0:00:02 > 0:00:06AIR RAID SIRENS
0:00:06 > 0:00:09This was Hitler's blitzkrieg, his "lightning war".
0:00:12 > 0:00:15London endured 57 nights of bombing.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21But then the Blitz spread,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24devastating 16 cities in England, Scotland,
0:00:24 > 0:00:26Wales and Northern Ireland.
0:00:31 > 0:00:36So we're going to do now, as it were, a sort of dummy bombing run.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38I'm John Humphrys
0:00:38 > 0:00:41and I'm taking to the skies above my home city of Cardiff
0:00:41 > 0:00:45to follow the flight paths of the Luftwaffe bombers.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48What we're looking at now was just wiped out.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53We had a direct hit and the bomb went right through the shop,
0:00:53 > 0:00:56right through into the cellar and exploded.
0:00:57 > 0:01:00I'll also fly over Swansea, where the "three nights Blitz"
0:01:00 > 0:01:04destroyed its centre and changed the landscape for ever.
0:01:04 > 0:01:06I'll see the reminders of the war,
0:01:06 > 0:01:08meet those who lived through the bombings
0:01:08 > 0:01:11and discover how they changed the face of our cities.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31I was born in 1943, a war baby.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36I came into a world ravaged by conflict
0:01:36 > 0:01:39and into a city shattered by bombs.
0:01:41 > 0:01:45The fighting and the fear would last for another two years.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55This is the house where I was born,
0:01:55 > 0:01:57193 Pearl Street,
0:01:57 > 0:01:59the middle of five children.
0:01:59 > 0:02:03I THINK I remember the bombs dropping.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06Certainly, I learned about it later.
0:02:06 > 0:02:08And I know what happened to us when the bombs did fall.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12We were taken to the shop on the corner.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14It's a house now, but it was a shop then, a chemist's shop.
0:02:14 > 0:02:16Vivian Morgan's chemist shop.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20And they had a cellar and that's where we took shelter.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24And I was told afterwards that they put me in a cardboard box -
0:02:24 > 0:02:27I was only a baby, after all -
0:02:27 > 0:02:31and took me down to the cellar and there we were safe from the bombs.
0:02:40 > 0:02:42Those bombs fell everywhere,
0:02:42 > 0:02:44first causing carnage in London,
0:02:44 > 0:02:46then throughout Britain.
0:02:46 > 0:02:49Any city with strategic or economic importance
0:02:49 > 0:02:52was on the Luftwaffe's target list.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55And that meant Cardiff was near the top.
0:02:57 > 0:02:59This port was the reason.
0:02:59 > 0:03:01In the years before the war,
0:03:01 > 0:03:06more coal passed through here than almost anywhere else in the world.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10The docks were a vital part of the British economy.
0:03:10 > 0:03:12The Germans wanted to destroy them.
0:03:12 > 0:03:14They didn't succeed.
0:03:14 > 0:03:16But they got perilously close.
0:03:18 > 0:03:20On January 2nd, 1941,
0:03:20 > 0:03:25around 100 of their planes took off from airfields in occupied France
0:03:25 > 0:03:27heading directly for south Wales.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32The pilots were highly focused, with clear targets in mind.
0:03:32 > 0:03:36And the reason for that was simple - they'd done their research.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42These are the tools of the trade, if you like.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44These are the documents they took with them.
0:03:44 > 0:03:48You've got the docks, you've got the steelworks...
0:03:48 > 0:03:50Chris Going is an aerial archaeologist.
0:03:50 > 0:03:52He has the reconnaissance photographs
0:03:52 > 0:03:56the Nazis rather chillingly took even before the war started.
0:03:56 > 0:04:00This is Cardiff and they have very clearly delineated the targets
0:04:00 > 0:04:05that they were going, ultimately, to try to hit.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09Erm, this one is labelled 45-61.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12Now, 45 is the code for dock targets.
0:04:12 > 0:04:20And Cardiff, for the Germans and for the German intelligence,
0:04:20 > 0:04:21was the ports.
0:04:21 > 0:04:23Hence, what we're seeing down here?
