The War Years in Bristol, 1938 - 1945

Reg Harris lived in Bristol during WW2, he wrote that:

During the war I lived in Hanham and, after the war, I wrote up what I could remember using the diary I kept. This came in handy when my sons were growing up and wanted to know "what did you do in the war daddy". It also came in handy when my eldest granddaughter was given a project to find out what the war was like in Bristol.

Reg Harris' Diary

Little changed at first. I went to school as usual and we had the odd drill for evacuating when a siren test took place. Then late in 1939 shelters began to be built, some were constructed as trenches and some on the surface as brick blocks with thick concrete roofs.

The shelter in the school grounds was a trench cut into the corner of the playing field nearest to the playground with brick walls and a concrete roof. The whole was then covered with the excavated soil.

Petrol rationing started in September when the price was 1/6d per gallon. National identity cards were issued. My number was ODWG 159/3 the 3 signifying that I was the third member of the family after my parents.

I think the first sign of war for me was the arrival of three Anti Aircraft guns in a field at the bottom of Greenbank Road. These were 3.7" mobile guns towed behind 3 ton army lorries. The crews set up tents in the field, deployed the guns and ammunition limbers, and were ready for action.

However, the field had a public footpath across it and the sighting lines were not suitable so the guns were moved to a site on common ground on Memorial Road. Soon Nissen huts were built and it became a regular camp.

Barrage balloons were stationed in open spaces in the city. There were two in St. Georges Park which were visible from my back garden. On a windy day they had a tendency to fly around each other and tangle the cables; they then had to be wound in and untangled.

Nothing much happened for a time, sirens were tested, barrage balloons became a familiar sight, factories were gearing up for war work. Anderson shelters began to be issued to the public and Grandma had one at the bottom of the garden in Martins Road. When the first raids occurred the family went to it but it was cold, damp and uncomfortable.

Hers and Aunt Betty's bed was moved downstairs to the front room as that was thought to be safer than sleeping upstairs and they no longer went to the shelter so were able to sleep through the nights. However, when the raids got worse they shared a shelter with the next door neighbours. This was brick built and had a portable heater and light.

1940

January - Butter, bacon and sugar rationing started. Later this was extended to meat, groceries and sweets. The ration for each person was 8 ounces of fat (including butter), 4 ounces of bacon, 8 ounces of sugar, 2 ounces of tea, 2 ounces of preserves (jam, marmalade etc.), 1 ounce of cheese, 1 egg, 2 ounces of sweets or chocolate, a shillings worth of meat.

Although rationing was in effect I cannot remember that we were short of much, dinners were heavy on vegetables and light on meat and there was no butter on a slice of bread and jam. We were not short of bread or flour and I am sure that my mother baked a cake of some sort each week.

The cheese ration was not very big and I think most of ours was baked with lots of onions to make it go further. The family meat ration was sufficient for a small joint at the weekend and cold slices or cottage pie the next day.

Whilst walking to school in the morning I would keep my eyes on the ground looking for anti aircraft shell splinters from the previous nights activity. I remember that I walked around for some time with my jacket pocket weighed down with scrap metal. A couple of boys had fuse caps and were the envy of everyone else.

I left school and went to work for a firm on Warmley Hill making springs. This was dull repetitious unskilled work but I was earning some money and making a contribution to the family finances.

The school I left was Kingswood Elementary Boys School. Headmaster, Hubert D. Hales. I had been there for three years and the subjects they had taught were: English (reading a text then writing lists of Nouns, Verbs etc. and determining the tense etc.), Arithmetic (division, multiplication, fractions etc.), Writing (reading text then writing a short essay on the subject etc.), Spelling, Geography (particularly of the British Empire), History (English), Music (Singing), Woodwork (using tools, cutting joints and gluing same, making book ends and a stool) and Chemistry (making clear water cloudy, the composition of the atmosphere etc.). There was an hour a week at the swimming baths, an hour cultivating the school vegetable garden, an hour of sport etc.

As the school name suggests these subjects were taught at an elementary level and, I suppose, I learned much of what I was taught. Each year we had a class exam and, if I remember correctly, the highest I ever came was second and the lowest was sixth.

