It was the 3rd of February 1940. My father and I were walking up Cliff Hill Gorleston; we were opposite the old Custom House, when suddenly we heard the sound of an aircraft, plus explosions & machine-gun fire, on looking out over the harbour entrance, we could clearly see a German plane strafing the examination boat.
I was ten years old at the time & can still remember it, as it was the first time I witnessed action since the outbreak of war on 3rd September 1939. It was certainly not the last, older readers will recall the fact that a leaflet arrived through everyone's letter box, stating that with the threat of invasion imminent, those wishing to leave should do so within the next fourteen days. My dad thought it would be safer if we all moved to Weymouth in Dorset on the English Channel, staying with relations.
As it turned out Weymouth had its share of bombing raids like most other coastal towns. Even more so, as Portland was the second largest navel base in Britain during the war! During this period we did not have air raid shelters at our village school & had to hide under our school desks during the bombing raids. I watched a bombing raid by climbing on my desk & witnessed German Stukas dive bombing oil installations across the bay at Portland,
One Stuka pilot could not pull out of his dive & hit the cliff side on Portland Island. On 17d' November 1940 a parachute mine dropped on Weymouth & damaged 879 houses, killing 12 civilians including children, plus 41 injured civilians, & 3 soldiers.
An old friend of mine Stanley Leggett, who's father was in the Gorleston lifeboat with my dad, sent me a written account of what happened on that day in February 1940 concerning the air attack on the Examination boat The George Bligh.
This is Stan's personal account. (I was employed during my early teens along with my father on the examination boat The George Bligh; our job was to check the papers of all vessels, before they entered the harbour. We did a fortnight out & a fortnight in. Our relief vessel was the E.P. Wills.
On the morning of the attack at 11 a.m. An aircraft which appeared out of nowhere dropped its bombs which fell astern of us doing no damage, but the detonation seemed to lift our stern out of the water. The machine guns also missed us. I'll never know how I & 4 other crewmen managed to run forward to get under the whaleback for protection. We were scared, as we were sitting ducks & did not have any guns at that time to defend ourselves. Thankfully they did not come back for a second try, as it might have been a different story (after the evacuation of Dunkirk, we were no longer needed).
As I lived so close to the harbour entrance, I can remember the Block ship. This was moored inside the harbour entrance on the south pier. I asked Stan if he could remember it, & this was his written reply “The Block ship was moored alongside the Gorleston Pier, opposite the Pilot hut. I think it was an old condemned trawler or small coaster, but I am not sure of this. It was put in place in the event of invasion by the enemy, when it would have been sunk across the harbour mouth, thereby effectively closing it to enemy shipping. I can only assume that would have been a last resort.”
As the war progressed, a 20 ft. high gun platform was erected on the quayside immediately opposite the Bellevue Tavern This platform contained a Bofer anti aircraft gun, plus a twin Lewis machine gun. An identical platform was in operation on Ferry Hill Gorleston.
My own recollections of the of 3rd September 1939 was the fact that it was Sunday and The Civil Defense decided to try out the early warning system by turning on the air raid warning sirens at 11 a.m. without notifying the general pubic. At this period in time, we did not have an air raid shelter, & so my father made my mother, myself & my brother and sister take refuge in the cupboard under the stairs!
After the all clear was sounded We stood on our balcony overlooking the harbour entrance and were fascinated to see the Royal Navy wheeling into place a field gun which when positioned, was pointing straight out of the harbour mouth.
My father had a beach site with 37 huts, 100 tents plus 700 deck chairs, all of which had to be speedily removed from the Gorleston Beach & stored for the duration of the war The tents & deck chairs were stored in the old Storm house on the Quay which was the H.Q. of the Storm Lifeboat company, of which my grandfather was a life member.
My father was in the Rangers lifeboat Company. My father returned home from clearing his beach site a few days after the war started & informed us that the coastguards had told him that they were on alert, as they had been told that an air raid was imminent! He quickly mustered us all and we all trooped off as fast as possible into the country!
We managed to get as far as the village of Browston, The outcome was that this time it was a false alarm, and so we arrived back home at tea time,
Later on during the war they did bomb the harbour with loss of life down there in our area.
I hope these personal stories of me & my dear wife, at a time when I was nine years old & Carol, was seven, prove of interest.