0:04:23 > 0:04:25Exactly what you're seeing down there.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28They are analysing and pulling apart very carefully
0:04:28 > 0:04:31the dock facilities and so on.
0:04:31 > 0:04:33Obviously, they've got the steelworks there.
0:04:33 > 0:04:36And I have a particular interest in those steelworks
0:04:36 > 0:04:40because my father was ordered to work in them during the war,
0:04:40 > 0:04:44because he'd lost his sight as a young man, as a boy.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47And they made people like him work in the steelworks.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49Which is what he did. He was working there.
0:04:49 > 0:04:51So he was a target.
0:04:51 > 0:04:55Your father worked in target GB 7032.
0:04:55 > 0:04:57- There we are.- Hm...
0:04:57 > 0:05:00And could easily have been one night under the aiming point.
0:05:00 > 0:05:02- And I wouldn't have been here. - And you wouldn't have been there.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05- A sobering thought.- Very chilling.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07So, let's go to this picture, then.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10And if I'm right...
0:05:10 > 0:05:13and you can certainly tell me if I'm wrong,
0:05:13 > 0:05:17my home, can't quite see the house, but that's Pearl Street.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19That's Pearl Street.
0:05:19 > 0:05:23Which is not that far from lots of targets,
0:05:23 > 0:05:25which would explain, of course,
0:05:25 > 0:05:28why many bombs dropped within the neighbourhood.
0:05:28 > 0:05:30- We're talking about, what? - One kilometre.
0:05:30 > 0:05:33You're talking about three-quarters of a second of flying time, really.
0:05:33 > 0:05:34Mm...
0:05:34 > 0:05:36No wonder some of the bombs went astray.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38Indeed, a lot of them went astray.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42The Luftwaffe clearly had strong intelligence
0:05:42 > 0:05:43and lots of accurate information
0:05:43 > 0:05:46about the port and industrial targets.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54So why did so many of their bombs drop on civilian homes?
0:05:55 > 0:05:58I'm taking to the air to find out.
0:05:58 > 0:06:00OK, everyone secure and happy?
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Secure and happy, yep.
0:06:04 > 0:06:08I'm following their flight path to see the city as they saw it.
0:06:32 > 0:06:33It's fantastic visibility.
0:06:33 > 0:06:35- Isn't it just?- Wonderful.
0:06:40 > 0:06:42So that's the Millennium Stadium.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44And this is Cardiff Castle grounds.
0:06:44 > 0:06:46Yep. I think it is there, just by the river.
0:06:46 > 0:06:48It has to be.
0:06:48 > 0:06:49There's the river.
0:06:49 > 0:06:51So we're...
0:06:51 > 0:06:54We're going to do now, as it were,
0:06:54 > 0:06:56- a sort of dummy bombing run.- Yep.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Because this is almost certainly how you'd have done it.
0:07:01 > 0:07:03Looking at it now from this angle, Chris,
0:07:03 > 0:07:08we can see the whole of the port over to the east.
0:07:08 > 0:07:11It is so compressed, isn't it?
0:07:11 > 0:07:15And you have so little time to get rid of your bombs.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18- You have almost no time at all. - Almost no time at all.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22You've got Victorian streets just there, which are, you know...
0:07:22 > 0:07:26And they've been completely cleared and replaced to the north of them.
0:07:26 > 0:07:28Yeah, but they were very heavily populated.
0:07:28 > 0:07:30- They were very heavily populated. - Yep.
0:07:30 > 0:07:34Erm, so this was the very reason why Cardiff was bombed,
0:07:34 > 0:07:36all of the docks here.
0:07:38 > 0:07:41You've got Queen Alexandra Dock just down below us,
0:07:41 > 0:07:43which was a major aiming point.
0:07:43 > 0:07:49But cheek by jowl, all of the workers' houses nearby,
0:07:49 > 0:07:51which became targets, too.
0:07:51 > 0:07:53What amazes me is that it looks so easy
0:07:53 > 0:07:55when you're looking at a map, doesn't it?
0:07:55 > 0:07:58You can imagine them sitting in Luftwaffe headquarters,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01or whatever it was and, "Ah, yeah, we'll bomb that bit there
0:08:01 > 0:08:03"and then we'll move on to bomb that bit there."
