Manchester at War, 1939-45
Page 8
I think there must have been about two dozen airmen down there and they were billeted in different houses in Town Lane and around.
(From Denton Voices)
DENNIS WOOD
Where I lived in Blackley, on Victoria Avenue, next to us was Heaton Park, and that was full of RAF camps, and on the Sheepfoot Lane side were artillery batteries, anti-aircraft batteries; about 130-odd guns. Now we didn’t know then, but these guns all over the country were a morale-booster: they rarely knocked anybody down, but once they started up, the row! [laughs] You could hear them for miles, and we were on top of them. It certainly made you feel as if ‘Well, somebody’s doing something!’ But they very rarely hit anyone. But the bloody row! It wasn’t just like for the two nights of the Blitz, it was every other night, because planes would be passing over.
Should we be visited by gliders or parachutists, could we be warned by an extra siren, working in conjunction with the ordinary siren, but giving off a different note?
Everybody can hear the air raid siren, but will those living at some distance from a church hear the bells, especially on a windy day?
J. Mawer, Clayton Bridge
(Manchester Evening News correspondence, 27 March 1942)
ARTHUR ROBERT DAVENPORT
Behind the Soap Box pub on Culcheth Lane [Newton Heath] opposite where I lived, there was a Barrage Balloon Unit and an army assault course. The land was commandeered from the local parish church, All Saints’ on Culcheth Lane, facing Briscoe Lane. The unit had two balloons. They were raised every evening and lowered, I imagine, when there was no possible threat from German planes. I think there was a Searchlight Unit near the corner of Broadway and Oldham Road, Failsworth, and we could see the lights criss-crossing at night.
The authorities did a lot to try and prevent injury and damage by these measures, as we were close to Mather & Platts, A.V. Roe, the Bradford Road gasworks, and Stuart Street power station. Mather & Platts building was painted with a black rectangle with a broad white line running across it on a green background; and opposite to Mather & Platts on Briscoe Lane was A.V. Roe, and that was painted green and brown to represent the open countryside: that is what they would appear to be from the air.
MARGARET KIERMAN
We used to see the fires, and at the time of the Manchester Blitz, I wasn’t in town that day, but I mean we saw all the flames going up. I don’t think Gorton was hit, but there was an ack-ack gun down at the bottom of Mount Road, and I think they did try and aim at that, but I don’t think they were successful.
(North West Sound Archive)
BOB POTTS
Just a few days before the Blitz I saw a barrage balloon that had been struck by lightning [laughs] – like a bonfire in the sky! Burning, blazing like mad, but by the time they’d got the Home Guard it had burned out.
DENNIS WOOD
All during the war we had the novelty of the barrage balloons. These were huge things, looked like whales, made out of – I think – nylon. Anyway, all over the country, and as far as I was concerned all round where I lived, in New Moston, were barrage balloon sites. Now they really consisted of a small area, protected by barbed wire, on which there were about ten ladies from the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force – the WAAFs, they were called. They had their own sergeant, their own officer – they had no men on the site.
And in the middle of this patch of land was a truck painted in RAF colours, Air Force blue, and on its back was a winch, which was a great round wheel upon which was a cable, a steel cable, and that was attached to the underpart of the barrage balloon. The WAAFs had to keep the barrage balloon fully inflated, and when the siren sounded, or if they got a radio message, they all clambered on the truck, one of them in the driver’s seat, another on the engine – and the engine worked the winch, and that would release the balloon slowly skywards till it reached I think about 300 or 500ft. And there was the balloon, attached and swinging about in the wind.
The effect was that you had hundreds and hundreds of these balloons up at that height whilst the German aircraft were about. The idea was that they couldn’t get under the balloons to do any low flying, because they were likely to hit the steel cables. It just made the job of the bomb-aimers in the aircraft a bit difficult, because they had to fly over 1,000ft.
It was a morale-booster to the public, to see all the balloons up. But for us kids at the time it was great because they very often broke free from the moorings, from the winch thing, especially in the high wind, and then they would career around the countryside, the cable down to the floor. The cable’s weight kept them down. We kids used to run after them and try and catch them. All sorts of people ran after them, but of course if you did get hold of the cable, you would go along with it; it would probably take you up a bit!
Barrage balloon testing centre at Bowlee, Middleton. (Greater Manchester Police Museum and Archives)
Now these WAAFs had to be trained to do all this work, and the place to train them was at Bowlee at the top of Heywood Road, Middleton. It was no secret to any of us, we all knew it was there, but of course it was a military camp, a huge military camp. The guards on the gates were all Royal Air Force sentries with fixed bayonets. We didn’t go too close, but if you could get a vantage point somewhere, you’d see all these WAAFs training.
These days there are still many of the hangars on the site, fully intact.
JEANNE HERRING
In the spring of 1939 gas masks were issued to every household. Grandma Townley made quite a fuss refusing to try it on, causing quite a stir, but she was given one anyway. She still got ready to go out once a month, to collect her pension from the War Office in town.
