ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

Here is a my experience of the second world war:
On Thursday, May the 1st. 1941 was the beginning of eight consecutive nights of bombing on Liverpool by nearly 300 aircraft. The docks were heavily bombed with the loss of 33 ships. In the Huskisson Dock, the munition ship Malakand, carrying 1,000 tons of high explosive bombs exploded. 1,450 were killed, 1,100 seriously injured and 76,000 were made homeless.
Mother had gone to the hospital, with Aunt Hetty, Uncle Mossies’s wife. They had a daughter Joan and a son Maurice. The following morning young Maurice (II yrs old) with my brother Phil, (6 years old) went looking for souveniers of shrapnel. I should explain here that the coastline from the extremity of Bootle docks, from Seaforth onwards was heavily mined against the threat of invasion. Although there were huge signs warning of the danger of the mined area, plus a barrier of barbed wire, both Phil, my brother, and Maurice, my cousin, were prepared to climb through this barricade. Maurice managed to get through without any trouble but Phil’s jacket hooked on to the barbed wire. Coincidentally at that point the wailing sound of the siren was heard -- plus an explosion ! Phil’s version of what happened then was that he saw a bomb coming down, and managed to extricate himself from the wire but couldn’t see Maurice anywhere and ran to Aunt Hetty’s who lived in one of the streets across the road from where this tragedy had happened. Unfortunately, Aunt Hetty was at the hospital with Mother. On her return Phil gave her a garbled version of what had happened and you can imagine the trauma she must have been feeling, She picked up a shovel and ran down to the shore to where the boys had climbed through the barbed wire. In her demented state she started digging (I assuume on the right side of the barbed wire) and had to be dragged back to her home. Maurice was dead. Both Aunt Hetty and Uncle Mossie were inconsolable. Their misery was compounded further when Uncle Mossie had to identify the body. The only part of his body that was found intact, so we are told, was his head and shoulders, with not a blemish on them, but the rest of his body was never found. The verdict of the Coroner was that it was not a bomb that Phil saw coming down but Maurice’s body falling to the ground. For some time after this episode, anytime the siren sounded, Phil dived for the nearest cover and sometimes being physically sick.

Mrs Elizabeth Godwin

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.