0:08:03 > 0:08:06- But it ain't like that, is it? - It ain't like that.
0:08:06 > 0:08:09And what is cynically called collateral damage,
0:08:09 > 0:08:15a lot of the sort of descriptions mask the reality of what this was.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19And it was high explosives on civilians.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Well, I'm trying to imagine
0:08:27 > 0:08:30that I'm flying a German bomber at this stage.
0:08:30 > 0:08:32And we're flying now at about 160mph.
0:08:32 > 0:08:35The Germans would have been flying a bit more than that,
0:08:35 > 0:08:36about 200, 220.
0:08:36 > 0:08:39We're at about 2,000 feet.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41They were way above that, 4,000 or 5,000 feet,
0:08:41 > 0:08:43maybe even more than that.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45It's a beautiful sunny day.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49But then, for them, of course, it was pitch dark.
0:08:49 > 0:08:51And they had...
0:08:52 > 0:08:55In fact, we're just over the docks now.
0:08:55 > 0:08:58They would have had literally seconds to get rid of those bombs.
0:08:58 > 0:09:00Seconds.
0:09:00 > 0:09:03And now, even as I speak, we're away from the docks.
0:09:03 > 0:09:07And we're into some fairly heavily populated areas.
0:09:09 > 0:09:10A lot of houses down there.
0:09:10 > 0:09:12And they've got to get rid of their bombs.
0:09:12 > 0:09:17Demonstrates, yet again, the random nature of aerial war.
0:09:18 > 0:09:20Where would they drop? Who knows...?
0:09:25 > 0:09:27Like many people in south Wales,
0:09:27 > 0:09:29my parents may have thought
0:09:29 > 0:09:31they'd escaped the worst horrors of the Blitz.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36By December 1940, the Nazi bombardment was four months old
0:09:36 > 0:09:39and the number of raids over other cities had started to wane.
0:09:41 > 0:09:43At Christmas, they stopped altogether.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45It was indeed a time for peace.
0:09:46 > 0:09:51But then came the New Year, a new wave of attacks and renewed terror.
0:09:54 > 0:09:59Thursday, January 2nd, 1941 was cold and clear with a full moon,
0:09:59 > 0:10:00a so-called bomber's moon,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03providing near-perfect visibility.
0:10:06 > 0:10:10Sirens wailed as the advance bombers appeared in the skies
0:10:10 > 0:10:13above the Bristol Channel.
0:10:13 > 0:10:16The first bombs fell at 6.37pm.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19And more followed, for ten hours.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29If you were in Cardiff on January 2nd, 1941,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32you'd probably remember what happened that dreadful night.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34If you were here in Grangetown,
0:10:34 > 0:10:38on the corner of Corporation Road and Stockland Street,
0:10:38 > 0:10:42those events would surely be seared into your memory.
0:10:45 > 0:10:49This dockland neighbourhood was the first to be hit.
0:10:49 > 0:10:52Then, as now, it was densely populated with family homes
0:10:52 > 0:10:54and small businesses.
0:10:54 > 0:10:57On this corner, a local shop, Hollyman's Bakery,
0:10:57 > 0:11:00became the setting for the worst single incident
0:11:00 > 0:11:02of the Cardiff Blitz.
0:11:03 > 0:11:08I used to go in there and I used to give him a hand kneading the bread.
0:11:08 > 0:11:09John Williams is 89 now.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14In 1941, he was a teenage delivery boy, working with a horse and cart.
0:11:15 > 0:11:19On January 2nd, he called by Hollyman's on his way home.
0:11:19 > 0:11:23I'd been out on my round, I'd come back and they said,
0:11:23 > 0:11:25"Oh, come in and have some soup before you go home."
0:11:25 > 0:11:29So I went down the cellar with them and I had my soup.
0:11:29 > 0:11:33But this night, Bill Hollyman said,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37"There's a lot of air activity coming across today."
0:11:37 > 0:11:40He said, "I think you'd better go home,
0:11:40 > 0:11:44"because I think your mother and father might be worried."
0:11:44 > 0:11:46You were 14 at the time?
0:11:46 > 0:11:47I was 14. So I went home.
