��ѿ��ý

Pirellis factory in Leigh Road was painted to look like houses from the air, alternately white with black windows. This factory made tyres and during the war a German would have liked to bomb it to make our soldiers short of tyres. Communications were also important to move supplies to the soldiers that were fighting in Europe, ‘front line’ or ‘front’ as it was called so they tried to bomb Eastleigh, as it was a railway junction. They also tried to bomb the airport, which during the war was a Fleet Air Arms base called HMS Raven. It was a shore base but still called HMS (His Majesty’s Ship) and the German propagandist “Lord Haw Haw”, used to broadcast in English to try and demoralise the British civilians into thinking they were losing the war, announced one day that they had sunk HMS Raven. This was much to the amusement of everyone in Eastleigh, as we knew this was impossible as it was an airport.

The docks in Southampton were also a target for enemy bombing, so that the ships could not bring in food or take supplies to the troops. Here there was the ‘Southampton Blitz’. Night after night we spent in the air raid shelters. Night raids were later on in the war. Day raids were first. The planes could see where they were going but they could be seen and shot down from the ground or intercepted by spitfires. This was the Battle of Britain. Night raids were more difficult for us to see the planes, but they could not see either and they used to drop ‘flares’ to light up their targets and ring such flares to light up a big area known as a ‘bread basket’. My father used to describe this as being like a firework display. This was meaningless to me, as I had never seen a firework display that I could remember.

To shoot down the enemy planes (apart from the RAF) they used to have mobile Anti Aircraft guns. They were on wheels and used to be pulled around the streets behind a lorry, so that the enemy planes could not bomb them because they would have been moved before they were located.

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