so it was the very young and old who did this work.

The Exeter Museum was the venue for the Allied Forces Canteen and here after work I also helped with cutting up sandwiches and making tea and coffee for the forces. At home we were provided with a Morrison Shelter, an iron table which could be removed during the day for eating and put back when there was a raid. My father had spinal problems and wasn't called up. He became a Fire Warden with others in the road too old and not fit enough for service.

The Blitz ... Exeter had several attacks by air and although we heard Lord Hawhaw, the German Propagandist, over the radio say "the streets of Exeter, 'the Golden City of the West' would run with blood", we doubted it would. How wrong we were!

The sirens sounded that awful night in May but my sisters and I decided not to get up. My mother had got my younger brothers from their beds and kept calling for us to come down, and then the first bomb came down. It sounded so close we fell out of bed, down the stairs and into the Morrison Shelter, not before the second bomb came down. It was the most terrifying experience. The bombs whistled down one after another. We were all crammed in, eight of us including my mother. Father was outside doing his duty and stayed there until it was all over, two and half hours of hell. My mother was screaming for him to come in and my youngest brother seemed to do a somersault with every bomb, putting his little head down and covering his ears with his hands. As the eldest I tried to protect him, my mother did her best with my youngest sister who was about five years old. We clung to each other as the planes roared above us dropping their evil weapons. Suddenly there was an almighty explosion, much worse than the others. I think we all died for a moment. Everyone was deathly quiet and we thought the end was near, but no, the bombs continued until at last the planes died away. Still we sat in that little cramped container too frightened to move when my father came in and told us it seemed to be all over. We crawled out one by one too dazed and frightened for words. Then we looked out of the window and someone screamed "Our school is on fire!" The sky was bright red but it turned out later, it wasn't the school, but the almost complete destruction of the city. Our front door had been blown off its hinges and the bedroom ceilings fallen down on our beds, but apart from that it was the only damage to our house.

The next day my father and I tried to get to work, not knowing the full extent of the damage. We lived overlooking the higher cemetery so we walked up Pinhoe Road and there, halfway up, were the results of the very loud explosion, several houses, six I believe, had been demolished by a land mine. The ambulances were there and the dead bodies were being brought out. To a sixteen year old it was nauseating. In those days in the early forties, we knew little about death, not having televisions. We continued to the top of Sidwell Street, many roads were cordoned off with 'unexploded bomb' notices, and there before out eyes was the 'Golden City' completely in ruins. We could see as far as the Cathedral and there, it stood out in all its glory amidst the rubble of Exeter, proud and defiant, a comfort to us all - a sight I shall never forget. I looked at my father as he stood there quietly weeping and then we both wept. We made our way home but not before noticing a body, covered with a sheet awaiting collection on the pavement. Where once rows and rows of little houses stood called Newtown they now lay flattened to the ground.