0:11:47 > 0:11:50Tragically, many didn't.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53When the sirens sounded, they took shelter in the bakery cellar.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56It took a direct hit.
0:11:56 > 0:11:59I went to work the next day, didn't know anything had happened.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01I turned the corner
0:12:01 > 0:12:04and it was all flat.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08They were bringing out bodies wrapped up in sacks
0:12:08 > 0:12:10and things like that.
0:12:10 > 0:12:13But it was never ascertained how many people were down there.
0:12:13 > 0:12:15But probably more than 30? Certainly more than 30?
0:12:15 > 0:12:17Well, they said there was about 30.
0:12:17 > 0:12:21Bill Hollyman, the man who owned the bakery,
0:12:21 > 0:12:24he was down in the cellar with everybody else.
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Him and his wife and his daughter
0:12:26 > 0:12:29and one of his uncles and his sister.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33And all the rest were people who got called down there.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36Just neighbours, who were looking for somewhere to shelter?
0:12:36 > 0:12:37That's right, yes.
0:12:37 > 0:12:41So he thought, obviously, he was doing people a favour
0:12:41 > 0:12:44by giving them shelter and they all got killed.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45Oh, yes. Yes.
0:12:45 > 0:12:47And what were you doing yourself
0:12:47 > 0:12:49when the bombs were falling that night?
0:12:49 > 0:12:52I was in an Anderson shelter with my mother and father
0:12:52 > 0:12:54and my sister and brother.
0:12:55 > 0:12:59In one of these Anderson shelters in 6 Devon Street.
0:13:00 > 0:13:02And you could hear the bombs falling?
0:13:02 > 0:13:04And we heard the bombs falling.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06And we had a little, erm...
0:13:06 > 0:13:07we had a gramophone in there.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09We used to play records.
0:13:09 > 0:13:12Oh, why do I come to think of it?
0:13:12 > 0:13:13Were you not scared?
0:13:13 > 0:13:15No.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17Well, I mean, we went to work the next day.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19Carry on with life, didn't you?
0:13:19 > 0:13:22- But they weren't so lucky here, were they?- No, they wasn't.
0:13:22 > 0:13:28# I'm going to love you like nobody loved you
0:13:28 > 0:13:32# Come rain or come shine... #
0:13:32 > 0:13:36This photo shows the gap at the end of the row of houses
0:13:36 > 0:13:37where the bakery once stood.
0:13:39 > 0:13:43What strikes you so powerfully
0:13:43 > 0:13:45about a story like John's
0:13:45 > 0:13:50is the sheer random nature of aerial warfare.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55If John had gone down into the shelter that night,
0:13:55 > 0:13:57as he very well might have done,
0:13:57 > 0:14:00he would have been one of those 30-odd people
0:14:00 > 0:14:03who were blown to bits by that bomb.
0:14:03 > 0:14:07Instead, he was in another shelter,
0:14:07 > 0:14:09in another place,
0:14:09 > 0:14:10listening to music...
0:14:12 > 0:14:15..and lived to tell us about it today.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27The bombing of Cardiff marked the start of a new phase in the Blitz.
0:14:27 > 0:14:32Before January 1941, the Germans had targeted only English cities,
0:14:32 > 0:14:36but now nowhere in the British Isles was safe.
0:14:43 > 0:14:46For two nights in March, Clydebank near Glasgow -
0:14:46 > 0:14:48home to munitions factories and shipyards -
0:14:48 > 0:14:50came under intense attack.
0:14:51 > 0:14:56More than 1,200 people were killed and as many injured.
0:14:56 > 0:14:58The destruction was so great,
0:14:58 > 0:15:02only seven properties in the town were left undamaged.
0:15:02 > 0:15:07As a result, its population went from 60,000 to just 2,000.
0:15:10 > 0:15:12The Irish Republic, which stayed neutral during the war,
0:15:12 > 0:15:14was also hit.
0:15:15 > 0:15:19'Houses at Rathdown Park, Dublin fall victims to Hitler's bombs.
0:15:19 > 0:15:21'Seven people were trapped when the Nazi raiders
0:15:21 > 0:15:24'deliberately unloaded their bombs on these houses in Eire.'
