It was just one of the bombs raining on Clydebank, killing more than and damaging all but seven of 12, homes. But it was that fell on the tenement at 78 Jellicoe Street and that took 31 lives, including 15 members of one family, the Rocks. Brendan Kelly, 85, who lived at number 60, remembers every detail of the night, and cannot forget the last time he saw his best friend Tommy Rocks. His story is featured in a BBC documentary this week which details the bombs that fell on Clydebank, pinpointing scores of dots on a map charting where they fell.
The tragedy at 78 Jellicoe Street was one of the biggest losses of life for a single family anywhere in Britain during the eight-month Blitz that saw , bombs fall. Sacks of bodies lay everywhere as friends and family desperately tore at the piles of bricks, hoping for good news where there was none.
Another raid was to hit the following night, Friday 14th, as war came to the streets of Scotland. The bombers destroyed schools, shops, churches — Presbyterian and Catholic and Episcopalian. Clydebank had boasted a large Highland community, with Free Church and Free Presbyterian ministers holding regular Gaelic services: the little halls were reduced to rubble, and Gaelic was never preached again, for most of the Gaels fled, never to return. And to this day — it is especially evident from a plane approaching Glasgow Airport — Clydebank, geographically and architecturally, is a town that does not make sense.
Truncated Victorian tenements, scattered and ugly constructions from the s and 70s, conspicuous gap-sites and nothing one could dignify as a thriving high street. When Patrick Rocks sped home from his night shift in terror — it is said he actually swam across the Forth and Clyde Canal — to his tenement block at 78 Jellico Street, it was no longer there.
Under a smouldering crater of Locharbriggs stone lay the remains of 31 people, slain by a single bomb. And they included his wife, his mother-in-law, six of his sons, two of his daughters, and five of his grandchildren. Later, summoned to identify the bodies, he took one look at what the blast had done, and fainted. There are things the sadly dwindling band of Clydebank Blitz survivors still cannot forget. The terrifying sounds of the attack; the rumble of still more incoming Junkers and Heinkels.
The smell — the taste — of dust and soot. The bodies, everywhere, disembowelled, limbless, mangled to obscenity. Folk screaming out of high windows in blazing buildings, moments before they disintegrated…. The difficulty, later, of getting away, of getting out, through streets choked with rubble, with burned-out tramcars. The lost, homeless, terrified dogs roaming everywhere; the men grimly recovering bodies — with baskets, for bits of bodies.
The inevitable looters, from Glasgow. And the squalid funeral, days later, at the vast mass-grave in Dalnottar cemetery, without even the dignity of cardboard coffins — corpses merely wrapped in sheets, knotted with string.
Or the cellar beneath a Dalmuir pub, where dozens had taken fearful shelter — and then the pub took a direct hit. The authorities did not even bother to recover those bodies, minced beyond any identification; they just poured in quicklime.
For years afterwards, people were still happening on overlooked human remains. Son of James and Catherine Harvey. Daughter of William Heggie, and of Elizabeth Heggie. Abbott; wife of William Heggie. Wife of John Henderson. Husband of Elizabeth Henry. Wife of Charles Henry. Wife of David Henry Hughes. Daughter of A. Hunter, and of Sarah Aston Hunter.
Wife of A. Son of Mary Jobling. Police Sgt. Daughter of Hugh and Sarah Kelly. Husband of Sarah Kelly. Son of Edward Kelly and of Mary Kelly. Wife of Edward Kelly.
Wife of Hugh Kelly. Son of Mary Kennedy; husband of Ellen Kennedy. Daughter of Jessie Kidd. Husband of Agnes Lochhead Kilpatrick. Widow of Joseph King. Son of Archibald and Christina Lawrie. Westmeath, Irish Republic; wife of James Lee. Son of D.
Lindsay, and of Violet Lindsay. Daughter of D. Wife of D. Daughter of Andrew Sanders; wife of James Lockwood. Son of Letitia Logan, and of the late William Logan. Police War Reserve. Hubsand of M. Lyons, of 17 Blythswood Drive, Paisley, Renfrewshire. Constable, War Department. Daughter of J. McClelland, and of Marion McClelland. Daughter of Maria Bicker.
Wife of J McClelland. Daughter of Matthew McClory, R. Son of Matthew McClory, R. Son of Matthew, McClory, R. Wife Matthew McClory, R. Son of William McConnell. Wife of William McConnell. Son of John and Sarah McCormack. Daughter of Mrs. Daughter of Thomas John McFadden.
Messenger; of 9 Hill Street. Son of Robert and Margaret I. Son of John J. Widow of John MacGregor. Wife of John McGuigan. Columbia Cottage Bowling at F. Son of Elizabeth Mack, and of John Mack. Charles Dempster, of the same address; wife William McKay. Son of Robert McKendrick. Husband of Martha McKenzie. Wife of Angus McKenzie. Air Raid Warden; of Glasgow Road. Husband of Catherine McKinlay.
Wife of Dugald McLean. Son of the late Norman McLennan. Son of David and Elizabeth McMillan. Husband of Sarah McMorrow. Husband of Catherine A. Daughter of the late J. Daughter of James Malaugh. Husband of Janet Paterson Marks. Wife of Peter Marshall. Wife of Norman Wilkie Morrison.
Son of Rebecca Mullinger. Son of James and Annie Nisbet. Daughter of Samuel and Helen Parke. Daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Scott Peden. Daughter of H. Firewatcher; of 56 Boquhanran Road. G Reavey. Wife of John Richmond. Daughter of John and Catherine Richmond.
Husband of Catherine Richmond. Son of John and Catherine Richmond. HENRY, age Husband of Sarah Robertson. Wife of Andrew Robertson.
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