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"Too young, but you don't realise you were getting bombed at the time, and the noise was deafening, hard to describe, terrible wasn't it, like steel girders dropping and banging together."
"My mammy started smoking then, her nerves were that bad. She had a couple of cigarettes off somebody. I canny remember if the sirens went off again. We went upstairs, but I know we were banged off quick enough, and back on the tram to Ayr."
Socceroo wrote:Socceroo wrote:Rescue workers preparing to rescue young woman trapped in tenement in Glasgow for six days following Air Raid. Glasgow 1941.
Following a wee bit of detective work searching through the newspaper archives i found the following sad story of the young woman rescued as per the above photograph that i posted earlier in this thread.
The true horrors of air raids.......
From the 20th March 1941 :
WOMAN EXTRICATED AFTER FIVE DAYS BUT DIES IN HOSPITAL
Trapped for more than five days under the debris of a three-storey tenement building which was struck by a bomb during the first of the two raids on Clydeside last week, a young woman, Mrs. McGeehan, was brought out alive from the wreckage yesterday. She was seriously injured and despite heroic efforts to save her life, died some time later after admission to hospital.
The rescue of the woman was due largely to the heroism of a local doctor, who crawled into a narrow tunnel dug through the mass of debris, and gave her injections. Police and Civil Defence workers toiled ceaselessly at the shattered remains of the building in order to extricate her, paid unstinting tribute to the gallantry of the doctor. One man said he had done a “marvellous job”.
Early yesterday, when faint moaning sounds were heard, work on the hauling away of the debris was suspended and a search was made. It was confirmed that Mrs. McGeehan was alive. A mobile medical unit was summoned and squads of men on the spot were organised to dig a tunnel to the trapped woman. In the thin light of torches the wreckage was shored up with props improvised from fallen timber beams and a narrow tunnel was cut through the piled up debris.
The doctor, nurses and an ambulance stood by as the work proceeded. Soon a hand was uncovered by the tunnellers. It was warm. The doctor crawled into the tunnel which was about 20 feet long, found that the woman was conscious and gave her an injection. Across her was a heavy beam, which had protected her from the weight of the masonry piled above. The doctor lying on his side in the tunnel kept giving her injections as the rescue squad slowly cleared away the debris. It took them close on five hours to finish the dangerous task.
When sufficient space had been cleared, Mrs. McGeehan was slowly drawn from the tunnel and into the street. She was taken to a nearby building, wrapped in warm blankets and rushed to hospital. On arrival there she was immediately given a blood transfusion, but she died some time later.
Mrs. McGeehan, it is understood, lived in another block of flats. When the raid started, she left with other members of the family, and went to shelter with relatives in the building in which she was eventually trapped. It was struck by a heavy bomb. It is feared that other members of the family also perished. Her own home, though it suffered from blast, is still standing.
Workers were still searching the debris yesterday for other victims.
We’d all been out playing over in Castle Square and we came back and it was time for to go in. We always used to sit at the close and Tommy Rocks – one of the Family Rocks that was killed – I still see Tommy yet, sitting beside me to this day. And I remember looking up at the sky. We were talking “Do you think the Germans will be over tonight?” Tommy looked up. He said, “If the Jerries come across tonight,” he says, “They cannae fail!” He says, “Look at that moon.” By this time, the moon was starting to get up. And I remember that – I’ll never forget that.
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