Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 17 March 2021
I am delighted to contribute to the debate; my friend and colleague Gil Paterson’s valedictory speech dealt with the most far-reaching event in the history of his constituency, and I congratulate him on securing the debate. I said to Gil, whom I have known for more than 40 years, that he is too young to retire, given that he is only 11 days older than President Biden, who is just starting his first presidential term.
The blitz came relatively late to the west of Scotland. The first aerial attacks were made on England in the summer and autumn of 1940, but the Luftwaffe focused on Scottish targets only in the following year. Before March 1941, the war had brought high levels of employment to communities in Clydebank after the depression, and many found work primarily in the armaments factory at the Singer sewing machine works, or at John Brown’s shipyard. However, the high number of factories and shipyards, surrounded by more than 12,000 packed homes, also made Clydebank a prime target for German bombing raids.
Brendan Kelly of Dalmuir, who was nine years old when Clydebank was blitzed, said that before that night he
“didn’t really understand war. I didn’t really think that people could get killed and blown to pieces and never ever come back again. I never thought about that until the 13th of March.”
Brendan had spent that day playing football on Jellicoe Street with his neighbour and best friend, Tommy Rocks. It had been a sunny day. Winter was drawing to a close and, with bedtime approaching, both friends ended their game and sat in their tenement close contemplating the full moon, which started rising over the industrial town. “‘Look at that moon,” said Tommy Rocks. “If Gerry comes tonight he cannae miss.”
It was a bomber’s moon, and Gerry did come that night—a night that would change Clydebank forever. Over two nights, 439 Luftwaffe bombers dropped more than 1,650 incendiary containers and 272 tonnes of bombs on Clydebank and its surrounding areas. When the sirens screamed, Brendan was sitting in the living room. His father was reading the evening paper while his mother was next door at the neighbours, knitting a pullover for him.
There were up to 40 false alarms in the months leading up to the Blitz and, on 13 March, many thought that it was just another false alarm; that included 11-year-old Betty Norwood, who had been attending a concert at the Co-op hall in Hume Street. Ignoring the sirens, the concert continued until the windows fell in and the balconies started collapsing. Betty and her mother were pulled from under the rubble and headed to the basement of the Co-op hall, where they remained until 7.30 the next morning.
Brendan Kelly and his family took refuge in one of the communal shelters. The last bomb fell on Clydebank at 5.47 am. The all-clear was sounded half an hour later and survivors came out from wherever they had sought protection to discover the town in a state of utter devastation. Although Brendan’s tenement was still standing, all those to one side had been destroyed and his friend Tommy was one of 15 members of the Rocks family to have died next door.
Tens of thousands of people were without homes or possessions and wanted to escape Clydebank as soon as possible, while those who stayed behind in the wreckage of their homes and church halls prepared themselves for a second night of bombing.
Throughout the town, only seven or eight buildings, including Brendan Kelly’s tenement house, remained unscathed. German bombers had destroyed 4,000 houses and severely damaged a further 4,500. According to an official count in 1942, the raids had killed 1,200 people that night and seriously injured many more, while another 35,000 people had been made homeless.
Unable to give a proper account of what had happened due to wartime censorship, the press published vague reports of the dogged blitz spirit following
“some bombs on a town in the west of Scotland”.
Unaware of the true devastation, soldiers would subsequently return to Clydebank from military bases across the country to surprise their families, only to discover that their home town had been reduced to rubble and that many of its inhabitants were gone forever.
Thirteen and 14 March 1941 are among the darkest days that this country has seen. Today we remember all those who perished, as well as those who lost everything as a result of the bombings. We must do all that w can to prevent war, wherever it might rear its ugly head.
I again thank my friend and colleague Gil Paterson for this debate. He will be sadly missed by all of his colleagues.
19:06