0:15:24 > 0:15:26Then, over Easter,
0:15:26 > 0:15:31its northern neighbour felt the full force of the Luftwaffe.
0:15:31 > 0:15:32In Belfast, in April,
0:15:32 > 0:15:36900 people were killed in one single night of bombing.
0:15:39 > 0:15:41Meanwhile, back in my home city,
0:15:41 > 0:15:44the bombing continued sporadically for weeks.
0:15:44 > 0:15:46After more than a dozen raids,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49countless buildings and many lives were in ruins.
0:15:51 > 0:15:56But the Luftwaffe wasn't finished with south Wales.
0:15:56 > 0:16:00They'd already selected another target 40 miles to the west.
0:16:00 > 0:16:03They'd launched a few attacks.
0:16:03 > 0:16:08Now they were to return with unexpected ferocity,
0:16:08 > 0:16:10and with devastating results.
0:16:12 > 0:16:14AIR RAID SIRENS
0:16:14 > 0:16:17Like Cardiff, prewar Swansea was a crucial port,
0:16:17 > 0:16:20and a centre for military-based industries.
0:16:20 > 0:16:25So it was inevitable the city would appear on the Nazi hit list.
0:16:26 > 0:16:29This image, which is, I think,
0:16:29 > 0:16:32quite the most chilling graphic
0:16:32 > 0:16:36you can possibly look at of Swansea,
0:16:36 > 0:16:42shows just how dense the dock facilities were,
0:16:42 > 0:16:46and how close-by the housing was.
0:16:47 > 0:16:49And, literally, if you press the button
0:16:49 > 0:16:52a second late, two seconds late, your bombs will...
0:16:52 > 0:16:55- Yeah.- ..without any doubt,
0:16:55 > 0:16:56have gone into the town.
0:16:56 > 0:17:00And, indeed, the early attacks in February 1941,
0:17:00 > 0:17:05effectively destroyed the city centre.
0:17:05 > 0:17:06Mm.
0:17:06 > 0:17:07They missed the docks.
0:17:07 > 0:17:09They really did miss the docks.
0:17:09 > 0:17:11That is extraordinary, isn't it?
0:17:11 > 0:17:14And they flattened the city centre.
0:17:20 > 0:17:22Viewed from the air, you can see why this place
0:17:22 > 0:17:25was a sitting duck for the Luftwaffe bombers.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30Even without any modern navigational aids,
0:17:30 > 0:17:34the Germans would've had absolutely no trouble finding Swansea,
0:17:34 > 0:17:35even at night,
0:17:35 > 0:17:39because, of course, you just come up the Channel,
0:17:39 > 0:17:42you stick to the coast, and there it is.
0:17:42 > 0:17:44You've got the hills behind to tell you where the port is,
0:17:44 > 0:17:47even if you can't see the actual dock buildings.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50So...an easy target to find.
0:17:50 > 0:17:52And, as we now know,
0:17:52 > 0:17:56tragically, a very easy target
0:17:56 > 0:18:01to cause massive, massive damage to.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04Swansea was so badly hit.
0:18:04 > 0:18:06All of the focus...
0:18:07 > 0:18:13..is just that area enclosed by that outer breakwater there.
0:18:13 > 0:18:14Yeah, that's it.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16We can see it in one sweep, really, can't we?
0:18:16 > 0:18:17Absolutely.
0:18:17 > 0:18:19That's the entire old centre, isn't it?
0:18:19 > 0:18:21Which was completely flattened.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26Yes, exactly, what we're looking at now.
0:18:26 > 0:18:30In Feb, '41, there were three attacks in so many days,
0:18:30 > 0:18:32and they destroyed the city centre.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39I shudder to think what those few days must've been like, eh?
0:18:39 > 0:18:41Oh. Horrifying.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46Just to give you an idea
0:18:46 > 0:18:50of the concentrated nature of the bombing,
0:18:50 > 0:18:5440 acres of Swansea town centre was flattened.
0:18:54 > 0:18:58That is the most concentrated bit of bombing
0:18:58 > 0:19:00of the war.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Between 19th and 21st February,
0:19:07 > 0:19:11bombs fell for a total of 13 hours and 48 minutes.