I remember that about 10 years later I had a job which entailed working out percentages. I am sure that I was never taught the method at school because I needed to enrol at once in an evening class in Maths to learn how to do it. The evening class teacher was Jack Stapleton, my former Maths class teacher at school.

February - They started to evacuate children from the parts of Bristol most at risk. Most were sent to Devon and Cornwall.

Spring 1940 - My father took an allotment on ground in Greenbank Road. I cannot remember that we were short of vegetables during the war; I am certain that there were always plenty of potatoes! When the Ministry of Food promoted "Dig for Victory" Kingswood Council instituted a competition with the prize of a silver cup to the holder of the best allotment and my father was the winner for that year.

25th June 1940 - The first bomb on Bristol fell on Lwr. Maudlin St., Night raids had started in Bristol, enemy bombers were overhead and AA guns fired at them but no air raid warning was sounded. Houses were bombed in Brislington and people killed. The war had come to Bristol and the war, to me, was unreal no more.

8th Aug. Air raid during the night. Bombs dropped during the early hours of the morning.

4th Sept - There was another raid and I walked up to Mount Hill to get a view over the city. There were flashes over the skyline at Dundry. A couple of days later I learned that bombs were dropped between Dundry and Failand which damaged property.

At 11 on 13th - There were reports of Buckingham Palace being bombed. Raids by single bombers during the day were common. The enemy pilots were also machine gunning targets on the ground. By the latter end of year delayed action bombs were being dropped.

25th September 1940 - Daylight raid on Bristol Aeroplane works. I was at work when the sirens sounded and went outside to see what was about. A plane flew over Kingswood heading in the direction of Filton. I believe that three planes took part in the raid but I only saw one. There was no AA fire and after the plane passed nothing further seemed to happen. There were no fighter planes at Bristol to intercept.

I assume all available planes were guarding the south coast as the Battle of Britain was in full swing at that time. Two days later a fighter squadron was sent to Filton to give cover and Grandma remembers being at home one lunch time and seeing a Hurricane come out of the sun and shoot down a German plane.

There were complaints about the Anti Aircraft defences being insufficient to prevent bombers getting through and more were sent to the city. The AA defences were strengthened with more modern guns. I remember that two large 4.5" guns were put on Purdown and, after people heard them firing with their very distinctive sound, they became known to all by the collective name of "Purdown Percy". [The guns were fired together electrically]

18th November - Another raid in the early hours of the morning. 4.0am, bombs dropped on South Bristol and Lulsgate Bottom.

24th November 1940, Sunday - The sirens sounded in the early evening and at about 6.30pm I heard planes passing over with the distinctive thrum thrum of the engines of German aircraft. The planes that flew over Hanham sounded to be very low. This was to be the first "Big" raid which was later called "The Blitz". I walked up to my viewing point on Mount Hill.

There was heavy AA gunfire as planes arrived over the city. Shell fuse caps and fragments were falling with a whizzing sound, almost like the tearing of cloth, and a thud as they hit the ground. Planes dropped different coloured flares over the city. Waves of aircraft passed over every few minutes dropping their incendiaries.

A stream of them landed in a line from City Road to Kings Square. More also landed in Southmead.

Incendiaries were dropped over Kingswood and soon the glow of large fires lit the sky from that direction. I learned later that Holy Trinity church narrowly missed destruction as many incendiaries fell in the churchyard all around it but none hit the church.

German incendiaries were made of magnesium and comparatively light in weight. Consequently many that fell on roofs did not break through but burned on the tiles. They could still create enough heat to set fire to the rafters beneath so fire wardens had to get up to them knock them off.

It was not a good idea to apply water to them as the magnesium burned fiercer in contact with water. I was told that one brave soul who was not aware of this threw a bucket of water over a bomb burning on a tombstone and gave himself a fright! A bucket of sand was needed to smother them. British incendiaries had a base made of about two inches of steel which had enough weight to break through tiles and get well into the top floor of buildings.

Operating a spring making machine had been so boring that I had to get away. By now I was working at Edwards Boot Factory in Kingswood cutting parts for army boot uppers. This was more interesting as the patterns had to be fitted in to the irregular shape of the skins to get the maximum number of pieces from each. [this was known as a clicking machine] Unfortunately, only a few weeks after I had joined them the factory was set on fire by incendiaries in this raid and was completely destroyed.

