0:00:08 > 0:00:12Early in 1941, Hitler's bombers crossed the Channel.
0:00:12 > 0:00:16It was Wales' turn for the blitzkrieg, the lightning war.
0:00:22 > 0:00:2675 years ago, Britain came under the heaviest attack in its history.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32First, London endured 57 nights of intensive bombing.
0:00:35 > 0:00:39Then the terror spread, devastating 16 cities
0:00:39 > 0:00:43in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
0:00:48 > 0:00:53So we're going to do now, as it were, a sort of dummy bombing run.
0:00:53 > 0:00:54I'm John Humphrys
0:00:54 > 0:00:58and I'm taking to the skies above my home city of Cardiff
0:00:58 > 0:01:02to follow the flight paths of the Luftwaffe bombers.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05What we're looking at now was just wiped out.
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Their bomb went right through the shop,
0:01:10 > 0:01:13right through into the cellar, exploded.
0:01:13 > 0:01:15I'll also fly over Swansea,
0:01:15 > 0:01:18where the Three Nights' Blitz destroyed its centre
0:01:18 > 0:01:21and changed the landscape for ever.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25It was burning from Swansea Castle down to St Helens Road,
0:01:25 > 0:01:27and people were running for the beach,
0:01:27 > 0:01:29because if the worst came to the worst,
0:01:29 > 0:01:31they could get into the water, see?
0:01:31 > 0:01:33I'll see the reminders of the war,
0:01:33 > 0:01:36meet those who lived through the bombings
0:01:36 > 0:01:39and discover how they changed the face of our cities.
0:01:56 > 0:01:59I was born in Cardiff in 1943, a war baby.
0:02:01 > 0:02:04I came into a world ravaged by conflict
0:02:04 > 0:02:06and into a city shattered by bombs.
0:02:09 > 0:02:13The fighting and the fear would last for another two years.
0:02:25 > 0:02:29This is the house where I was born - 193 Pearl Street.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32The middle of five children.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35I THINK I remember the bombs dropping.
0:02:35 > 0:02:38Certainly, I learned about it later.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41And I know what happened to us when the bombs did fall.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44We were taken to the shop on the corner.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47It's a house now, but it was a shop then, a chemist's shop.
0:02:47 > 0:02:49Vivian Morgan's chemist's shop.
0:02:49 > 0:02:53And they had a cellar and that's where we took shelter.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58And I was told afterwards that they put me in a cardboard box...
0:02:58 > 0:02:59I was only a baby, after all.
0:02:59 > 0:03:04..and took me down to the cellar and there we were safe from the bombs.
0:03:13 > 0:03:15Those bombs fell everywhere.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17First, causing carnage in London.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19Then throughout Britain.
0:03:19 > 0:03:22Any city with strategic or economic importance
0:03:22 > 0:03:25was on the Luftwaffe's target list.
0:03:25 > 0:03:27And that meant Cardiff was near the top.
0:03:30 > 0:03:32This port was the reason.
0:03:32 > 0:03:33In the years before the war,
0:03:33 > 0:03:38more coal passed through here than almost anywhere else in the world.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43Welsh coal was central to the British economy,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46powering industry, railways, shipping.
0:03:48 > 0:03:51The docks were a vital part of the war effort.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56The Germans wanted to destroy them.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59They didn't succeed, but they got perilously close.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15On January 2nd 1941, around 100 of their planes
0:04:15 > 0:04:18took off from airfields in occupied France
0:04:18 > 0:04:21heading directly for South Wales.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30The pilots were well briefed. They had clear targets in mind.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34And the reason for that was simple - they'd done their research.
0:04:38 > 0:04:41- The tools of the trade, if you like.- Yeah.
0:04:41 > 0:04:43These are the documents they took with them.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46You've got the docks, you've got the steelworks.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49'Chris Going is an aerial archaeologist.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51'He has the reconnaissance photographs the Nazis took,
0:04:51 > 0:04:54'rather chillingly, even before the war started.'
0:04:54 > 0:04:59This is Cardiff, and they have very clearly delineated the targets
0:04:59 > 0:05:03that they were going, ultimately, to try to hit.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06It was a bureaucratic process, the creation of these things.
0:05:06 > 0:05:08The graphics are being printed up,
0:05:08 > 0:05:12they're going into a filing cabinet somewhere, in a buff envelope,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14stamped "GB".
0:05:14 > 0:05:18This one is labelled "4561".
0:05:18 > 0:05:22- Now, 45 is the code for dock targets. - Hence what we're seeing down here.
0:05:22 > 0:05:25Hence exactly what you're seeing down there.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28They are analysing and pulling apart very carefully
0:05:28 > 0:05:30the dock facilities and so on.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33Obviously, they've got the steelworks there.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36And I have a particular interest in those steelworks,
0:05:36 > 0:05:41because my father was ordered to work in them during the war,
0:05:41 > 0:05:44because he'd lost his sight as a young man and as a boy.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47And they made people like him work in the steelworks.
0:05:47 > 0:05:49- He was working in the works. - Which is what he did.
0:05:49 > 0:05:51He was working there. So, he was a target.
0:05:51 > 0:05:56- Your father worked in target GB 7032. - There we are.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00And could easily have been, one night, under the aiming point.
0:06:00 > 0:06:03- And I wouldn't have been here. - And you wouldn't have been there.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05- A sobering thought.- Very true.
0:06:05 > 0:06:10So, let's go to this picture, then, and if I'm right...
0:06:10 > 0:06:14And you'll certainly tell me if I'm wrong! My home...
0:06:14 > 0:06:17Can't quite see the house! But that's Pearl Street.
0:06:17 > 0:06:20That's Pearl Street, in Splott, which is...
0:06:20 > 0:06:25Not that far from lots of targets, which would explain, of course,
0:06:25 > 0:06:28why many bombs dropped within the neighbourhood.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30- We're talking about, what? - One kilometre.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34You're talking about three-quarters of a second of flying time, really.
0:06:34 > 0:06:36Mm. No wonder some of the bombs went astray.
0:06:36 > 0:06:38Indeed, a lot of them went astray.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41The Luftwaffe certainly had strong intelligence
0:06:41 > 0:06:43and lots of accurate information
0:06:43 > 0:06:46about the port and industrial targets.
0:06:50 > 0:06:54I want to see for myself how so many of the bombs could go astray,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56dropping on civilian homes.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02- OK, everyone secure and happy? - Secure and happy.
0:07:04 > 0:07:08Nearly 75 years after the German pilots flew over Cardiff,
0:07:08 > 0:07:12I'm following their flight path to see the city as they did.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39- It's fantastic visibility. - Isn't it just?- Wonderful.
0:07:44 > 0:07:49- That's the Millennium Stadium. This is Cardiff Castle grounds.- Yep.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52- I think it is, just there, by the river.- It has to be.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54There's the river.
0:07:54 > 0:07:59- So, we're going to do, now, as it were, a sort of...- We'll go...
0:07:59 > 0:08:01- ..a dummy bombing run.- Yep.
0:08:01 > 0:08:05This is almost certainly how you'd have done it.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08Looking at it now from this angle, Chris,
0:08:08 > 0:08:13we can see the whole of the port over to the east.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15It is so compressed, isn't it?
0:08:15 > 0:08:19And you have so little time to get rid of your bombs.