0:19:11 > 0:19:14They set whole districts ablaze.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23This is the only known photograph taken during the three-night Blitz.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27The attacks killed 230 people
0:19:27 > 0:19:29and injured more than 400.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34857 properties were destroyed, 11,000 damaged,
0:19:34 > 0:19:37and 7,000 people were made homeless.
0:19:41 > 0:19:44Elaine Kidwell was an air-raid warden
0:19:44 > 0:19:46who lived through every moment.
0:19:46 > 0:19:51We'd come running out and we'd be blowing our whistles and yelling.
0:19:51 > 0:19:53The shelters were open, but we'd stand and say,
0:19:53 > 0:19:55"Come on, come on," you know. "Get in there."
0:19:55 > 0:19:57And, er, they were machine gunning
0:19:57 > 0:19:59the balloons down,
0:19:59 > 0:20:00because they were over the docks, you see.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03And I remember running along Quay Parade for my life,
0:20:03 > 0:20:05because the bullets were coming behind me, you know?
0:20:05 > 0:20:08And then I dived into a doorway
0:20:08 > 0:20:10and they went past! You know?
0:20:10 > 0:20:12Then I heard a whistle going,
0:20:12 > 0:20:15blowing frantically.
0:20:15 > 0:20:16I rushed down the steps
0:20:16 > 0:20:21and over to, erm...where the whistling was coming from
0:20:21 > 0:20:23and when I got there - this is in Quay Parade -
0:20:23 > 0:20:27there was a warden leaning over a body on the ground.
0:20:27 > 0:20:30So I went up and he said, "This is for you."
0:20:30 > 0:20:31He said, "You know what to do."
0:20:31 > 0:20:34"Where is it?" He said, "I don't know. He's bleeding from somewhere."
0:20:34 > 0:20:37Anyway, it was black, you see? You couldn't tell.
0:20:37 > 0:20:39And I said...
0:20:39 > 0:20:41The man, he was unconscious, thank goodness.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44Anyway, I felt around, and where his leg was, there was nothing.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46"What is...? Oh, God, blood. The leg's gone."
0:20:46 > 0:20:49So I put a tourniquet on him now,
0:20:49 > 0:20:54and put everything right and, any case, this ambulance came along,
0:20:54 > 0:20:56which was really a van,
0:20:56 > 0:20:58and he said to me, "All right?"
0:20:58 > 0:21:00I said, "Yes." I said, "I'm fine."
0:21:00 > 0:21:03"Right," he said. "Now, listen, now," he said.
0:21:03 > 0:21:04"You've saved his life.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08"All right, he hasn't got a leg, but he's going to live."
0:21:08 > 0:21:12Anyway, he came to see me some years later.
0:21:12 > 0:21:15And he said, "How in hell did you get through the Blitz
0:21:15 > 0:21:17"because you were always out in it?"
0:21:17 > 0:21:19"Well," I said. "I'd rather have been out than been in."
0:21:19 > 0:21:21Because your imagination can...
0:21:21 > 0:21:24when you're in and you've the banging and the banging.
0:21:24 > 0:21:27When you're out, you can see what's happening, you know?
0:21:27 > 0:21:29So, there we were.
0:21:29 > 0:21:32Elaine was 17 when she became an air-raid warden,
0:21:32 > 0:21:34the youngest in Britain.
0:21:34 > 0:21:38She was a girl seeing things most of us would hope never to see.
0:21:38 > 0:21:40There was one thing I haven't forgotten,
0:21:40 > 0:21:44but I'm coming to terms, even though it's a long time ago.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47I was coming off duty
0:21:47 > 0:21:51and they were bringing the dead from where
0:21:51 > 0:21:53there was a lot of casualties.
0:21:53 > 0:21:56And in the back of this car, now,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58I could see - the hood was down -
0:21:58 > 0:22:01and I could see two little babies
0:22:01 > 0:22:04in a white box like that.
0:22:05 > 0:22:06And one was...
0:22:06 > 0:22:08The little girl was lying like this.