I turned up for work the following morning to find the fire service finishing off damping down a completely gutted factory. Within a few hundred yards was the huge Aero Engines factory (which may have been the real target) which was undamaged. I learned later that an engineering works, a couple of chapels, the Kingswood offices and many houses had been hit. A very large bomb landed in Hanham Road which caused widespread damage.

Most of the incendiaries were falling in the centre of the city and very quickly a red glow started to develop; Castle St and Baldwin St. were ablaze; Wine St. and Park St. were being hit. It was a windy night and the wind helped spread the fires which developed into a fire storm. The docks were being hit very badly and huge fires were started.

Later planes seemed to be dropping heavier bombs. HE and incendiaries fell on Broadmead. Most of Castle St. and large parts of Wine St. were destroyed. Budgets great warehouse was destroyed by fire. Bombs fell on Brislington, Bedminster and Long Ashton. Incendiary bombs landed on top of the St. Philips gasholder but were knocked off by the fire watchers before the holder caught fire. About 2am there were fewer planes and the raid seemed to be over.

Uncle Tom and Aunt May, who had been visiting Hanham, were on their way home to Clevedon and had to go to a shelter in Old Market St. After a while, because of escaping gas, they had to move to another shelter. Soon after the first one was hit by a bomb. Eventually a taxi driver, who was sheltering with them and lived in St. George, gave them a lift back to Hanham where they arrived feeling very shaken.

Rumour had it that about 70 priority fires had been reported and not enough fire appliances were available to cover them all. Water supplies had also failed.

Decoy fire sites had been set up outside Bristol but were not lit so the bombing was concentrated on the fires in the centre of the city. Not all the AA shells being fired exploded in the air. Some came back to earth and did their share of damage. I remember one that landed in Highfield Avenue, Hanham and left a crater four feet deep and eight feet across. It was estimated that about 300 tons of bombs had been dropped. Official information was not available but the grapevine worked overtime and rumours spread very quickly.

As the destruction of the boot factory had left me without a job I found a job delivering bread which took me around the city so that I frequently saw the amount of damage the bombing had done and was doing.

My work was taking me to Shirehampton and Avonmouth at this time and I remember that there were lines of drums along streets and around the docks. These contained a mixture of tar and fish oil and were lit on the approach of enemy aircraft to create great volumes of smoke to hide the docks from sight. The smell was awful!!

There was no kind of social life in Hanham at this time. People went to work during the day and stayed at home during the evening. At night they either had fire watching duties, were street wardens, went to bed and stayed there come what may or went to a shelter if a warning sounded.

On Sundays many people went to church and we all prayed for "Peace in our Time".

Women were needed for war work to replace the men who had been called up to the forces and my mother took a job at the Aero Engines factory in Kingswood. She had never done factory work before but was trained to operate a lathe and was soon machining artillery shell cases. These were turned out by Aero Engines by the hundreds of thousands in a unit operating 24 hours a day and six days per week. On the Sunday shifts rotated so that everyone worked mornings, afternoons and nights in turn.

2nd December - Lots of planes overhead then flares were dropped over Clifton. Very heavy AA gunfire and lot of activity in the direction of Westbury and Avonmouth. Bristol docks were hit again with HE bombs. The guns eased off and then more planes came over. The city centre was hit again, then Stokes Croft was hit. Fires flared up in the area of Newfoundland St. Next day delayed action bombs were exploding causing further damage.

6th December. Friday - Another very heavy raid and flares were dropped over the Bristol Bridge area. Heavy gunfire opened up and searchlights sought out the bombers and finally lock on to a plane. The AA shells always seemed to be bursting below the height of the planes. There were no bombs falling for a while then a few incendiaries were dropped, followed by bombs around the docks, Temple Meads, Redcliffe, Bridge St. Baldwin St. the Fruit Market and Council House. Houses in St. Pauls were destroyed.

HE bombs dropped near General Hospital and most of the windows shattered, they had to carry on with no water, gas or electric.

Incendiaries now had an explosive charge near the fin end that scattered the burning bomb after it had been burning for a while and spread the fire. Firewatchers trying to put bombs out were being injured until they realised the risk and instructions were issued for new tactics to be used.

