It was late afternoon on the 22nd December 1940 and fiveteen year old Susan Jones was doing some Xmas shopping on Butler Street in Ancoats
Goering’s Luftwaffe had up to now paid little attention to Manchester and Salford, although the first raids had come earlier that summer, but on those clear moonlit nights before Xmas, they began to make up for lost time targeting the city as a major centre of industry during the war
Manchester was attacked by German bombers on the night of 22-23 December 1940 and again the following night, 23-24 December. On the first night of raids, 272 tons of high explosive bombs were dropped. The following night another 195 tons of high explosives hit the city. Almost 2,000 incendiaries were also dropped on the city across the two nights with 600 fires were started by incendiary bombs.
The city’s infrastructure was badly affected by the air raids in December 1940. Both of the city’s main railway stations were hit, as was the bus station. Two of the main roads in the city, Deansgate and Oxford Road, were blocked by debris from damaged buildings, bomb craters and unexploded bombs. A whole section of the city centre had to be cordoned off. Water supplies were affected and electricity was rationed.
Susan working in the Marlborough Cotton Mill in Failsworth, now the site of a Morrison’s supermarket and was doing some Xmas shopping around three in the afternoon and remembers the shrapnel raining down, whether it was from the bombs or from the anti aircraft fire, she was not sure, but the raid signalled the end of the shopping trip.
She was not frightened, she tells me, actually it was exciting. “nothing phases you at that age, it was my parents that did the worrying.” Susan recalls the sky ablaze with red over Manchester.
Another raid she remembers being told that the streets were ablaze and went out with a friend who was at home on leave from the navy, to look for her mother and six month old brother.She walked from Thorp Road in Newton Heath, all the way down Oldham Road into Manchester.The path was covered in broken glass, every window was shattered.
Her mother was safe, a passing police van had spotted her and driven her out of the danger zone.
She remembers seeing the devastation in Manchester, the sky was on fire, building were collapsing everywhere, Portland Street was in ruins, firemen and police officers were around and people were coming out of the shelters in Piccadilly Gardens.
It was a respite, for an hour later, the air raid sirens sounded again.”What have they done to our city.”she thought.”Why were the Germans picking on Manchester.”
Susan went onto work at the Ivy Mill in Failsworth not long after the raid. It was being run by the aircraft builders Avro, twelve hours a day, fixing rivits onto the Lancaster Bomber.
Susan is still very proud of her war work, but at ninety two she still has great memories of those years.She would even teach Ewan MCGregor to rivit as he practised for the documentary Bomber Boys.
