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I grew up through the war years in the small industrial town of Leyland where the then famous Leyland lorries were built. Years and many company mergers later the firm contributed its name to British-Leyland Plc. Liverpool lay 20 miles away and in early 1941 the Blitz which was devastating London's docklands spread to the docks there. Over many nights that winter a wide arc of sky towards Liverpool shone brightly with the steady light of flares, the flickering light from great fires and the flashes from explosions. A few of the hundreds of bombers would fly overhead with the characteristic throb of their engines: "Oh that's a Jerry." Occasionally, a bomb fell within earshot: a thump, a shake, sometimes with a long loud whistle. All fell in open spaces, just breaking a few windows and leaving a nice crater in the earth around which we boys foraged for bits of shrapnel.
Months later the Motor Works was attacked in daylight by a single plane flying in at low level between two prominent factory chimneys. My dad, along with several hundred others, was machining parts in the engine shop. He told us how one bomb sliced in through the roof and out through a wall, another (an incendiary) fell conveniently among the sand moulds in the metal casting shop and the third in the road between them. About a week later the factory was again attacked in exactly the same way and then yet again. It must have been an uneventful day in the war for that raid merited a brief sentence in the German communique; "Our planes bombed the aircraft factory at Leyland." Two errors there: only one plane and we made tanks.
But the childish excitement over a stray bomb had by now changed into an anxious anticipation that the factory was likely to be bombed again any day. It duly was but this time the plane was damaged and crashed over in Yorkshire. The local AA guns, one across the schoolplaying field from our house, were credited with the kill. The pilot was captured and found to be a professional engineer who had lived among us while studying the advanced technology at the works. One bomb overshot the engine shop and the adjoining London to Glasgow railway line to hit a terraced house. Father, mother and their six young children were all killed. We were not bombed again.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Frances Grahl of Idea Store Chrisp Street on behalf of Harry Hughes and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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