0:08:19 > 0:08:23- You have almost no time. - Almost no time at all.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27You've got Victorian streets just there, you know,
0:08:27 > 0:08:31and they've been completely cleared and replaced to the north of them.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33But they were very heavily populated.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35- They were very heavily populated.- Yeah.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39So, this was the very reason why Cardiff was bombed.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42All of the docks here.
0:08:42 > 0:08:46You've got Queen Alexandra Dock just down below us,
0:08:46 > 0:08:48which was a major aiming point.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53But cheek by jowl, all of the workers' houses nearby,
0:08:53 > 0:08:55which became targets, too.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58What amazes me is that it looks so easy
0:08:58 > 0:09:00when you're looking at a map, doesn't it?
0:09:00 > 0:09:01You can imagine them
0:09:01 > 0:09:04sitting in Luftwaffe headquarters, or whatever it was,
0:09:04 > 0:09:06"We'll bomb that bit there
0:09:06 > 0:09:08"and then we'll move on and bomb that bit there".
0:09:08 > 0:09:11- But it ain't like that, is it? - It ain't like that.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14And what is cynically called collateral damage,
0:09:14 > 0:09:20a lot of this sort of description, masks the reality of what this was,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24and it was high explosives on civilians.
0:09:30 > 0:09:31Well, I'm trying to imagine
0:09:31 > 0:09:34that I'm flying a German bomber at this stage,
0:09:34 > 0:09:37and we're flying now at about 160mph.
0:09:37 > 0:09:42The Germans would have been flying a bit more than that - about 200, 220.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44We're at about 2,000 feet.
0:09:44 > 0:09:46They were way above that - 4,000 or 5,000 feet.
0:09:46 > 0:09:48Maybe even more than that.
0:09:48 > 0:09:51It's a beautiful, sunny day.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54Then, for them, of course, it was pitch dark.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57And they have...
0:09:57 > 0:10:00In fact, we're just over the docks now.
0:10:00 > 0:10:04They'd have had literally seconds to get rid of those bombs. Seconds.
0:10:04 > 0:10:08And now, even as I speak, we're away from the docks,
0:10:08 > 0:10:13and we're into some fairly heavily populated areas.
0:10:13 > 0:10:15A lot of houses down there.
0:10:15 > 0:10:17They've got to get rid of their bombs.
0:10:17 > 0:10:22Demonstrates yet again the random nature of aerial war.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Where would they drop? Who knows?
0:10:30 > 0:10:33Like many people in South Wales, my parents may have thought
0:10:33 > 0:10:37they'd escaped the worst horrors of the Blitz.
0:10:37 > 0:10:42By December 1940, the Nazi bombardment was four months old
0:10:42 > 0:10:46and the number of raids over other cities had started to wane.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48At Christmas, they stopped altogether.
0:10:48 > 0:10:50It was, indeed, a time for peace.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56But then came the New Year, a new wave of attacks and renewed terror.
0:10:59 > 0:11:04Thursday, January 2nd in 1941 was cold and clear with a full moon.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08A so-called "bomber's moon", providing near-perfect visibility.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12Sirens wailed
0:11:12 > 0:11:17as the advance bombers appeared in the skies above the Bristol Channel.
0:11:17 > 0:11:20The first bombs fell at 6.37pm.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24More followed for ten hours.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33If you were in Cardiff on January 2nd 1941,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37you'd probably remember what happened that dreadful night.
0:11:37 > 0:11:39If you were here in Grangetown,
0:11:39 > 0:11:43on the corner of Corporation Road and Stockland Street,
0:11:43 > 0:11:47those events would surely be seared into your memory.
0:11:47 > 0:11:49AIR-RAID SIREN WAILS
0:11:49 > 0:11:53This dockland neighbourhood was the first to be hit.
0:11:53 > 0:11:56Then, as now, it was densely populated
0:11:56 > 0:11:59with family homes and small businesses.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02On this corner, there used to stand the local bakery, Hollymans.
0:12:02 > 0:12:07It was destroyed in the worst single atrocity of the Cardiff Blitz.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12I used to go in there and I used to give him a hand kneading the bread.
0:12:12 > 0:12:15John Williams is now 89, but in 1941,
0:12:15 > 0:12:19he worked at Hollymans as a delivery boy.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24On January 2nd, he called by the bakery on his way home.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27I'd been out on my round, I'd come back and they said,
0:12:27 > 0:12:30"Oh, come in and have some soup before you go home."
0:12:30 > 0:12:34So, I went down the cellar with them and I had my soup.
0:12:34 > 0:12:38But this night, Bill Holliman said,
0:12:38 > 0:12:43"There's a lot of air activity coming across today," he said.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45"I think you'd better go home,
0:12:45 > 0:12:49"because I think your mother and father might be worried."
0:12:49 > 0:12:52- You were 14 at the time? - I was 14. So, I went home.
0:12:52 > 0:12:55'Tragically, many others didn't.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59'When the siren sounded, they took shelter in the bakery cellar.
0:12:59 > 0:13:01'It took a direct hit.'
0:13:01 > 0:13:04I went to work the next day, didn't know anything had happened.
0:13:04 > 0:13:09I turned the corner and it was all flat.
0:13:09 > 0:13:14They were bringing out bodies wrapped up in sacks and things like that.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18But it was never ascertained how many people were down there.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22- But certainly more than 30. - Well, they say there was about 30.
0:13:22 > 0:13:26Bill Hollyman, the man who owned the bakery,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28he was down in the cellar with everybody else.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31Yeah, him and his wife and his daughter
0:13:31 > 0:13:34and one of his uncles and his sister.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38And all the rest were people that had got called down there.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Just neighbours who were looking for somewhere to shelter.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43- Yeah, that's right.- So, he was...
0:13:43 > 0:13:46He thought, obviously, he was doing people a favour
0:13:46 > 0:13:49- by giving them shelter, and they all got killed.- Yes. Yes.
0:13:49 > 0:13:51And what were you doing yourself
0:13:51 > 0:13:54when the bombs were falling that night?
0:13:54 > 0:13:56I was in an Anderson shelter
0:13:56 > 0:13:59with my mother and father and my sister and brother,
0:13:59 > 0:14:05in one of these Anderson shelters, in 6 Devon Street in Grangetown
0:14:05 > 0:14:07And you could hear the bombs falling?
0:14:07 > 0:14:10And we heard the bombs falling. And we had a little...
0:14:10 > 0:14:14- We had a gramophone in there, we used to play records.- Oh!
0:14:14 > 0:14:16God! Oh...
0:14:16 > 0:14:19- Were you not scared?- No.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Well, I mean, we went to work the next day.
0:14:22 > 0:14:23Carry on with life, don't you?
0:14:23 > 0:14:26- But they weren't so lucky here, were they?- No, they weren't.
0:14:26 > 0:14:28MUSIC: Come Rain Or Come Shine
0:14:37 > 0:14:40This photo shows the gap amongst rows of houses
0:14:40 > 0:14:42where the bakery once stood.
0:14:48 > 0:14:53What strikes you so powerfully about a story like John's
0:14:53 > 0:14:58is the sheer random nature of aerial warfare.
0:15:00 > 0:15:03If John had gone down into the shelter that night,
0:15:03 > 0:15:05as he very well might have done,
0:15:05 > 0:15:07he would have been one of those 30-odd people
0:15:07 > 0:15:11who were blown to bits by that bomb.
0:15:11 > 0:15:16Instead, he was in another shelter, in another place,
0:15:16 > 0:15:18listening to music...