HOUSEWIVES’ SECRET WEAPONS
As a means of self-protection in case of invasion my kitchen poker, hitherto looked upon as a trusty weapon, is fast wearing down. I am, therefore, now practising hard at the dartboard in order to get a straight aim. I also have a good supply of pepper. I have a friend who practises throwing the carving knife. Otherwise, what other suggestions have you for the housewives’ self-defence, supposing the enemy presents himself at the door?
Mrs I. Singleton, Kersal
(Manchester Evening News correspondence, 10 March 1941)
BILL ASHTON
And of course there were all these pillboxes, there are still a few kicking around, they sprung up all over the place. Interesting thing about these pillboxes: they were built, and the plans showing the location of them were destroyed, in case they fell into the hands of the enemy. So nobody knew where they were, except the local people, and after the war, the Imperial War Museum sent out a request to history societies to gather this information, where they were.
(North West Sound Archive)
The derelict Second World War pillbox on the A58 between Heywood and Rochdale. (Author’s collection)
PHILIP LLOYD
I remember there was a barrage balloon in the grounds of Crimsworth House [Whalley Range]; that was before the school was built at the back of the house. There was a gun that went up and down the railway track, a mobile one. I don’t know the size of the gun, I don’t remember actually seeing it, but the sound of it was terrific. I’m surprised it didn’t shatter a few windows! That would be because of the water main from Thirlmere coming over the bridge on Manchester Road [Chorlton-cum-Hardy]. The bombers were aiming for the water main which went along the middle of the road, and also the railway track on the other side of the houses. They got the houses in between!
A Home Guard Anti-Aircraft Unit manning a rocket projector ‘somewhere in the North West of England’. This photo was originally censored, then allowed into print in the Southport Visiter in July 1942. (Press and Censorship Bureau)
Above & below: Identity card of William E. Lloyd, Fire Service worker and ARP warden in Chorlton and Old Trafford. (Philip Lloyd)
My father was in charge of the shop, the post office, so he wasn’t called up for service away, but he had already volunteered for the Air-Raid Wardens before
the war started. Then he was in the auxiliary Fire Service, and then the National Fire Service.
He wouldn’t talk about his work, but I did find out that once when an unexploded bomb fell behind the sideboard of a house, he went in, picked it up, and carried it out!
The problem of putting petrol out of use for the enemy is an important one. Perhaps these notes will be of use.
• Sugar: this substance does not discolour petrol, but plays havoc with an engine if put in the tank in a good quantity…
• Sand: dreadful stuff, causing blocked carburettor jet. Makes petrol useless.
• Common soda: similar to sugar.
• Treacle: prevents engine starting and means complete tank removal.
B. R., Manchester
(Manchester Evening News correspondence, 20 June 1940)
ANON.
There were groups of Nissan huts all over the place [in Heaton Park] where people were billeted, and we used to parade by the bandstand. We used to parade in front of this – it was a natural bowl. From here your name was called out, and you were told you had to report to such a place and then you got your instructions and off you went. It was a hive of activity – the place was absolutely throbbing with RAF lads, trains coming back and forth at night.
(North West Sound Archive)
BARRY ABRAHAMS
I was born at Withington in 1941, and my mother always said the AA guns were firing at the time. I think it was probably a couple of weeks after the last major raid on Manchester, and then we actually lived in Ardwick, on Old Elm Street: No. 81.
My recollections as a very young child at Old Elm Street, was in the front room we had one of these iron cages which was made to look like a table [Morrison shelter], and the idea was, if there was an air raid you would get in this iron cage to give you some measure of protection. It was a table with a mesh side, probably about 4ft square, with a door at the front. So as soon as the sirens went – and this was Ardwick, and Ardwick did get bombed – then people would get into this iron cage with a reinforced metal top, so if the house was bombed, and the debris came down, you’d be in this cage. I would imagine there’d be a metal sheet as a floor. The local authority would have come and installed them, and presumably at the end of the war or when the danger ceased, they would have taken them away for scrap metal.
The other thing I remember about Old Elm Street and that particular area, which is just off Ardwick Green, what you’d call city centre now, is the gaps between the houses. We used to play in those. I didn’t know what those gaps were for at the time, and I realised when I was five or six years old that those gaps had been houses, and they’d been bombed.
I certainly remember seeing bombed houses in Jessel Street, which was just a little further towards Manchester.
(North West Sound Archive)
DENNIS WOOD
In 1939, before the war began, the anticipation of the air raids was such that the police became fully anti-air raid in their duties, on top of their own duties. Steel helmets had to be carried. They wore their own helmet of course, but steel helmets were carried up on the shoulder. And because it was thought that immediately – the next day, 4 September 1939 – there’d be paratroopers landing, each officer on the beat was issued with a rifle – a military rifle – and five rounds of ammunition, which he didn’t carry in the magazine of the rifle, but in his pocket. It was made clear that should anybody use these rounds of ammunition, they would be in serious trouble and there would be an enquiry.
