Alan’s Blitz night dash to help injured warden
With bombs falling and streets filled with rubble and craters, 16-year-old Alan Hartley faced a desperate two-and-a-half mile cycle ride to the city centre to help an injured colleague.
Alan was a messenger on the night of 14 November 1940, posted on Grayswood Avenue, Coundon, when a number of incendiary bombs fell. The bombs had a new type of explosive cap, one of which exploded and covered the Head Warden’s face and hands in white hot metal.
Alan ran to the ARP post to call for an ambulance, but the telephone wires had been shot down and the only way to get help was to cycle into the city centre, despite the continuing air aid.
On the way, he had to stop under the railway arches in Spon End to shelter from shrapnel and bomb fragments. And when he got to St. John’s Church on Spon Street, he came across a large bomb crater which was so deep he could see the River Sherbourne flowing beneath the street.
Alan had to scramble around the crater with his bicycle on his back and then make his way up Smithford Street to the Council House, where he joined the queue to report the incident to a policeman and an ambulance was sent out to help.