0:15:20 > 0:15:23..and lived to tell us about it today.
0:15:44 > 0:15:51That first night of bombing claimed 165 lives and 430 casualties.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55It also created memories that can never be erased.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00Keith Flynn was a schoolboy at the time.
0:16:02 > 0:16:04Fear is a strange thing.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Although we were in very dire circumstances,
0:16:07 > 0:16:09could have been killed any moment,
0:16:09 > 0:16:13and although bombs passed quite close and felt quite close,
0:16:13 > 0:16:19I don't think we ever showed any outward sign of distress in any way.
0:16:19 > 0:16:24No... Certainly, no crying or screaming.
0:16:24 > 0:16:27Next morning, when the noise had stopped,
0:16:27 > 0:16:30it was a brilliant, lovely, crystal clear morning.
0:16:30 > 0:16:35Turned the corner into Glamorgan Street,
0:16:35 > 0:16:39not knowing that a bomb had fallen there.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41And this lady was standing to my right.
0:16:41 > 0:16:43As I say, she was standing there.
0:16:43 > 0:16:48I remember it was a navy blue overcoat, over her nightclothes.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52I do remember her rather long, dark hair.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55And I noticed that she was staring at that rubble.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00Just staring. Not crying. Not making a sound.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05Until she suddenly said, "My mother's under that lot."
0:17:10 > 0:17:14And then my aunt and I walked up to Llandaff Cathedral.
0:17:14 > 0:17:16Because we...
0:17:16 > 0:17:21Simply because we were told that it had been destroyed.
0:17:21 > 0:17:24It hadn't been destroyed, but an awful mess.
0:17:26 > 0:17:31Whether it was an accident or a deliberate attempt to damage morale,
0:17:31 > 0:17:34the Luftwaffe did hit this famous city landmark,
0:17:34 > 0:17:36Llandaff Cathedral.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41A bomber dropped a parachute mine overhead
0:17:41 > 0:17:44and it floated down silently by the spire.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49The parachute got caught on that spire,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52caused some damage to the spire, just because the sheer weight of it.
0:17:52 > 0:17:56But then it dropped, and that's where it fell.
0:17:56 > 0:17:58And you see that stone down there.
0:17:58 > 0:18:03That is the point at which the land mine hit the ground and exploded.
0:18:32 > 0:18:35Dr John Kenyon is the cathedral archivist.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38The most damaged part is the south aisle
0:18:38 > 0:18:41and the south side of the nave roof,
0:18:41 > 0:18:43because all this collapsed
0:18:43 > 0:18:47and all the debris came down on part of the cathedral stalls.
0:18:50 > 0:18:53Most of the windows were blown out, so the glass all went.
0:18:53 > 0:18:56And, obviously, some of the tombs and other items in the cathedral
0:18:56 > 0:19:00were damaged simply by the falling debris - stonework and timberwork.
0:19:00 > 0:19:04So, it wasn't just the force of the blast. It was...
0:19:04 > 0:19:07It was what then came down as a result of the blast.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10And so the photographs show this debris
0:19:10 > 0:19:12occupying the whole of this area here.
0:19:15 > 0:19:20- So, we're going up to the archives now, John?- Yes, take care.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23This is a very old staircase.
0:19:23 > 0:19:27- So, this is how you get to the office?- Indeed.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31'Up in the rafters, I'm about to see a fragment
0:19:31 > 0:19:34'of what caused so much destruction.'
0:19:34 > 0:19:39And here's the evidence for it, with part of the cord
0:19:39 > 0:19:42and the parachute itself, which remains in the archives.
0:19:42 > 0:19:46I'm sure most of it was taken away elsewhere for souvenirs.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49Yes, I imagine there are little bits in lots of houses.
0:19:49 > 0:19:52But they were into the cathedral fairly quickly,
0:19:52 > 0:19:55trying to remove as much as they could that was salvageable.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58And, of course, Dean Jones, here... Very Reverend David Jones.
0:19:58 > 0:20:00According to one of the local recollections,
0:20:00 > 0:20:02the Dean couldn't find a hard hat,
0:20:02 > 0:20:04so he borrowed his wife's colander and came down.
0:20:04 > 0:20:08- And according to... - No great dignity involved in it!
0:20:08 > 0:20:11And, of course, stained glass smashed everywhere
0:20:11 > 0:20:15and some fragments have been collected.
0:20:15 > 0:20:17We don't know where this came from.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20- You've got a nice squirrel's head there.- Oh, right, so it is.
0:20:20 > 0:20:21- I thought it was a rat.- Yes, yes.
0:20:21 > 0:20:24No, I think a squirrel rather than a rat!
0:20:24 > 0:20:27But here is the Garden of Remembrance,
0:20:27 > 0:20:28which you were looking at.
0:20:28 > 0:20:31- That's where the mine actually landed?- This is the crater here.
0:20:31 > 0:20:35- Yep.- And, of course, where the land mine landed, there were burials
0:20:35 > 0:20:39and there were bones scattered over Llandaff,
0:20:39 > 0:20:40so they had to be gathered up...
0:20:40 > 0:20:42Really? They were blown up into the air?
0:20:42 > 0:20:44Along with all the memorials, as well,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48and so that caused a lot of damage to the houses with falling gravestones.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51Within weeks, the cathedral was holding services again,
0:20:51 > 0:20:53in part of the building, at least.
0:20:53 > 0:20:57Today, of course, it's fully repaired, although one scar remains.
0:20:57 > 0:21:01The force of the explosion created a crater
0:21:01 > 0:21:03and you can see how big the crater is.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07It's surrounded by those rosebushes that were planted since then
0:21:07 > 0:21:09to mark out where it fell.
0:21:09 > 0:21:10Here's the thing, though.
0:21:10 > 0:21:16Had it fallen another 20, 30 yards in any direction,
0:21:16 > 0:21:22the damage to the cathedral would have been utterly devastating.
0:21:22 > 0:21:26You could say there but for the grace of God.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45Near misses, tragedies, tales of incredible courage.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49The blitz and subsequent bombing raids created them all.
0:21:49 > 0:21:52And many of those stories and visual records
0:21:52 > 0:21:55are preserved here at the Glamorgan Archives in Cardiff.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00It also stores copies of newspapers from down the decades,
0:22:00 > 0:22:01including my own.
0:22:05 > 0:22:10I left school when I was 15 and went to work for the Penarth Times,
0:22:10 > 0:22:15a little newspaper in a seaside town five or six miles outside Cardiff.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18Now, this in front of me, and I'm careful about touching it,
0:22:18 > 0:22:23because it is the original, was the copy of the Penarth Times
0:22:23 > 0:22:29that was published a few hours before the Cardiff Blitz began.
0:22:29 > 0:22:34So, we had been at war already for a couple of years.
0:22:34 > 0:22:38Almost no coverage of the war on the front page of the newspaper,
0:22:38 > 0:22:42except in the gossip column, the Have You Heard column.
0:22:42 > 0:22:46And there are some wonderful little snippets about the war.
0:22:46 > 0:22:51One of them, to be proven very soon tragically wrong, says this.
0:22:51 > 0:22:56"One of the blessings this Christmas was that there were no air raids."
0:22:56 > 0:22:59Within hours, of course, of people reading that,
0:22:59 > 0:23:01the blitz was to begin.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05There are even jokes in the newspaper
0:23:05 > 0:23:09and one that I particularly like is this.
