Hull - the blitz, World War Two

My mum and aunt were both born in Hull in the 1930s, and were living in Ada's Terrace, St Paul's Street, during the blitz on the city during World War II.

In 1994, the British Library ran the "National Life Story Awards", and invited entries from people over 50 years old - the stated emphasis being "on participation and people working together, in the hope that closer links between the generations will be forged." My mother and aunt sent in their stories. The following are extracts, relating to their experiences in Hull in the Second World War.

We had a communal shelter at the end of our street and we were dragged out of our warm beds as the sirens wailed. The bunks in the clammy brick shelters were uncomfortable and it was terrifying listening to the endless bombardment all around.

A whistling noise preceded the explosion of each high explosive bomb, and as it landed the ground shook. Parachute bombs, landmines, and incendiary bombs were also dropped. Flying bombs, butterfly bombs and oil bombs, we had them all before the war ended.

We got into the shelter safely but as Mam was entering the doorway a huge chunk of iron struck her on the shoulder.

The morning after each of the concerted bombing raids will never be forgotten by anyone who lived through them. Utter devastation all around, the smell of the debris, rubble, shrapnel, people trapped and others frantically digging for them. Our house was still standing although obviously damaged. We picked our way through the mess to look upstairs. The beds were covered in glass and ceiling plaster.

'Look at that,' Dad said. 'You didn't want to get up to go in the shelter, but you would have been cut to pieces if you'd stayed there.'

Everyone swept up the rubble and left it in a pile outside the houses. The windows were covered with tough brown paper specially strengthened and with just a small square of cellophane in the centre. We children wandered around collecting shrapnel and gazing in awe at the twisted metal and piles of smoking rubble.

- Freda

The bombs were dropping and they all seemed to be aimed at our house. The walls shook, plaster fell off the ceiling. It was quite exciting and the next day after a raid, children searched the streets for shrapnel (pieces of metal from the dropped bombs). They were kept as souvenirs but mine are now lost with the passing of time. I wonder if there are any souvenirs of shrapnel still about?

Coming back from the shelters one night we walked into the house to find it had sustained a lot of damage. The living room was a shambles and the only thing left standing upright was a milk bottle in the middle of the table. Plaster from the ceiling was everywhere. We all went up the stairs to see what damage had been done to the bedrooms. We found our ceiling had fallen in and most of it was on our double bed. That night Mam and Dad and all us children slept together in our parents bed. It was a great adventure.

Sometime after leaving St Paul's Street I understood it had been bombed and St Paul's Church, the street and our house became a pile of rubble. I never went back to look but in recent years I learned that half of St Paul's Street was demolished by the bombing.

- Molly

In the war years there were 82 raids in which high explosive or incendiary bombs were dropped within Hull's boundaries. T Geraghty's book A North-east Coast Town includes the following figures, showing clearly the impact of the bombing raids on Hull:

For more background on the Hull bombings, visit the Hull Bombing Map page. Ada's Terrace, where my mum and aunt lived, is on map section 10, far right, near the top. You can see a snaking line of bombs across the area of St Paul's Street.

While Hull citizens at home endured the bombing, many others, as we know, were killed in action, including Walter Clayton, husband of my great aunt Annie.