Skeletons discovered
Contact me at bobhind2014@icloud.com or on 02392 435936
Over the years I have written quite a bit about the Conway Street bombing on December 23, 1940.
It appears that it was a parachute mine but double loaded, thus causing so much devastation.
The area, to the right of Unicorn Road, remained a bomb site for 40 years.
I have recently been told that when the Portsmouth Naval Base was extended around 1980 and new large wooden gates were put in place some 200 yards south of the original, the Conway Street bomb site was also taken into the former dockyard and made into a lorry park.
My informant told me that when the foundations were being dug for buildings, several skeletons were discovered in what would have been the cellars of the former houses.
No doubt these were the remains of residents who had sheltered in the cellars and when the house collapsed on them all were thought to be dead.
When the top rubble was removed, everything was filled in without a thought that there might be bodies beneath.
I am wondering if these people were counted in the total number killed in the raid, and if any research was done to find who they might have been. Also, where were they buried?
There is a saying, a little information is a dangerous thing, but if there is any truth in what I have been told I would like to know more. Thank you.
* I wonder if any of you RAF history types can answer a question for me.
In Admiral Sir William James’s book, ‘The Portsmouth Letters’, he mentions a bottle being found in the sea of Brighton beach in 1940.
Inside was a message which read: “Long, 6 degs. 25’, Lat. 59 degs. 30”. Plane sinking fast. If I am not picked up within ten minutes, goodbye and good luck to old England. Flight Lieutenant Westford !”
I am reading the book for the fourth time and this paragraph always intrigues me. I’d be interested if anyone knows any more of the unfortunate pilot.
*Until I saw this photograph of the post office in Commercial Road, I had forgotten just how massive it was.
I understand that it was supposed to have been built as a hotel, just perfect for Portsmouth & Southsea station.
To the front was where the general public would do all their postal business. Around the corner, in Stanhope Road, was the sorting office and above are where the general offices were.
From here, all mail was received from the railway station across the road and all deliveries sent out.
I can remember, in my school holidays, working in the dispatch office in the Evening News just out of sight along Stanhope Road.
From here we sent the paper all over the world (I kid you not.) We used to roll the Evening News in an addressed wrapper and when a bin was full we would push it to the post office sorting office for onward delivery.
One country that always sticks in my mind was Tanganyika, now part of Tanzania.