Kingswood was bombed and a very large bomb landed behind the Ambassador cinema were several hundred people had gone to watch a film. They had stayed inside when the sirens sounded and it was fortunate that they did, at the back of the cinema, across the car park, was an air raid shelter. This contained about 60 people who were sitting at the end furthest from the entrance and were shocked but survived; four young men were near the entrance and three were killed and one very badly injured. The cinema was devastated but it protected the shops opposite on the main road from the blast and these were not badly damaged. The raid lasted from about 6.30 and 11.30pm.

1941

3rd January 1941 - Flares drop over Easton and the city centre. Very eavy AA. A big bomb fell near Royal Infirmary; some of the rumours called the big ones land mines, they resulted in huge explosions. Incendiaries fell in Broad Weir and Quakers Friars. Big fires took hold in the docks. It was freezing hard and water from the fire hoses made sheets of ice wherever it landed. Redcliffe St. was blazing. Many bombs fell on Bedminster. A large number of incendiaries dropped on the General Hospital, the top floor was set alight and nurses and servants quarters were destroyed and four wards.

The raid started about 6.30pm and finished about 6.30am. This was the first time that a raid had gone on all night.

1942

Soap rationing was introduced, but that was no excuse for not washing properly!

2nd & 3rd April - AA gunfire after a lull in raids on Bristol. When the guns were fired on a moonlit night little white puffs would appear in the sky as the shells exploded. If there was no moon each shell produced a red spark.

25th April - Bath Blitz. The front of my house faced east towards Bath and on the night of the raid there were huge fires causing a red glow on the hill above Bath, behind Lansdown. Many bombs were falling there and the flash of each explosion lit up the sky and made the red of the fires brighter. The grapevine said next day that most of the bombing was on decoy fires that had been lit in open ground on the hill. Grandma remembers that the knocker on the front door at Martins Road rattled right through the night due to the bomb blasts although Bath was eight miles away. During that night planes also raided Bristol and bombs fell on Brislington and Avonmouth.

26th April - Bombers came back to Bath for another heavy raid and this time hit the city badly. There were many deaths.

1st August - Private cars were laid up as there was no more petrol for non essential use.

About this time I joined the Home Guard, officially I was not old enough to join but I was tall and well built for my age and no questions were asked. The Hanham platoon met in the old Baptist chapel for drills in the evening and a guard was kept there overnight in case of a callout. During weekends we did exercises in the district and, now and again, went to the firing range. We once had an afternoon learning to throw hand grenades. I took a course of First Aid instruction with the St. John Ambulance Brigade and I was certified a qualified first aider and wore the badge on my uniform sleeve.

We had a crude type of mortar consisting of a three inch diameter tube on a tripod. We practised with this on Hanham Common after digging several slit trenches in one corner. As we could not fire live rounds in a comparatively confined space we used bottles as the missile. These made an undulating hum as they flew through the air and I wonder now if, at some time in the future, archaeologists will puzzle over a large deposit of bottles at the far end of the Common.

During one weekend we had an exercise set, with other companies, to capture Whitchurch airfield, which we were deemed to have done successfully. I remember arriving home on the Sunday afternoon rather dishevelled. Another weekend we were told that an enemy force was approaching Hanham from the east and we were to defend Hanham. We were disposed in defensive positions to await the referees who would adjudicate. I was part of a machine gun team, with a very old water cooled Lewis gun (first world war variety) set at a road junction, in front of the building between the two roads. The referees concluded that we would have been killed in the first few moments as we were too exposed. This rather deflated us!

An outpost was established at Mount Hill by roofing over the lower storey of a ruined cottage with corrugated iron sheets where our platoon took it in turns to mount guard. Our duty was to look out for parachutists but we also had that panoramic over the city. When the bombs were falling we could see most districts where they landed.

As the bombs fell there was a long whistle followed by a great explosion as they landed. There was a constant crump crump as the AA guns fired and the beams of searchlights criss-crossed in the sky.

As the night drew to a close the false dawn would cast a grey glow in the sky to the east and the birdsong would start. Looking to the west there were, all too often, fires still burning in the city.

The powers that be decided that Home Guard units could be used to man Anti Aircraft guns at night to relieve the soldiers who were on constant alert. Our company was allocated to the AA site in Memorial Rd. Hanham and we began training in the evening to man the guns.