0:23:09 > 0:23:13The landlord says to the tenant, "I'm putting your rent up."
0:23:13 > 0:23:15The tenant asks why.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17The landlord said,
0:23:17 > 0:23:22"Because after last night's raid, your house is now detached."
0:23:23 > 0:23:28Managing to find humour when a house has been blown away.
0:23:28 > 0:23:32But, they had to have something to keep them going, didn't they?
0:23:35 > 0:23:38This is St Agnes Road in the Heath,
0:23:38 > 0:23:42and we can see an entire section of the street just taken out here.
0:23:42 > 0:23:46'The archivist Rhian Phillips has a collection of records
0:23:46 > 0:23:50'which give a window into everyday life during that time.'
0:23:50 > 0:23:55Rhian, these pictures are interesting material from that time.
0:23:55 > 0:23:58- I like the air-raid wardens here. - Yes.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Because this gives us a nice idea
0:24:01 > 0:24:06of the mix of people who were volunteers, in some cases,
0:24:06 > 0:24:08in other cases dragooned to become...
0:24:08 > 0:24:10Just run me through that.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13It's interesting, because looking at the people who are in there,
0:24:13 > 0:24:14you realise all the young men
0:24:14 > 0:24:17would have been away serving with the forces.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19So, it's the older men who weren't in the Army
0:24:19 > 0:24:23- and the women who were involved with the ARP system.- Right.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27- So, quite a mixture and a social mix and all the rest of it.- Definitely.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30- And here they are, all ready to go.- Yes.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33Yes, with their gas masks on, ready for action, I think.
0:24:33 > 0:24:35- Looking terribly sinister.- Exactly.
0:24:35 > 0:24:38But how important it was that they had those.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40And now, the bomb damage.
0:24:40 > 0:24:45This one was my old employer, the Western Mail printing works.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48Yes, that was the printing works on Tudor Road and, of course,
0:24:48 > 0:24:50I mean, that would have been devastating for the Western Mail.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Trying to get their newspaper out to the public, to the presses.
0:24:54 > 0:24:58And finding their works then destroyed, really, in this way,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01would have had an impact on their business, certainly.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03- And our newspapers were very important.- They were.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06At that time especially so, because it was the main means
0:25:06 > 0:25:09of people getting the news and finding out what was happening.
0:25:09 > 0:25:11- Yes, no telly.- No, exactly. Yes. - Radio, of course.
0:25:11 > 0:25:13Yes, there was the wireless.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16- We mustn't forget the Home Service was very important.- Indeed.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19Now, this I find absolutely fascinating,
0:25:19 > 0:25:22and I know I mustn't pick it up and wave it around,
0:25:22 > 0:25:24because it might well fall apart.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26But tell me what it is.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29It's the log of a primary school, a particular primary school.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32Yes, it's the logbook for the Splott Road primary school.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35- Which is where I went!- It was, yes. - At the age of four, or nearly five.
0:25:35 > 0:25:39- Yes.- And so this was a diary that the head teacher kept.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42We see here an alert at 11.30. All clear, 12.
0:25:42 > 0:25:44Alert, 3.10. All clear, 3.30.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47This would have been hugely disruptive for the school day
0:25:47 > 0:25:50and we see, as well, a note here that attendance was very low.
0:25:50 > 0:25:52Only 87 of the children present
0:25:52 > 0:25:55owing to the raids the previous night.
0:25:55 > 0:25:57So, if the children had been up all night in the shelters
0:25:57 > 0:25:59with the bombing going on,
0:25:59 > 0:26:02they weren't coming to school the next day due to exhaustion.
0:26:02 > 0:26:03But it's as though they're saying...
0:26:03 > 0:26:05Because it's all terribly formal
0:26:05 > 0:26:08and records must be kept under all circumstances.
0:26:08 > 0:26:10- It's as if they're saying "Tut, tut, tut".- Exactly.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12"Children weren't coming to school".
0:26:12 > 0:26:15There is that sort of attitude coming in there a little.
0:26:15 > 0:26:16Extraordinary, isn't it?
0:26:16 > 0:26:18- You think, my God, they're lucky to be alive.- Yes.
0:26:18 > 0:26:22Here's something else that interests me - this map.
0:26:22 > 0:26:26A bombing map. This was a bit after the Blitz. This was in...?
0:26:26 > 0:26:29- This is 1943. May '43, this is.- Right.
0:26:29 > 0:26:33And it shows us what their target was,
0:26:33 > 0:26:35which, obviously, was the docks, as we've been hearing.
0:26:35 > 0:26:39- Yes.- That's what they were really after.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42- But this is the Splott area.- Yes.
0:26:42 > 0:26:45Where, of course, I lived.
0:26:45 > 0:26:49- And this is Pearl Street.- Yeah. - And there's a bomb...
0:26:49 > 0:26:53- It looks as if it is just... - Right at the end of the street.
0:26:53 > 0:26:56Right at the end of the street, which is where I lived.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00- That's quite chilling, actually, looking and seeing how close...- Yes.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02Even though I knew about the bombsites,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05looking at that map and seeing...
0:27:05 > 0:27:11If that bomb had been delayed by a fraction of a second...
0:27:11 > 0:27:13I wouldn't be here talking to you now.
0:27:13 > 0:27:16- Exactly. Yeah, it's scary.- Mm.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27The bombing permeated every part of life.
0:27:27 > 0:27:31Cardiff would endure sporadic bombing and many air-raid warnings,
0:27:31 > 0:27:33the horrors of each of these raids
0:27:33 > 0:27:36lasting long after the bombers had gone.
0:27:36 > 0:27:40For Keith Flynn, the dread of another Blitz was always there.
0:27:40 > 0:27:43Probably every night a siren would go, pretty well.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48When you'd had a good dose of it and you know what to expect,
0:27:48 > 0:27:50that was the worst part.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54At about six o'clock every evening...
0:27:54 > 0:27:58It was dark in those days. ..I'd go out into the back garden.
0:27:58 > 0:28:01And I had my favourite place where I'd stand and look,
0:28:01 > 0:28:04to look at the weather.
0:28:04 > 0:28:08Was there a moon? Or were clouds coming up?
0:28:08 > 0:28:10Or was there going to be rain?
0:28:10 > 0:28:14If there was a moon, there was going to be an air raid.
0:28:14 > 0:28:16Your life was governed by this sort of thing.
0:28:20 > 0:28:24The presence of war and the constant threat of attack was everywhere.
0:28:26 > 0:28:28Cardiff Castle.
0:28:28 > 0:28:30For centuries, millennia,
0:28:30 > 0:28:34a magnificent symbol of defence and defiance.
0:28:34 > 0:28:40But during those dark days of 1941, it became something else as well.
0:28:40 > 0:28:41A refuge.
0:28:46 > 0:28:49Existing spaces within the castle walls
0:28:49 > 0:28:51were turned into air-raid shelters.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Four large holes were made in the walls
0:28:54 > 0:28:57and ramps were built to allow quick access.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59When the siren sounded,
0:28:59 > 0:29:02hundreds of people who lived and worked in the city
0:29:02 > 0:29:04would rush here looking for safety.
0:29:04 > 0:29:06AIR-RAID SIREN WAILS
0:29:36 > 0:29:40This really is the grandaddy of all air-raid shelters.
0:29:40 > 0:29:43This tunnel...
