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"Children fled as bullets bounced off Roker Park..."
Gerry Finn was left running for his life when German planes opened fire just above him during a daylight raid in the Second World War.
He was not, however, a trained soldier used to tricky situations, but a little boy who had been happily playing with his pals in Roker Park just moments before.
"I remember the bullets hitting the ground behind us – bang, bang, bang," the retired marine underwriter said. "My sister and I started running like mad.
"There had been no air raid warning given – we just heard the drone of the planes as they flew in low over the beach. As we looked up, they opened fire."
Gerry and his friends ran for the safety of the nearest air raid shelter, but were shocked to find the building locked up and deserted.
The children were forced, instead, to huddle on the ramp leading down to the shelter, trying to avoid the bullets raining down around them.
"I don't think the planes were firing specifically at us, just that they opened fire as soon as they reached the coast. I think the shipyards were probably their target," said Gerry.
"I just remember thinking that my mum would play war with me, as I didn't have my gas mask with me! That was what I was really worried about."
Gerry, who lived in St Andrew's Terrace, Roker, at the time, was just five when war was declared, but his recollections of September 3, 1939, remain vivid.
"I remember running into the house and asking my parents what was happening. They told me Britain was at war with Germany," he said.
"I had older cousins who went off to fight, which made the war more of a reality for me, and I have many memories of the ways in which war touched our lives too."
One of the first changes, as recalled by Gerry, was the disappearance of his childhood playground at Bede Street – a patch of land where he had enjoyed playing marbles.
"A static water tank was built on the little field, where water was stored to fight fires after the air raids," he said. "In fact, I often used to help out there.
"Once the all-clear was given, we children used to run round to the tank and help pass up buckets to the man at the top of the ladder, who was filling them up."
Other wartime events recalled by Gerry include the sandbagging of the cloakroom at St Benet's School, to allow its use as a shelter during daytime air raids. And he also remembers how the windows of St Benet's Church had to be painted black to meet blackout rules – which "seemed like sacrilege" to him at the time.
"Another memory involves the anti-aircraft battery at Cliff Park, manned by soldiers who used to march to a canteen at Roker Methodist Church for their meals," said Gerry.
"We children used to march behind the men, and cadge bits of food off them. When the Americans arrived for a while, we even managed to get chocolate and sweets!"
Some of his clearest memories, however, involve a devastating bombing raid which left scores of homes in nearby Roker Baths Road in ruins.
"There was a railway bridge, which ran from Fulwell Crossings down to the North Dock, which the Germans obviously thought a necessity to destroy," he said.
"We were in our shelter night one night when, from a gap over the door, I saw that everything suddenly seemed to change to daylight. It was a German parachute flare.
"The next thing we saw was a parachute mine floating down through the air. Then came a bang, an explosion and a tremor which went through everything.
"The mine had landed very close to us, where the New Derby pub now stands, and demolished a row of houses and a grocery shop. The bridge, amazingly, survived."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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