In order that the guns should all be firing at the same point in the sky they were aligned by pointing them at Dundry Church tower and looking through the barrel of each gun to the top of the tower. When this was in the centre of the circle of the barrel of each gun they were all calibrated.

When we arrived enemy aircraft were found at night by echo location but, very soon after, a platoon of Royal Engineers was drafted in and erected a huge area of stakes and wire alongside the guns and this was the early radio location ariel.

After training we took over the manning of three guns at night. When a warning was received we scrambled from our hut to the guns. Sometimes we fired a box pattern, in conjunction with other sites around Bristol, which was supposed to stop aircraft venturing over the city. At other times we shot at specific targets.

The guns were loaded manually and each shell, weighing about 76 lbs., had to be pushed upwards into the breach which was above shoulder level. After an hour or two of action you were glad to stand down. Early next morning we would go home to change and have breakfast then off to work for the day.

At this time I was working, with a mate, a bakery round that covered villages to the south east of Bristol as far down as Clevedon. We would leave the bakery in Whitehall about 6am and head straight to the swing bridge over Cumberland Basin. On the far side of the bridge was a workmen’s cafe which served hot crusty cobs filled with a rasher of bacon with a cup of strong tea this was the high spot of the day. We would get back to the bakery about 6 to 6.30pm when they were already preparing the dough for the next days bread.

1943

During the Summer of 1943 we went to a training camp near Portishead where we learned to fire 3" rocket anti aircraft batteries. Each of these had six rockets on guide rails and were meant to fire a close box pattern around important targets in the hope of preventing enemy aircraft getting overhead. We also practised firing Lewis guns at a windsock towed behind a plane in case the enemy took to low level attacks.

By now I had a little spare money from my earnings and I bought a radio. This was the first radio my family had and we were able to keep up with the news broadcasts and listen to the wartime comedy shows of which there were a number. I assume that they were intended to lift some of the gloom of everyday life.

1944

I changed my job again, going to work for the Great Western Railway at their St. Philips Marsh engine sheds. I was first employed cleaning the locomotives and then became a fireman, first on shunting locos, later on local passenger trains and then on main line goods trains. This meant shift working and going to work at very odd times, depending of the particular train I was roistered to work.

I bought myself a bicycle to get to work and this was the first I had. In what spare time I had I was now able to get further afield and went to places around South Glos. and North Somerset I had never been to before.

The Home Guard was stood down and on 6th July all of those who had served in the anti aircraft Home Guard received a memento of appreciation for their service from Major General F. A. Pile, General Officer Commanding, Anti Aircraft Command.

In the early Autumn of 1944, I was sent to the Slough depot to work trains between Reading and London and on other local routes. This was at a time when the Germans were sending over V bombs. The V1's engine made a very distinctive sound as they approached and when the engine stopped you kept your wits about you as they were shortly to fall out of the sky. Later, when they started using the V2 nothing was heard before the explosion so these could not be guarded against.

These activities disrupted train services and it was not uncommon to spend most of a shift in a siding outside London waiting for clearance to proceed. Sometimes you were still stuck in a siding and it was not possible to get a relief crew to you, the longest continuous shift I worked in these conditions was just over 18 hours.

Shortly before the war in Europe ended I was returned to the St. Philips Marsh depot and got back to a more natural way of living.

Written by Mr. Reg Harris.

Sources and Resources

Header Image: Blitz damage around Bristol Bridge. Image from English City: The Story of Bristol by J. S. Fry & Sons, January 1945

Derek Driscoll's original pages

Mr. Reg Harris
Mr. Reg Harris

Other Resources

Bristol Archives: The Bristol Blitz: Sources for Research
Civvy Street in WWII (Internet Archive) - Tom Fletcher's account of living in Bristol during WWII
Daily Mail: The Blitz in Colour - Includes colourized film of the aftermath of a raid
Fishponds Local History Society: Blitz War Memorial - A register of those who lost their lives due to enemy action in Bristol and surrounding districts, 1940-1944
Luftwaffe Over Bristol 1940/44 - by John Penny
Night Blitz: November 1940 to June 1941 - The night raids on Bristol