0:22:08 > 0:22:11And the little boy, who was a bit older,
0:22:11 > 0:22:14had his arm on her, but he was dead, too.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17And I still can't get over it.
0:22:17 > 0:22:19But I'm not grieving,
0:22:19 > 0:22:22and I'm glad that they both went together.
0:22:22 > 0:22:23You know what I mean?
0:22:23 > 0:22:25But the sight, the waste of it! You know?
0:22:25 > 0:22:27It was so wicked.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46RECORDING: 'Morning is breaking over Wales at war.'
0:22:46 > 0:22:48The Swansea poet and writer Dylan Thomas,
0:22:48 > 0:22:52who was haunted by the destruction of his home town.
0:22:52 > 0:22:54'..but the terrible near war
0:22:54 > 0:22:57'of England and Wales and her brothers and sisters...'
0:22:57 > 0:23:01Thomas had been declared medically unfit for military service,
0:23:01 > 0:23:03so he spent much of the war writing scripts
0:23:03 > 0:23:05for government propaganda films.
0:23:05 > 0:23:09'In the roaring cauldrons of the Swansea Valley, in the...'
0:23:09 > 0:23:12Those who studied his life believe he was actually in Swansea
0:23:12 > 0:23:14at the height of the Blitz.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17There's testimony from a very close friend of his
0:23:17 > 0:23:19who saw Dylan and his wife Caitlin
0:23:19 > 0:23:22walking through the streets of bombed Swansea after the Blitz
0:23:22 > 0:23:25in that February and Dylan turned to his friend and said,
0:23:25 > 0:23:27"Our Swansea has died."
0:23:27 > 0:23:29So parts of the town that he knew and loved,
0:23:29 > 0:23:33and was so familiar with, had written about in his short stories,
0:23:33 > 0:23:35were just flattened.
0:23:35 > 0:23:38In a sense, what would one would love to see
0:23:38 > 0:23:43is his chronicling of the terrible events of early 1941
0:23:43 > 0:23:44here in Swansea.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47But he didn't do that, did he? He wrote later.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51That's right, it took him six years to absorb
0:23:51 > 0:23:54those traumatic events of Swansea.
0:23:54 > 0:23:56The destruction of the Swansea he knew and loved.
0:23:56 > 0:24:03Return Journey was the great play that he wrote in 1947.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05Yes, that's right. This is the original script.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08- The actual broadcast script that he'd have read from?- Yes.
0:24:08 > 0:24:11He was very keen to get every detail right in this script,
0:24:11 > 0:24:14to the extent that he checked the order of all the shops
0:24:14 > 0:24:15that had been bombed to make sure
0:24:15 > 0:24:17that he had them in the correct order
0:24:17 > 0:24:19when he was writing about them in this piece.
0:24:19 > 0:24:22'Burton Tailors, WH Smith, Boots Cash Chemist, Lesley's Stores,
0:24:22 > 0:24:27'Upson's Shoes, Prince of Wales, Tucker's Fish, Stead and Simpson...
0:24:27 > 0:24:29'All the shops bombed and vanished.'
0:24:30 > 0:24:32He even wrote to a former grammar school master of his
0:24:32 > 0:24:35to get the names of those former boys who'd died in the war
0:24:35 > 0:24:37who were on the roll of honour
0:24:37 > 0:24:40so he could include their names in this broadcast.
0:24:40 > 0:24:41CHURCH BELL TOLLS
0:24:41 > 0:24:45'Evans, KJ. Haynes, GC. Roberts, IL.'
0:24:45 > 0:24:47CHURCH BELL TOLLS
0:24:47 > 0:24:51'Moxham, J. Thomas, H. Baines, W.'
0:24:51 > 0:24:54And it's not an attempt to put a gloss on what happened
0:24:54 > 0:24:56in any sense at all.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58It is not lyrical in that sense, is it?
0:24:58 > 0:25:01- In fact it is brutally truthful. - Yes.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03But there is... Well, there's a beauty in it.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06Yes, it's an elegy. A very beautiful elegy, I think,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09to a lost Swansea, a lost childhood,
0:25:09 > 0:25:12which resonated with so many people.