0:29:43 > 0:29:44Just paced it out.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47..is about 200 yards, a bit more than 200 yards,
0:29:47 > 0:29:49from one end to the other.
0:29:49 > 0:29:54And you can see the benches where people sat.
0:29:54 > 0:29:56Not... Not desperately comfortable.
0:29:56 > 0:29:59I have to say, I wouldn't want to be sitting here for too long.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01You certainly have to sit upright.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05And...some comforts.
0:30:05 > 0:30:08There's a kitchen. So, if you needed a cup of tea...
0:30:12 > 0:30:15Various tins of this, that and the other.
0:30:18 > 0:30:21This plan from the time shows how the castle walls
0:30:21 > 0:30:23were divided into eight separate sections.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27If one took a direct hit, blast barriers made of brick
0:30:27 > 0:30:30would protect those in other parts of the castle walls.
0:30:45 > 0:30:50And they could fit as many as 1,800 people in here.
0:30:50 > 0:30:511,800 people.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56And if the air raid was a really long one
0:30:56 > 0:31:00and people needed them - bunk beds.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07They could spend a reasonably restful night,
0:31:07 > 0:31:10although whether you could get any rest at all
0:31:10 > 0:31:13when you're hearing the bombs drop
0:31:13 > 0:31:19and waiting for that precious sound of the all-clear, I rather doubt.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23EXPLOSIONS
0:31:24 > 0:31:27MUSIC: Stardust
0:31:42 > 0:31:47Thankfully, the castle shelters were never tested by a direct hit.
0:31:51 > 0:31:54Other shelters had been built across the city
0:31:54 > 0:31:57in cellars, gardens and streets.
0:31:57 > 0:32:00After 75 years, there are few people now
0:32:00 > 0:32:03who can tell us what it was like to spend nights in a shelter.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07And I went over into this shelter,
0:32:07 > 0:32:12where there were about half a dozen people sheltering,
0:32:12 > 0:32:14frightened...
0:32:14 > 0:32:18in the darkness, because there was no light in there.
0:32:18 > 0:32:22The great Welsh entertainer Wyn Calvin, 90 now,
0:32:22 > 0:32:25was an Army Cadet during the war.
0:32:25 > 0:32:32But I did recognise two of the people who were there,
0:32:32 > 0:32:38that I knew were very keen members of the church nearby.
0:32:39 > 0:32:45And I thought, "Oh, maybe I'm in good company here."
0:32:45 > 0:32:47Because by now,
0:32:47 > 0:32:52the screaming sound of a bomb falling,
0:32:52 > 0:32:56followed very swiftly by the explosion of the bomb,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58and with it all,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01the sound of anti-aircraft fire,
0:33:01 > 0:33:04made a cacophony of sound that was...
0:33:06 > 0:33:10..frightening and memorable.
0:33:11 > 0:33:16Although the sort of memory that one would prefer to forget.
0:33:16 > 0:33:18EXPLOSIONS
0:33:19 > 0:33:24I was thinking, "Perhaps we should pray. What do we do?"
0:33:24 > 0:33:27And the only prayer that I could think of was,
0:33:27 > 0:33:29"For what we are now about to receive,
0:33:29 > 0:33:32"May the Lord make us truly thankful."
0:33:34 > 0:33:35I didn't laugh about it then.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48As the Blitz continued and the number of targets increased,
0:33:48 > 0:33:51prayers were being said throughout the whole of Wales.
0:34:04 > 0:34:07The port of Pembroke in the west had already suffered badly.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11In August 1940, a direct hit on one oil tank
0:34:11 > 0:34:15sparked the biggest blaze in Britain since the Great Fire of London.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19EXPLOSIONS
0:34:20 > 0:34:26It burned for nearly three weeks, destroyed 33 million gallons of oil
0:34:26 > 0:34:28and threatened to engulf the town.
0:34:32 > 0:34:36It took more than 600 firefighters to put it out.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Five of them from Cardiff were killed.
0:34:41 > 0:34:43North Wales didn't escape, either.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46Bangor, Llandudno and Holyhead were all hit,
0:34:46 > 0:34:49primarily because they were on the Luftwaffe's flight path
0:34:49 > 0:34:51to the Liverpool docks.
0:34:52 > 0:34:57On 24th October 1941, three people in Bangor lost their lives
0:34:57 > 0:35:00as a result of parachute land mines.
0:35:00 > 0:35:03Ironically, many vital national services,
0:35:03 > 0:35:07including the Inland Revenue and the BBC light entertainment department,
0:35:07 > 0:35:11had relocated to this area to escape heavy bombing in London.
0:35:13 > 0:35:18Bangor became a hive of entertainment industry,
0:35:18 > 0:35:21and so many of these great names of variety,
0:35:21 > 0:35:26in those days, of entertainment, were there in Bangor.
0:35:26 > 0:35:28Some of it...
0:35:28 > 0:35:31Some of them stationed there for several years.
0:35:31 > 0:35:34'It's That Man Again.'
0:35:34 > 0:35:38Among the biggest names was Tommy Handley, who used the Bangor studio
0:35:38 > 0:35:41to record his hugely popular wireless programme
0:35:41 > 0:35:43It's That Man Again.
0:35:43 > 0:35:45'..his infantile indefatigability...'
0:35:45 > 0:35:50One evening, while that was being broadcast live,
0:35:50 > 0:35:53a plane that had been, they think,
0:35:53 > 0:35:58damaged by anti-aircraft fire over Liverpool
0:35:58 > 0:36:03was leaping back from whence it had come.
0:36:03 > 0:36:07And wanting to get rid of its...
0:36:07 > 0:36:10the bomb that it had left onboard,
0:36:10 > 0:36:12just let it go
0:36:12 > 0:36:14and it fell on Bangor.
0:36:14 > 0:36:18It was heard over the air,
0:36:18 > 0:36:22but nobody knew what the sound of this in the distance was.
0:36:22 > 0:36:28A bomb blast can just be heard in the background of this recording.
0:36:28 > 0:36:31'# It ain't what you do... #'
0:36:31 > 0:36:32FAINT EXPLOSION
0:36:32 > 0:36:34'# It's the way that you do it... #'
0:36:34 > 0:36:37But with true Blitz spirit, the show went on.
0:36:37 > 0:36:42That was the bombing of Bangor.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49North Wales was spared the worst.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52The bombing never reached the intensity of the Cardiff Blitz.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55Back in the capital, the people continued to call
0:36:55 > 0:36:58on their own reserves of courage and resilience.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00But they also relied on others.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03The war brought out a spirit of selflessness,
0:37:03 > 0:37:07typified by one young woman - Edith Shute.
0:37:07 > 0:37:09She was 23 when the Cardiff Blitz started.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12She had a driving licence and basic first-aid training,
0:37:12 > 0:37:15so she volunteered for the ambulance service.
0:37:15 > 0:37:17She is now 98.
0:37:17 > 0:37:22I drove the ambulance twice or three times, I think,
0:37:22 > 0:37:24before I went out on duty.
0:37:27 > 0:37:30- So, you just did it. - Oh, we just did it.
0:37:30 > 0:37:33I think a lot of other people did the same.
0:37:34 > 0:37:38- You did see some terrible things, didn't you?- Yes.
0:37:38 > 0:37:44On one occasion, we were called out to Violet Row in Whitchurch
0:37:44 > 0:37:49and we had to stand by while they dug people out.
