I have given a page over to Billy Meek, Sydney (check Family History) for his account of the Clydebank Blitz. The Hume family Lived at 82 Second Avenue at this time and lost everything, including history and family bible with all birth's written inside. Danny

MEMORIES OF MARCH 13, 1941

 

I have lived with the smell of death since that Friday morning after the first German "Blitz" air raid, when I saw for the first time at the age of 11 just what devastation and human suffering could be inflicted on ordinary civilians.

The feeling of helplessness in the face of such destruction can leave you vulnerable for the rest of your life.

 

There must be many more people like me who wonder what life would be like if March 13, 1941 had never happened.

Little did we know that night would change our lives so dramatically.

We lost family and friends, to death, our homes to bombs and ultimately the loss of our family unit to divorce.

 

We grew up at 10 Burns Street, Dalmuir and attended Dalmuir Public School.

Sirens had become a familiar sound in our daily lives since shortly after the outbreak of War in September 1939 and I suppose we were used to them. Most times we considered it to be quite fun because sometimes we got away from School. But on that Thursday evening we soon knew this was no practice.

My mother had gone to the Empire Picture Theatre with her cousin, my father was on late shift at John Browns shipyard. We were at my Scout masters house and could here the drone of the aeroplanes and the anti-aircraft(ack-ack) guns firing from the hills that surrounded Clydebank.

The bombs started to fall and we decided to get into the hall with the doors closed to prevent injury from flying glass. My mother and father arrived shortly after, at least we were all together.

I remember when the bombs started falling everyone was screaming which was later replaced by numbed silence in the face of that never ending nine hour onslaught.

One of our neighbours Kathleen Mulloch, who used to kiss her boyfriend goodnight at the bottom of the tenement stairs while we giggled, was holding on to my fathers arm and sobbing uncontrollably. She kept saying" I am going to be killed, Mr Meek" and she was.

Many, many more people were killed or injured during that first night. We lost our home on the second night.

We made for the shelters in the back yard, with the noise of guns, exploding bombs and flying debris everywhere.

The worst thing was the bombs whistling as they fell, not knowing where they were going to land and praying it was not going to be on us.

After each explosion you could breath a sigh of relief -then listen to the next one. The shelters were full and just like a long tunnel without lights, people jostling trying to get past to find loved ones or just a safe spot.

It was hard enough being in the dark, but the dust was worse and the people in a daze.

It was hard to believe that the streets we played in were being bombed and neighbours and friends were being killed.

Singers factory wood yard (about 10 acres) was ablaze as we made our way to our grand mothers. The only one missing was my grandmother, who had said" They can do what they like but I am not leaving my bed!"

 

Someone came in and told us that the shelters between Patterson and Burns Street had taken a direct hit and there were no survivors.

I could here people crying and a few of the men went to see for themselves, it was a mess.

The bombing had nearly stopped when somebody came and told us the explosions we could hear were the petrol tanks at Bowling and the fires in Singers wood yard.

At 6am we heard the all clear siren which was a long wailing sound and went back to our home in Burns Street. It was to be bombed the next night.

There was a nauseating smell, a mixture of soot, explosives, burning wood and chard meat.

Ten hour had changed or little town into a graveyard. We decided that it was not safe any more and packed our belongings. I went out to the backyard of the tenement and the shelters had disappeared and all that was left was rubble.

At this point Patterson and Burns Street were still intact but by the next two nights both were destroyed.

Dalmuir West would never be the same again.

The cleansing department were out the next morning collecting rubbish from the backyards. I watched them, thinking it was rubbish that they were putting in to the trucks.

I thought it strange there were so many tailors dummies stacked so neatly, some had shoe on, some did not. They were all chalk white with no expression.

But then a girl screamed that they were all dead bodies.

I realised then that the bins carried limbs and I became aware of what is called "The Sweet Smell of Death".

I had not realised just how many of our friends and neighbours had died.

I walked round the streets along Dumbarton Road and towards the canal bridge-from Patterson to Hillview Street not a single shop window was intact. The siren started again and a ARP Warden said it was a reconnaissance plane taking pictures of the damage.

I looked down at my knee and saw that I had cut it on broken glass, I fell as soon as the siren started.

When I returned home everyone was frantic, wondering where I had been for such a long time. Yet it seemed that no one had come looking for me? They were all trying to decide what to do.

No one was really aware of the extent of the damage to Clydebank and being Wartime the news of the true damage was not told. The town of Clydebank was completely devastated.

My father decided like a lot of people we would make for the Old Kilpatrick Hills in case the Germans came back again.

 

I realise now how lucky I was to be alive-so many of my friends did not make it.

 

In the words of Scotland's favourite poet. "Mans inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn."

 

William Bell Meek (Sydney) Edited by Danny Hume from the transcript in the Clydebank Post 13 March 1997.

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