‘WE HID UNDER TABLE AS BOMBS FELL’
Pensioner recalls the night suburb came under attack from German bombers
M
AY 31, 1941, started off as an ordinary night for one seven-year-old girl living on the outskirts of Newport with her mum and dad.
Tucked up and fast asleep in her bed, everything was as it should be, nothing was out of the ordinary.
But all of that changed in an instant, when bombs began raining down from the sky on that fateful night of 80 years ago.
“I was awoken by my mother who got me down to the kitchen and we hid under the table,” said Joan Dimmock, nee Wesson, who is now 87.
All these decades later Joan, who was only six when the war broke out, still remembers the night in 1941 when the Luftwaffe bombed her street in vivid detail.
“I remember it as if it was yesterday,” she said.
“If anything like that happens to you, it’s in your mind and that’s all you can think of.”
Living with her mother and father in Glasllwch Crescent in Rogerstone at the time, Joan described how the family’s life was turned upside down in a matter of minutes.
“The noise of bombing all around us was enormous,” said Joan.
“The blast was absolutely awful, you can’t even imagine the noise.”
Looking back at the event today, she realises how fortuitous an escape she and many others had.
“There were many lucky escapes from that particular raid, including a couple living in High Cross Lane,” she said.
“When the sirens went they remained in bed, but the blast destroyed their roof and windows and blew them out through the roof to land in the adjacent field. The only injury was to the husband who suffered a broken shoulder.”
Living several doors away from Joan at the time was her music teacher, Ruth Huxter.
The Huxter family had an air raid shelter – one of the only families who did.
“Nobody had air raid shelters, except my music teacher’s parents,” said Joan.
“They were just knocked out. The bomb fell right on their shelter.”
Both Ruth Huxter and her parents were killed that night.
Ruth’s brother only survived because he was serving in the forces at the time.
“After a little bit, the son came home,” said Joan.
“He was in the forces, I think he was in the Navy. And he came home, and there he was – no house and no family.”
Meanwhile, during the devastating raid itself, Joan and her mum had to hide under the family’s kitchen table.
“My father was trying to get back from the dining room but the blast of the bomb had distorted many of the door frames, jamming the doors,” said Joan.
“Eventually, he wrenched the door open and was relieved to find that we were OK.”
Like so many other children up and down the country who experienced the Blitz, the memories of the falling bombs have never left Joan.
One of the most vivid details in her memory is that t of the destruction that was left in the he e wake of the bombing raid.
“The roof, ceilings eil lings and windows were all destroyed oy yed and there was debris everywhere. he ere. My piano was completely covered ve ered in broken glass,” she said.
“All that was left were the bare bones of f the house.
There was no roof, there were no windows, wss, there was glass everywhere.” ee.”
“My piano was ass just covered in glass. My Myy daughter has that piano anno now and, in fact, you canc can still see the holes where heere the glass went in.”
The aftermath thh of the night, remembers mmbers
Joan, was chaotic. icc.
“There wwere were hordes of people lee coming down n and looking at t us,” she said.
“I only had my pyjamas because you couldn’t find any clothes, s, there was nothhing. It was all just usst rubbish and glass, la ass, and more rubbish bb bish and more glass.” ”
But Joan added e d that, being so young g when it happened, the e signifi