0:37:49 > 0:37:53- Because the bomb had flattened their house?- Yes.
0:37:53 > 0:37:56And we were...
0:37:56 > 0:38:00They loaded up this patient and...
0:38:02 > 0:38:09..we were instructed to go to Whitchurch Hospital.
0:38:09 > 0:38:11So, we went into this hospital
0:38:11 > 0:38:17and the man came out and said, "Why have you brought this woman here?"
0:38:19 > 0:38:22And I cottoned on to what it was all about
0:38:22 > 0:38:25and said, "Who am I to say she was dead?"
0:38:25 > 0:38:28Because he thought you should have taken her straight to the morgue.
0:38:28 > 0:38:30He was a doctor.
0:38:30 > 0:38:34I said, "I'm not qualified to," you know,
0:38:34 > 0:38:39"to express a person's life or death."
0:38:39 > 0:38:41When there were a lot of raids,
0:38:41 > 0:38:44you were taking more people to the morgue...
0:38:44 > 0:38:49Oh, I went more to the morgue than hospital.
0:38:49 > 0:38:52Because it was mostly bodies that were being brought out?
0:38:52 > 0:38:54Yes, that's right.
0:38:54 > 0:38:59There was one occasion when a bomb had fallen near a bridge
0:38:59 > 0:39:03and quite a few people were very badly hurt.
0:39:03 > 0:39:05Do you remember that?
0:39:05 > 0:39:08A piece of the bridge came down,
0:39:08 > 0:39:13bringing three men with it who were trying to repair it.
0:39:13 > 0:39:19We were trying to tie one man's legs together
0:39:19 > 0:39:22to stop them moving around.
0:39:22 > 0:39:29And a lady doctor who lived in that area, she came along and said,
0:39:29 > 0:39:31"I wouldn't bother, if I were you, love.
0:39:31 > 0:39:34"You'll be lucky if he lasts very long.
0:39:34 > 0:39:37"Get him to hospital as quickly as you can."
0:39:37 > 0:39:43And one man's blood was running like a river in the gutter.
0:39:43 > 0:39:47And then we had to drive to St David's Hospital.
0:39:47 > 0:39:51And the one man breathed his last
0:39:51 > 0:39:55as we were entering the precincts of the hospital.
0:39:55 > 0:40:01- Because nothing had prepared you for this.- No. No.
0:40:01 > 0:40:03Nothing had prepared us for it.
0:40:03 > 0:40:05And no training, or proper training, or anything.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08- No, no. No proper training. - So you just had to...?
0:40:08 > 0:40:10You had to learn on the spot.
0:40:11 > 0:40:16You see, to people listening to you today, they would just say,
0:40:16 > 0:40:19"Well, that must have been terrifying, awful."
0:40:21 > 0:40:23Well...
0:40:23 > 0:40:26If you had somebody in trouble beside you,
0:40:26 > 0:40:29you have to do what you can to help.
0:40:31 > 0:40:35There were more than a dozen heavy bombing raids on Cardiff in total.
0:40:35 > 0:40:39By the end, countless buildings and many lives were in ruins.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45But the Luftwaffe wasn't finished with South Wales.
0:40:45 > 0:40:50They'd already selected another target 40 miles to the west.
0:40:50 > 0:40:52They'd launched a few attacks.
0:40:52 > 0:40:57Now, they were to return with unexpected ferocity
0:40:57 > 0:41:00and with devastating results.
0:41:01 > 0:41:03AIR-RAID SIREN WAILS
0:41:03 > 0:41:07Like Cardiff, prewar Swansea was a crucial port
0:41:07 > 0:41:10and a centre for military-based industries.
0:41:10 > 0:41:14So, it was inevitable the city would appear on the Nazis' hit list.
0:41:15 > 0:41:22This image, which is, I think, quite the most chilling graphic
0:41:22 > 0:41:25you can possibly look at of Swansea,
0:41:25 > 0:41:32shows just how dense the dock facilities were
0:41:32 > 0:41:36and how close by the housing was.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38And literally, if you were...
0:41:38 > 0:41:41If you press a button a second late, two seconds late,
0:41:41 > 0:41:45your bombs will, without any doubt, have gone into the town.
0:41:45 > 0:41:50And, indeed, the early attacks in February 1941
0:41:50 > 0:41:55effectively destroyed the... sort of the city centre.
0:41:55 > 0:41:56They missed the docks.
0:41:56 > 0:42:00- They really did miss the docks. - That is extraordinary, isn't it?
0:42:00 > 0:42:03And they flattened the city centre.
0:42:03 > 0:42:06What was not happening during these raids, of course,
0:42:06 > 0:42:11was great squadrons of massed bombers coming in.
0:42:11 > 0:42:13It was very different from that.
0:42:13 > 0:42:18But you believe, in a sense, even more frightening.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21If you are looking at two or three hours
0:42:21 > 0:42:24and 50 or 60 aircraft, maybe 100 aircraft,
0:42:24 > 0:42:29they're coming in at the rate of sort one every minute, minute and a half.
0:42:30 > 0:42:37You know, there you are, you can hear the engines rising, it's coming in.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39Then you would probably hear bombs.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43And then you'd think there's another one coming, and another one coming.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46- Psychological effect.- Another one coming, and another, and another.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50And that must have had a really perturbing effect.
0:42:50 > 0:42:52The psychological effect.
0:42:52 > 0:42:54- "Is the next one going to drop on me?"- Absolutely.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05Viewed from the air,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08you can see why this place was a sitting duck for the Luftwaffe.
0:43:09 > 0:43:13Even without any modern navigational aids,
0:43:13 > 0:43:15the Germans would have had absolutely no trouble
0:43:15 > 0:43:19finding Swansea even at night, because, of course,
0:43:19 > 0:43:24you just come up the Channel, you stick to the coast, and there it is.
0:43:24 > 0:43:27And you've got the hills behind to tell you where the port is,
0:43:27 > 0:43:30even if you can't see the actual dock buildings.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33So, an easy target to find.
0:43:33 > 0:43:37And, as we now know, tragically,
0:43:37 > 0:43:44a very easy target to cause massive, massive damage to.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46Swansea was so badly hit.
0:43:56 > 0:43:59All of the focus...
0:43:59 > 0:44:04is it just that area enclosed by that outer breakwater there.
0:44:04 > 0:44:09- Yeah, that's it. Yes, we can see it in one sweep.- Absolutely.
0:44:09 > 0:44:13That's the entire old centre, isn't it, which was completely flattened.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17Yes, exactly. What we're looking at now...
0:44:17 > 0:44:22In Feb '41, there were three attacks in so many days
0:44:22 > 0:44:24and they destroyed the city centre.
0:44:27 > 0:44:31- Shudder to think what those few days must have been like, eh?- Ohh.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33Horrifying.
0:44:36 > 0:44:41Just to give you an idea of the concentrated nature of the bombing,
0:44:41 > 0:44:4640 acres of Swansea town centre was flattened.
0:44:46 > 0:44:51That is the most concentrated bit of bombing of the war.
0:44:58 > 0:45:01Between 19th and 21st February,
0:45:01 > 0:45:06bombs fell for a total of 13 hours and 48 minutes.
0:45:06 > 0:45:08They set whole districts ablaze.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12This is the only known photograph
0:45:12 > 0:45:15taken during the three nights' blitz.
