air raid shelter

Last night Ned* & Dougal* & I  went in search of the infamous WW2 air raid shelter in Inverclyde that was built for the workers of the local rope factory. After about 2yrs of wondering where on earth it was we recieved an unexpected tip-off as to its whereabouts.

*names changed to protect anonymity...

Unbelievably we discovered another likely looking candidate in the vicinity...

Which proved to lead into the sealed foundations of a local engineering warehouse

It was not an ideal place for FTBs!

We retraced our steps and were extremely lucky when Ned found the shelter

Looking back up the entrance stairs. The 600' of tunnel were tunneled into the rock 45' below the surface and so were considered extremely safe and bomb-proof.

Margaret Lamont
My father, he was in the first war, he kept saying ‘just haud on, just watch yourself. If you hear a whistle you’ll know the bomb’s not for you.

Vincent McNellis
When the bombs were falling…there was a railway tunnel up towards Gibshill way. I don’t know if you know Gibshill? That’s where all the families from the east end of Greenock used to go to keep away from the bombs because the tunnel had tons of rock on top if it and it was safe enough. So that’s where they went to shelter from the bombing.

Margaret Cochrane
There was a shelter at the foot of Woodhall. The ceiling fell and I heard a baby crying. Mr Ramsey sais, ‘I’ll go in and see if I can get it’. The shelter fell on top of him and killed him. The baby wasn’t in there. It had been blown out there and over the railway and they found the baby later on. I think she was a grandmother.

Bill Murray
And then it started, the first glow of red in the sky which built up until it was practically like a full sunset, just a complete blaze of light. That was it. That was Greenock being bombed.

Alex Hunter
The east end of the town which had all the major industries, well there was a bomb fell, say the tanworks, the ladyburn engine sheds, Scott’s shipyard, both sugar refineries, Rankin and Blackmore’s and the distillery. These were major targets. And they hit them.

Mary Mackenzie
They had seats round the shelter. We were all sitting and my mother was repeating the 23rd Psalm and that made me think that we weren’t going to survive.

Old diesel engine that looked to be the pump for circulating air

Margaret Gaffney
I could hardly believe what was in the sky. It turned a bright red and I wondered, what is that? And it was parts of Greenock burning.

Original toilets with canvas curtains still there

Mary Bruce
I ran out and I ran way down Drumfrochar Road to where the sugar house was burning. It was beautiful. There was flames going in all directions, orange and blue, and then in the next street the distillery was burning and the whisky was running... I mean, it was like a firework display. 

Alex Stewart
In a wee lull we had forgotten about the dog, so I went away up to see if the house was still there. The dog was sitting on an armchair with a great big frame of a picture…the picture was gone and the frame was round its neck. 

Margaret Cochrane
When we came out we looked up and the police and the ARP men were lifting the bodies of the McLinden family out that house. We had big canvas thingmies over the windows that we just lifted and snibbed them on the windows and that was the blackout. They were blew from the window and stuck in…all the glass and everything was stuck in the wall. Glass everywhere. We had a budgie and it was sitting on the table, singing like a Linty….a hand on a bed and it belonged to a lady whose husband was in the navy and that was how they identified her by her wedding ring…and there was a lady bending over the baby’s cot and the bomb came down and cut them in half. Everybody was all left out on the pavements, all the dead.

Mary Bruce
I was buried under the rubble and my mother died after some time. We could feel the firemen above us and they were tramping, trying to find us. Of course that was only pressing the rubble down on us. After some time I must have lost consciousness and then I woke up in the Royal Infirmary but somebody told me later that they had managed to get a gap into me. There was a little doctor locally called Dr Campbell and he crawled in and presume gave me morphine or something.

Helen McPaul
The whole close had been bombed and all the ??? and everything. This woman was shouting for her husband and her husband was lying dead.

Mary Thomas
The driver took us down Bank Street and the Victoria Tower was on fire. I think that was more frightening for us than coming out of the house and seeing nothing left of our own.

John Mackechnie
We’d sit and listen for the all clear. Now you know the warning sign was a siren that went..demonstration of siren…whereas the all clear, as they called it, was a siren that just went…demonstration of siren…and you knew then that the raid was over.

Shovel heads

Mr McPhee
You’ll have no doubt heard of the phrase, ‘my knees were knocking’. Well, my knees were knocking.

The Greenock Blitz is the name given to two nights of intensive bombing of Greenock by German Luftwaffe on 6th and 7th of May, 1941.

"Across the river our families— for the 83rd Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment had a good sprinkling of Greenock and district men in its ranks—would be excitedly rushing to the shelters.
We could picture our families huddled in their propped-up dungeons, crowding into Anderson shelters, perhaps drawing comfort from one another in closes protected from blast by baffle walls.
hey were less than three miles away from us across the Clyde. Were they safe? Was anyone safe as those bombs and incendiaries rained from the sky?"

Fuse-box

Greenock Fire Department Firemaster's Report

Air Raid 6th May 1941

The Air Raid Warning “Red” was received at 00.49 and the Air Raid Message “White” at 03.25.

During the period of the raid 25 incidents were recorded at Headquarters. These were expeditiously dealt with and with the exception of the undermentioned, presented no particular difficulty although serious damage was caused in several instances. The most difficult fires to handle were at Belville St. (incident No.15) where, shortly after the arrival of the Brigade, a high explosive bomb destroyed the water main, (eliminating water pressure over a wide area), and the 5000 gallon steel dam provided for the area. This circumstance necessitating relaying water from Victoria harbour, a distance of about half a mile. The raid, although on a fair scale, was well within the scope of the local service.

Here is a link to a great article on the Greenock Blitz in 1941 on the website 'Remembering Scotland At War'.

[http://www.rememberingscotlandatwar.org.uk/Accessible/Exhibition/177/The-Blitz]

Description

Article from Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette 8th May 1939

Transcript

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST AIR RAID SHELTER

Memories of years spent on the staff of Hollinger Gold Mine in Canada were recalled when I was taken through the tunnels being excavated under the factory of the Gourock Ropeworks, Port-Glasgow (writes a Telegraph reporter). 

The scheme, which will cost in the region of £7,500, is to provide shelter for over 1,000 workers in the event of an air raid, and the scheme is considered by the contractors, the Francois Cementation Co., Doncaster to be the largest of its kind undertaken by any firm in the country.

A main tunnel measuring 10 feet broad: by 7 feet nigh and 600 feet long, lies at an average 45 feet below the ground surface. It is interesting to note that the Government specify a 25ft minimum. The shelter thus afforded is therefore very safe, even if it were to get a direct hit by a bomb. I was taken by the Resident Engineer, Mr. Linkletter, down an inclined shaft to the “workings”, where men, stripped to the waist were operating their pneumatic drills, boring holes in the rock for the purpose of blasting. Special care has to be exercised in firing the charges, and delayed-action detonators are being used.

When the rock was dislodged “muckers” proceeded to load the debris into trunks which were taken to the surface by means of an electric hoist. The removal of 50,000 cubic feet of material weighing approximately 4,000 tons, gives one an idea of the magnitude of the contract.

In the event of an air raid the workers reach their haven by four smaller tunnels. Two of these lead into the factory itself, and the others onto the roadway.

To prevent the fall of rock, pit arches and galvanised sheeting are used to line the tunnel throughout. Air conditioning and electric light will be installed. Work started at the beginning of May and is expected to be finished in a few weeks.

The 25 men employed are working a 24-hour shift in a 7-day week.

Source

Date: 8 May 1939
Contributor: Greenock Telegraph and Clyde Shipping Gazette