0:25:17 > 0:25:19'It was a cold, white day in the high street
0:25:19 > 0:25:23'and nothing to stop the wind slicing up from the docks,
0:25:23 > 0:25:27'for where the squat and tall shops had shielded the town from the sea,
0:25:27 > 0:25:31'lay their blitzed-flat graves marbled with snow
0:25:31 > 0:25:33'and headstoned with fences.'
0:25:35 > 0:25:39It's a very, very long time since Dylan Thomas wrote that play -
0:25:39 > 0:25:41he was in his 30s then -
0:25:41 > 0:25:45and, obviously, nothing that he describes is as it was then.
0:25:45 > 0:25:47This is the new Swansea.
0:25:47 > 0:25:49None of the old remains.
0:25:49 > 0:25:55But his words remain, and they are as colourful and evocative today
0:25:55 > 0:25:58as they were when he wrote them.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01Let's give you another flavour of it.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04"Boys romped calling high and clear
0:26:04 > 0:26:07"on top of a levelled chemist's and a shoe shop..."
0:26:07 > 0:26:10THOMAS ON RECORDING: '..and a little girl wearing a man's cap
0:26:10 > 0:26:12'threw a snowball in a chill, deserted garden
0:26:12 > 0:26:16'that had once been the Jug and Bottle of the Prince of Wales.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18'And in the falling winter morning
0:26:18 > 0:26:20'I walked on through the white centre
0:26:20 > 0:26:23'past the hole in space where Hodges the clothiers had been,
0:26:23 > 0:26:27'down Castle Street past the remembered invisible shops -
0:26:27 > 0:26:30'David Evans, Gregory Confectioners...
0:26:30 > 0:26:33'Burton's, Lloyds Bank and nothing.'
0:26:37 > 0:26:40But what the bombs and the flames never killed
0:26:40 > 0:26:41was the spirit of the locals.
0:26:41 > 0:26:43It survived.
0:26:43 > 0:26:46And the place itself was rebuilt.
0:26:46 > 0:26:48The centre is now full of tall buildings,
0:26:48 > 0:26:51unrecognisable from what it was before the war.
0:26:52 > 0:26:56Despite all the careful preparation and planning and boasting,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59Hitler's "lightning war" failed to break Britain.
0:27:03 > 0:27:09I know now just how close his pilots came to dropping a bomb on my house,
0:27:09 > 0:27:11yet it, like the people and the nation,
0:27:11 > 0:27:13stood firm against the onslaught.
0:27:16 > 0:27:19You get a slightly different perspective
0:27:19 > 0:27:20when you are looking down on it
0:27:20 > 0:27:24and you see it there, this little clump of houses,
0:27:24 > 0:27:26secure, safe.
0:27:28 > 0:27:29It's, er...
0:27:30 > 0:27:34It's quite a reassuring feeling, in a way, to know that
0:27:34 > 0:27:35they're still there.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40Back on the ground in Splott,
0:27:40 > 0:27:43the bombsites that were once my forbidden playgrounds
0:27:43 > 0:27:45are long gone.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48In their places, family homes for the next generation.
0:27:51 > 0:27:54Childhood produces a million false memories,
0:27:54 > 0:27:57and, of course, I was a baby when the bombs were actually falling,
0:27:57 > 0:28:00so it's been fascinating to talk to people who were older
0:28:00 > 0:28:01and who really do remember
0:28:01 > 0:28:04what it was like when the bombs were dropping.
0:28:04 > 0:28:06What I remember, and this is a real memory,
0:28:06 > 0:28:09is playing on the bombsites.
0:28:09 > 0:28:10They were all around here
0:28:10 > 0:28:13where the bombs dropped on these streets
0:28:13 > 0:28:15and so there'd be that gap
0:28:15 > 0:28:19and the house would be utterly destroyed.
0:28:19 > 0:28:21And now, well, the streets are back to normal,
0:28:21 > 0:28:25the houses are painted a little more brightly than they were then...
0:28:26 > 0:28:27..and things have changed.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30Everything has changed.
0:28:30 > 0:28:32Our memories, though,
0:28:32 > 0:28:34for those who really can remember,
0:28:34 > 0:28:36are vivid.