0:45:15 > 0:45:19The attacks killed 230 people and injured more than 400.
0:45:20 > 0:45:25857 properties were destroyed, 11,000 damaged,
0:45:25 > 0:45:28and 7,000 people were made homeless.
0:45:33 > 0:45:37Elaine Kidwell was the youngest warden in Britain. She was 17.
0:45:38 > 0:45:43What they said to me was, "18?" "I'm in my 18th year," I said.
0:45:43 > 0:45:44So, I didn't lie.
0:45:46 > 0:45:52So, let's just go back to the Swansea Blitz, and it was so bad.
0:45:52 > 0:45:53It was, yes.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55Just describe what it was like on those nights
0:45:55 > 0:45:58when they were bombing and bombing and bombing.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Well, we'd come running out and we'd be blowing our whistles and yelling.
0:46:02 > 0:46:03And the shelters were open.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07Stand and say, "Come on, come on, get in there."
0:46:07 > 0:46:10And they were machine-gunning the balloons down,
0:46:10 > 0:46:12because they were over the docks, you see.
0:46:12 > 0:46:15And I remember running along Quay Parade for my life,
0:46:15 > 0:46:18because the bullets were coming behind me, you know.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22And then I dived into a doorway and they went past, you know.
0:46:22 > 0:46:27Then I heard a whistle going, blowing frantically.
0:46:27 > 0:46:31I rushed down the steps and over to...
0:46:31 > 0:46:33where the whistling was coming from.
0:46:33 > 0:46:36And when I got there - it was in Quay Parade -
0:46:36 > 0:46:39there was a warden leaning over a body on the ground.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42So, I went up and he said, "This is for you."
0:46:42 > 0:46:44He said, "You'd know what to do." "Where is it?"
0:46:44 > 0:46:46He said, "I don't know. He's bleeding from somewhere."
0:46:46 > 0:46:51Anyway, it was black, you see, you couldn't tell. And I said...
0:46:51 > 0:46:53The man, he was unconscious, thank goodness.
0:46:53 > 0:46:56Anyway, I felt around and then where his leg was, there was nothing.
0:46:56 > 0:46:58"Oh, God, blood. The leg's gone."
0:46:58 > 0:47:03So, put a tourniquet on him now and put everything right.
0:47:03 > 0:47:08In any case, this ambulance came along, which was really a van.
0:47:08 > 0:47:12And he said to me, "All right?" I said, "Yes." I said, "I'm fine."
0:47:12 > 0:47:16"Right," he said. "Listen now," he said. "You saved his life.
0:47:16 > 0:47:20"All right, he hasn't got a leg, but he's going to live."
0:47:20 > 0:47:24Anyway, he came to see me some years later and he said,
0:47:24 > 0:47:27"How in hell did you get through the Blitz?
0:47:27 > 0:47:29"Cos you were always out in it."
0:47:29 > 0:47:31I said, "I rather would have been out than been in,"
0:47:31 > 0:47:33cos your imagination can... when you're in
0:47:33 > 0:47:36and you hear the banging and the banging.
0:47:36 > 0:47:39When you're out, you can see what's happening, you know.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43So, there we were. But the damage was so bad.
0:47:43 > 0:47:47I remember I went up the top of one street where...
0:47:47 > 0:47:52there were three men now of a bomb squad, taking a bomb apart.
0:47:52 > 0:47:56And I got up just before the explosion
0:47:56 > 0:47:59and, of course, it was terrible.
0:47:59 > 0:48:02The three had been blown to bits.
0:48:02 > 0:48:06There were bits of bodies everywhere, all blood...
0:48:06 > 0:48:12And that spot I can still go up and I avert my...like that.
0:48:12 > 0:48:15I know the exact spot where those three were killed, and I knew them.
0:48:18 > 0:48:21She was just a girl and she was seeing things
0:48:21 > 0:48:24most of us would hope never to have to see.
0:48:27 > 0:48:29There was one thing I haven't forgotten,
0:48:29 > 0:48:33but I'm coming to terms even though it's a long time ago.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35I was coming off duty
0:48:35 > 0:48:40and they were bringing the dead from where there was a lot of casualties.
0:48:40 > 0:48:45And in the back of this car, now I can see... The hood was down.
0:48:45 > 0:48:51And I could see two little babies in a white box like that.
0:48:51 > 0:48:53And one was lying...
0:48:53 > 0:48:58The little girl lying like this, and the little boy was a bit older,
0:48:58 > 0:49:01had his arm on her, but he was dead, too.
0:49:02 > 0:49:04And I still can't get over it.
0:49:04 > 0:49:08But I'm not grieving and I'm glad that they both went together.
0:49:08 > 0:49:10You know what I mean?
0:49:10 > 0:49:14But the waste of it, you know. It was so wicked.
0:49:14 > 0:49:17- Yeah. - And they were still bombing us.
0:49:17 > 0:49:21That night, I remember going up and seeing
0:49:21 > 0:49:25that from Swansea Castle down to...
0:49:25 > 0:49:27Oh.
0:49:27 > 0:49:31..the bottom of St Helens Road was burning.
0:49:31 > 0:49:33- And it burned... - The whole swathe of it?
0:49:33 > 0:49:35Yeah. And it burned from...
0:49:36 > 0:49:39..that side to that side, the same.
0:49:39 > 0:49:41Everything was in flames.
0:49:41 > 0:49:43And people were running for the beach.
0:49:43 > 0:49:45Because if the worst came to the worst,
0:49:45 > 0:49:47they could get into the water, see?
0:49:47 > 0:49:52- The heat must have been tremendous. - Terrible.- It sounds like a hell.
0:49:52 > 0:49:55It was hell. There was no other word for it.
0:50:09 > 0:50:12'Morning is breaking over Wales at war.'
0:50:12 > 0:50:14Dylan Thomas was a Swansea man.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17His writing showed how haunted he was
0:50:17 > 0:50:19by the destruction of his hometown.
0:50:19 > 0:50:23Thomas had been declared medically unfit for military service,
0:50:23 > 0:50:25so he spent much of the war writing scripts
0:50:25 > 0:50:29for the Ministry of Information propaganda films.
0:50:29 > 0:50:31'In the furnaces of Llanelli...'
0:50:31 > 0:50:32Those who studied his life
0:50:32 > 0:50:37believe he was actually in Swansea at the height of the attacks.
0:50:37 > 0:50:40There's testimony from a very close friend of his
0:50:40 > 0:50:41who saw Dylan and his wife, Caitlin,
0:50:41 > 0:50:43walking through the streets of bombed Swansea
0:50:43 > 0:50:46after the Blitz in that February.
0:50:46 > 0:50:47And Dylan turned to his friend
0:50:47 > 0:50:50and said, "Our Swansea has died."
0:50:50 > 0:50:54So, parts of the town that he knew and loved and was so familiar with,
0:50:54 > 0:50:58had written about in his short stories, were just flattened.
0:50:58 > 0:51:01In a sense, what one would love to see
0:51:01 > 0:51:04is his chronicling of the terrible events
0:51:04 > 0:51:07of early 1941 here in Swansea.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10- But he didn't do that, did he? He wrote later.- That's right.
0:51:10 > 0:51:16It took him six years to absorb those traumatic events of Swansea,
0:51:16 > 0:51:19the destruction of the Swansea he knew and loved.
0:51:19 > 0:51:25Return Journey was the great play that he wrote in 1947.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28Yes, that's right. This is the original script.
