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Tea Time Canterbury Saturday 0ctober31st 1942
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This is an account of the events that occurred on that awful Tea Time, related to me by my Parents, and is as accurate as I can recollect.

My Parents, and me aged just two years, lived at 5,Claremont Place Canterbury in the county of Kent. My Mother had laid the table for tea, a coal fire burnt in the grate, Father had returned from his work at Robert Brett’s, he was ready for a meal after working long hours as a welder on war work. My Mother was accustomed to write a letter once a week to her sister who lived in North London, she had completed her letter and was about to go to the post office in Wincheap hoping to catch the last post, however she changed her mind and decided to leave the task to the following day. Within five minutes the air raid siren sounded, next there was a roar of aircraft engines and the sound of bombs, we sheltered under the stairs in our Glory Hole, as the cupboard was then called, it later became a toy cupboard.

There next came a terrific bang and blast, a row of houses in York Rd had been hit, Claremont Place ran ninety degrees from York Rd, with a row of houses between the back gardens of the bombed houses, although the house in front took some of the blast our house suffered the loss of the roof but we were safe. When the all clear was sounded my Father tried to open the cupboard door, but it was jammed shut. He managed to force the door open, then discovered the reason for the jam, my Mother had a cloths horse of washing drying around the fire, in the living room. The blast had blown the fire out and sent the horse across the room to jam under the handle of the cupboard. The fire had disappeared, lucky for us the blast had sucked the fire coals completely up the chimney, no remnants of the fire remained in the room.

Our house was about seventy meters from the bombs impact point, people were killed and about six houses were destroyed, had my Mother gone to the post office, she would have been adjacent to the houses bombed. A house at the bottom of York Rd and another around the corner in Wincheap Street received direct hits. Our family had been very lucky, just a milli second in dropping the bomb, and we should have received the direct hit!

I chanced upon the book referred to overleaf and was enthralled to read an account of the events of that day, from the Germans side. My Father had told me that the aircraft were FW 190s, “Jabo” fighter bombers, we understood about forty FW 190s had attacked, so it was interesting to discover that we were under a greater threat than we had imagined.

I read further accounts from the Jag 26 pilots, they recorded that they did not like the use that their aircraft were put to, they were fighter pilots and felt uneasy about the raid, but war is war, it is so senseless looking from our perspective in time. I pray that we may never fight another war, especially in Europe!

DAVID FRY
Flackwell Heath
Buckinghamshire
6th July 2001

THE JAGDGESCHWADER 26 WAR DIARY 1942 [JG26] vol 11939-42
Donald Caldwell [Grub Street]

The Jagdgeschwader 26 , the “Abbeville Kids,”was one of two Luftwaffe fighter wings that remained on the Western front for the entire war 1940 to1944.
Jagdgeschwader 26 was considered by both the Allies and Axis to be the best German fighter unit from 1940 to1944. It gained that status initially as a result of outstanding leadership during the Battle of Britain in 1940.

Below is a report taken from the diary dated 31 October 1942.

In the continuing bad weather RAF Bomber Command’s No 2 Group scheduled another of its infrequent low-level daylight Boston raids. At noon a dozen of the light bombers were dispatched in pairs to attack power stations in northern France. An 8th Staffel patrol was able to catch the two that had just bombed Comines, and Lt Paul Galland shot one down, for his 17th victory in 107 combat sorties.
The first Gruppen and part of the third Gruppen were grounded until late afternoon for a very unusual reason: bomb racks and bombs were being mounted beneath their FW 190A-4s. Adolf Hitler had ordered more attacks on England in retaliation for Bomber Commands night offensive. A full-strength daylight “Vergeltungsangriff” or vengeance attack had been planned for Canterbury as soon as the right weather conditions prevailed. Unfortunately for the Luftflotte 3 planners, the only day bombers available in France were the two Jabostaffeln, which had only nineteen serviceable aircraft between them. Thus forty-nine fighters were turned into bombers for the raid, which developed into the largest daylight attack on England since 1940.
The attack was timed for dusk, 11/JG 2 joined the Second Gruppe at Abbeville; the addition of part of the Third Gruppe brought the total number of escorts to sixty-two FW 190s. Six more fighters were detailed to fly a diversionary sweep.
The large fighter force roared across the Channel five feet above the waves, well beneath a cloud deck of 600 feet. Complete surprise was attained. The barrage balloons were raised swiftly and caused some fighters to drop their bombs prematurely. Uffz Immervoll lost three feet of his wing to a balloon cable, but his was the only Jabo aircraft to sustain damage. Thirty- one bombs exploded in Canterbury. killing thirty-two people and damaging many buildings. The fighters wheeled about and returned to the coast as rapidly as they had arrived. The British Fighter defences, hampered by the low cloud cover, caught only one fighter over England. This was an 11/JG 2 aircraft, which was shot down; its pilot was captured.
One Geschwader pilot was lost on the return flight. Lt Paul Galland and his wingman lost their unit among many Fock-Wulfs in low clouds. While nine miles from Calais Galland heard a German pilot calling for assistance. After flying two search curves he saw in the distance a FW 190 close above the water, pursued by a Spitfire. He went to the aid of the German pilot, the 1st Staffel’s Lt Beese, but the Spitfire pilot spotted him and pulled up sharply into cloud deck. Galland entered a tight climbing turn, but stalled out, and had to dive away to regain flying speed. At that instant theSpitfire broke from the clouds in firing position and shot him down in flames; Galland’s wingman Fw. Edmann immediately shot down the Spitfire. This combat was probably with a lone No 91 Sqd. Spitfire that went missing at this time and location.

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