Suddenly there was this unusual sight of a policeman walking about with a rifle over his shoulder. It told us all that something serious was about. They kept that up until after the Blitz.
FRANCIS HOGAN
The Home Guard headquarters was in the old post office on Railway Road, Urmston. I’d been in it for some time and we had a Lieutenant Marr, I don’t know whether he was injured or what, but he came out of the army – he was still in army uniform – and he started a Commando Unit. Nearly all the young ones joined it. We used to do manoeuvres against anybody and everybody in the area, other Home Guards, and once we did one against the Canadian Army. We used to go firing up Glossop way, what’s the name of the place? And I was a snapshot. Out of the ten rounds I fired, I got nine bulls.
That was the best, though: the Colonel of our battalion, Colonel Law, he came up and he wanted to use my gun to do his shooting, and I wouldn’t give it to him. I said, ‘no, I’ve cleaned it.’ [laughs] He was upset!
ROY BEVAN
There were no road signs, they were all blacked out, or dismantled. All the things where it said, ‘4½ miles to Stubbins’ or ‘4½ miles to Bury’ or wherever it was, they all went. So that anybody that was in a strange environment, they wouldn’t have anything to guide them. Which I think in wartime would be an ideal solution, because you can’t have people roaming about looking where they were.
(North West Sound Archive)
ANON.
There were only thirty WRAFs billeted at Heaton Park and they lived in a hut down by the lake. I lived at home. They were getting thousands and thousands of airmen in, and I think they thought it wasn’t very sensible, so they put the women in private billets, but they let me come home in the evenings. My mother got a shilling a night to have me at home, so I slept in my own bed. The private billets were all offered a folding metal bed if they wanted. Later on more and more WRAFs were coming in, so they opened hostels.
As you went in the station gate [off Bury Old Road], No. 1 Squadron was there. They’d put Nissan huts in among the trees, hidden among the trees. No. 2 Squadron – where they posted me, I was the clerk, the only girl there – that was down by the lake. There were lots of Nissan huts among the trees, all around the lake.
There were two NAAFIs there, there was one in the old boat house and they built a new one. As you were looking down from the hall at the lake, the Squadron Office was in the roadway at the side of the lake. Then No. 3 Squadron was up in the woods by St Margaret’s Gate and then the headquarters was the hall. The SHQ [Squadron Headquarters] orderly room was the round room at the top.
The orangery at the side was the medical inspection room. The people coming through the park were all aircrew; it was an aircrew dispersal centre. They were being sent away from this country to South Africa, America, Canada, where they learned to fly. They were the cream of the country, those young men; fit, intelligent, and educated. And nearly half of them were killed you know, the ones who went through the park. It was about 160,000 that went through. Some were there for a few days and some for a few months.
JANE DAWSON ADVISES
I always saw that my family slept with the windows open, and I feel that children, particularly, are suffering because this is not possible, due to the black-out.
Regards, Mother of four
There is a leaflet called ‘Ventilation in the Black-out’ which would help you, issued by the Ministry of Health and obtainable through a newsagent or from the Stationery Office.
(Manchester Evening News, 20 January 1942)
The airmen had to be fit medically. Everyone had to be able to swim, so the ones who couldn’t were taught in the bathing pool. They all had to learn dinghy drill.
(North West Sound Archive)
ANNIE GIBB
We had a blackout at the back of our house [Livingstone Street, Chorlton-on-Medlock]. Somebody said we had German prisoners in there. We had the entry to what do they call it, where they have the medicine, a dispensary, and somebody used to be without a curtain on, and when some bombs dropped, it echoed up the entry. When I hear fireworks now, I’m back there.
BILL ASHTON
The Home Guard Headquarters, they formed the battalion in Manchester, hence the reason we had the Manchester Regiment cap badge.
By the time I joined – I was seventeen, remember this was a couple of months after the initial push for volunteers – they started off with an armband with LDV on it. End of story. LDV: that was the uniform. We used the nickname ‘Look,
duck and vanish.’ [laughs]
And then within a couple of months the organisation must have been fantastic, considering the state of the country at the time. We were issued with denim uniforms, which really were working uniforms for the peace-time army, with baggy things that went over the trousers, and a forage cap. And they re-christened us ‘Home Guard’, so I had an armband ‘Home Guard’.
And then we got proper uniforms. We had to give in the denims, exchanged for khaki uniforms. Then we got, if you remember, little anklets, they were leather, the army’s were always canvas. They must have had millions of these leather things that they’d got perhaps from the Boer War for all I know.
Then – boots. Then – overcoats. And then – I’m going on a couple of years now – tin hats. In my time, I was in say for two and a half years, by the time I got called up, were fully equipped.
Now the ammunition [laughs]: the only rifles that were available initially were half a dozen American 1917 rifles that had been stored in barrels of wax in America. We’d never seen a bullet at this stage, by the way. Then they brought a barrel of rifles that we had to spend about a week getting out of this wax and cleaning them all up, and then we were issued with them. They got some dummy bullets, and taught us how to load and unload them, and how to aim and how to hold them and so on.