The blitz on Coventry

When war broke out,I had been helping out on a farm near my home, but I felt I ought to do some proper work for the war effort.I applied to join the Land Army, and was accepted but I was told such lurid tales of Land Army life, that on the morning I was to go for my training, I cancelled my appointment. I felt unsettled so I got a job in a factory. It was an electrical factory, and I had the job of testing the controls of the Spitfire fighter planes. This job lasted for some time. Our air raid shelters were in a field across from the factory. We had to stay in the factory when the sirens sounded and were only allowed to go to the shelters when the klaxons went when the enemy planes were quite near. I was living in Coventry on the night of the blitz in the city. It was a terrible night. Next morning the roads were impossible. Tram lines were ripped out, pointing upwards towards the sky. Some of us walked to work, but of course we could not do anything. When this work ended, I worked at another factory, etching and engraving numbers on Rolls Royce engines. I received a certificate from Sir William Rootes thanking me for my war work. When things eased up, I left and went back to land work looking after poultry chiefly, until I got married in 1946, after my husband to became back from the Middle East. He was one of the original desert rats, fighting under General Motgomery, whose jeep was made in our factory- I engraved the numbers on it.

Mrs G.E. Hogg

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