32 Family Secrets Bootle and Litherland - Part 4: 29 September 2024
Cliff joined the RAF on 27 September 1940 and was
immediately sent to RAF Padgate for basic training. Padgate is now a suburb of Warrington in
Cheshire. Padgate is 19.5 miles (or 31.5
kilometres) east of Liverpool and Warrington
is located on the boundary line between the County of Cheshire and the County
of Lancashire.
Dad was granted a few days of leave and permitted to go home
for Christmas 1940. Cliff hitched a ride
on an RAF plane to Speke Airport (now called John Lennon Airport) and got the
train from Speke Airport into the centre of Liverpool. From Liverpool centre, Cliff got another train
running on the Liverpool Overhead Railway and got off the Overhead Railway train at the southern end of Seaforth Road, opposite the Caradoc Hotel. My guess is that he may have got off the
train at the then Sandhills Station.
After leaving the train, Cliff began walking up Seaforth
Road towards his home at Date Street, Seaforth.
Cliff had reached the intersection of Seaforth Road and Muspratt Road
when an air raid warning sounded. Dad
took shelter in an air raid shelter near the Seaforth Road/ Muspratt Road
intersection. Muspratt Road actually has
two separate intersections with Seaforth Road because it is shaped like a right
angled triangle with Seaforth Road acting as the hypotenuse of the triangle
formed by its two separate intersections with Muspratt Road.
Cliff’s stay in the air raid shelter was uneventful and he
resumed walking home when the all clear sounded.
Near the top of Seaforth Road, Cliff walked down Rossini
Street in the direction of Church Road.
Church Road is called Church Road because at the top of the street, near
the intersection of Rossini Street and Church Road is the local Catholic Church
– Our Lady Star of the Sea.
Somewhere near the intersection of Rossini Street and Church Road,
another air raid warning sounded and once again Cliff sought shelter in a
nearby air raid shelter. Once again, Cliff’s
stay in the air raid shelter was uneventful and he walked home safely to Date
Street once the all clear was again sounded.
Next day, Cliff learned that BOTH of the air raid shelters
in which he had endured the German bombing raids that night had later been hit by
German bombs and if he had stayed, he would be dead just like all the other people
who had taken shelter that night.
Cliff suffered from Survivor’s Guilt for the remainder of
his life because he had NOT died like everyone else in those two shelters. This was one of the many incidents which kept replaying in his mind as the years rolled by. He never forgot those who died that night. How could he?
Cliff told me about the air raids and the destruction of the air raid shelters, but he never gave me any details. in 2019, Uncle Eric drove me to Seaforth Road and identified the places where those seeking shelter from the bombs had died that night. Here are some photos I took in 2019 of the intersection of Muspratt Road and Seaforth Road where one of the shelters was located.
It was not easy to take photos of the location where the
second air raid shelter was destroyed.
Uncle Eric was adamant that this photo accurately shows the location of
the second air raid shelter which was destroyed that dreadful night. The church in the background of the photo is
Our Lady Star of the Sea.
Wiki says this about the Liverpool Blitz.
|
Liverpool
was the most heavily bombed area of the country outside London, due to the
city having, along with Birkenhead, the largest port on the west coast
and being of significant importance to the British war effort. Descriptions
of damage were kept vague to hide information from the Germans, and
downplayed in the newspapers for propaganda purposes; any Liverpudlians thus felt that their
suffering was overlooked compared to other places. Around 4,000 people
were killed in the Merseyside area during the Blitz. This death toll was
second only to London, which suffered over 40,000 by the end of the war. Liverpool,
Bootle and the Wallasey Pool complex were strategically very
important locations during the Second World War. The Port of Liverpool had
for many years been the United Kingdom's main link with North America,
and proved to be a key part in the British participation in the Battle
of the Atlantic. As well as providing anchorage for naval ships from many
nations, the port's quays and dockers handled over 90 per cent of all the war
material brought into Britain from abroad with some 75 million tons passing
through its 11 miles (18 km) of quays. Liverpool was the eastern end of
a Transatlantic chain of supplies from North America. Other industries were
also heavily concentrated in Liverpool and across the Mersey in Birkenhead. Christmas Blitz A series of
heavy raids took place in December 1940, referred to as the Christmas Blitz,
when 365 people were killed between 20–22 December. The raids saw
several instances of direct hits on air raid shelters; on 20 December, 42
people died when a shelter was hit, while another 40 died when a bomb struck
railway arches on Bentinck Street, where local people were sheltering. On
21 December, another hit on a shelter which killed 74 people. |
I presume that somewhere there are records which narrate the dry facts of that night – facts such as the names of the dead and the names of the injured. Surely, they deserve to be remembered. I know for certain that Cliff never forgot their names or their faces.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteCliff was a much greater man than any of us ever realised while he was still alive. He died in 1984 and I still miss him almost as much as I miss Margaret.
ReplyDeleteSame for me John. He was gone before I'd turned 21 and never got to spend any time with him as an adult. None of my friends went to his funeral, and none of the lacrosse players I played with 3 days later would wear a black armband with me. I still miss him dearly mate.
DeleteLove
Pete