0:51:28 > 0:51:31- This is the actual broadcast script that he'd have read from.- Yes.
0:51:31 > 0:51:33He was very keen to get every detail right in this script,
0:51:33 > 0:51:36to the extent that he checked the order
0:51:36 > 0:51:38of all the shops that had been bombed,
0:51:38 > 0:51:40to make sure he had them in the correct order
0:51:40 > 0:51:42when he was writing about them in this piece.
0:51:42 > 0:51:46'WHSmith, Boots Cash Chemists, Leslie's Stores, Upson's Shoes,
0:51:46 > 0:51:49'Prince of Wales, Tucker's Fish, Stead And Simpson,
0:51:49 > 0:51:52'all the shops bombed and vanished.'
0:51:52 > 0:51:55But he even wrote to a former grammar school master of his
0:51:55 > 0:51:58to get the names of those former boys who had died in the war
0:51:58 > 0:52:00who were on the roll of honour
0:52:00 > 0:52:02so he could include their names in this broadcast.
0:52:02 > 0:52:03BELL TOLLS
0:52:03 > 0:52:05'Evans KJ.
0:52:05 > 0:52:07'Haynes GC.
0:52:07 > 0:52:09'Roberts IL.
0:52:09 > 0:52:11'Moxham J.
0:52:11 > 0:52:13'Thomas H. Baines W.'
0:52:13 > 0:52:17And it's not an attempt to put a gloss on what happened
0:52:17 > 0:52:18in any sense at all.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21It's not lyrical in that sense, is it?
0:52:21 > 0:52:24- In fact, it's brutally truthful. - Yes.- But there is...
0:52:24 > 0:52:28- Well, there's a beauty in it. - Yes, and it's an elegy.
0:52:28 > 0:52:30It's a very beautiful elegy, I think,
0:52:30 > 0:52:34to a lost Swansea, a lost childhood, which resonated with so many people.
0:52:55 > 0:52:59It's a very, very long time since Dylan Thomas wrote that play.
0:52:59 > 0:53:01He was in his thirties then.
0:53:01 > 0:53:05And, obviously, nothing that he describes is as it was then.
0:53:05 > 0:53:10This is the new Swansea. None of the old remains.
0:53:10 > 0:53:12But his words remain,
0:53:12 > 0:53:16and they are as colourful and evocative today
0:53:16 > 0:53:18as they were when he wrote them.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21Let's give you another flavour of it.
0:53:22 > 0:53:25"Boys romped, calling high and clear,
0:53:25 > 0:53:27"on top of a levelled chemist's and a shoe-shop,
0:53:27 > 0:53:29"and a little girl..."
0:53:29 > 0:53:30"..wearing a man's cap,
0:53:30 > 0:53:33"threw a snowball in a chill deserted garden
0:53:33 > 0:53:36"that had once been the Jug and Bottle of the Prince of Wales."
0:53:36 > 0:53:39"..for where the squat and tall shops
0:53:39 > 0:53:40"had shielded the town from the sea
0:53:40 > 0:53:45"lay their blitzed flat graves marbled with snow
0:53:45 > 0:53:47"and headstoned with fences."
0:53:47 > 0:53:52"David Evans, Gregory Confectioners, Bovega, Burton's, Lloyds Bank,
0:53:52 > 0:53:53"and nothing."
0:53:57 > 0:54:01One of the pubs reduced to dust and rubble was the King's Head.
0:54:01 > 0:54:04It had been home to Marion Garnett's family.
0:54:04 > 0:54:06She was just a baby at the time.
0:54:06 > 0:54:09On the third night of the blitz,
0:54:09 > 0:54:13my mother was standing opposite our pub
0:54:13 > 0:54:19and a man came down and said to her, "You'd better move from there,
0:54:19 > 0:54:24"because that pub will be up in flames."
0:54:24 > 0:54:28With the centre of Swansea burning, they had to flee for their lives.
0:54:28 > 0:54:32My mother told me that she walked over bodies
0:54:32 > 0:54:36and then we all went down to the air-raid shelter.
0:54:37 > 0:54:40The family survived, but the pub was gone.
0:54:40 > 0:54:43All they had left were the clothes they wore.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46My mother was in quite a bad emotional state
0:54:46 > 0:54:49because, of course, she had lost everything.
0:54:49 > 0:54:51But she had a glimmer of hope,
0:54:51 > 0:54:54knowing my father would be coming home
0:54:54 > 0:54:57and then, perhaps, life would start as normal again.
0:54:59 > 0:55:00But it never did.
0:55:00 > 0:55:03Marion's father had been serving in Africa.
0:55:03 > 0:55:05The year after the blitz,
0:55:05 > 0:55:08the family received the worst possible news.
0:55:08 > 0:55:13My mother and I had been to the Post Office to collect her Army pay.
0:55:13 > 0:55:18And we came back, and Nana - I can see it now in my mind's eye -
0:55:18 > 0:55:22was waving a telegram.
0:55:22 > 0:55:24And my mother took it.
0:55:24 > 0:55:31She opened it and she sat down on a big armchair near the fire...
0:55:33 > 0:55:36..and started to cry.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42And that scene is, really, my first memory,
0:55:42 > 0:55:46and it's something that will always be with me.
0:55:46 > 0:55:48The sadness was so intense.
0:55:48 > 0:55:53Not only my mother had lost her house and home.
0:55:53 > 0:55:56Now she'd lost her husband and my father.
0:56:01 > 0:56:05Her family devastated, a town destroyed.
0:56:05 > 0:56:07In Swansea, many lives were changed for ever.
0:56:11 > 0:56:15But what the bombs and the flames never killed
0:56:15 > 0:56:17was the spirit of the locals.
0:56:17 > 0:56:21It survived and the place itself was rebuilt.
0:56:21 > 0:56:23The centre is now full of tall buildings,
0:56:23 > 0:56:26unrecognisable from what it was before the war.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30Despite all the careful preparation and planning,
0:56:30 > 0:56:35Hitler's blitzkrieg, lightning war, failed to break Britain.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42I know now just how close his pilots came to dropping a bomb on my home.
0:56:42 > 0:56:46And yet it, like the people and the nation,
0:56:46 > 0:56:48stood firm against the onslaught.
0:56:54 > 0:56:56Back on the ground in Splott,
0:56:56 > 0:57:01the bombsites that were once my forbidden playgrounds are long gone.
0:57:01 > 0:57:05In their place, family homes for the next generation.
0:57:07 > 0:57:10Childhood produces a million false memories
0:57:10 > 0:57:13and, of course, I was a baby when the bombs were actually falling.
0:57:13 > 0:57:16So, it's been fascinating to talk to people who were older
0:57:16 > 0:57:18and who really do remember what it was like
0:57:18 > 0:57:20when the bombs were dropping.
0:57:20 > 0:57:24What I remember, and this is a real memory, is playing on the bombsites.
0:57:24 > 0:57:29They were all around here, the bombs dropped on these streets,
0:57:29 > 0:57:34and so there'd be that gap, and the house would be utterly destroyed.
0:57:34 > 0:57:37And now, well, the streets are back to normal,
0:57:37 > 0:57:41houses are painted a little more brightly than they were then.
0:57:41 > 0:57:43And things have changed.
0:57:43 > 0:57:45Everything has changed.
0:57:45 > 0:57:51Our memories, though, for those who really can remember, are vivid.