16th October 1939

Jack Smith

1939

The day was the 16th October 1939 only a few weeks after the declaration of War on the 3ed September. Life in our fishing village had continued unchanged since the outbreak of war apart from the issue of gas masks. All this was about to change as this was the day of the first German air raid on mainland Britain; a date I will never forget. I was at school in the fishing village of Port Seton; Port Seton is on the south side of the Firth of Forth in the country of East Lothian and ten miles East of Edinburgh. During the geography lesson in the afternoon there was a terrific noise which I thought was the teacher in the other class room which was separated from ours by a glass partition pulling the black board over the wooden floor.

In fact it was a German aircraft flying very low over the school, this was followed immediately by machine gun fire from Spitfires of the City of Edinburgh 603 Squadron also flying very low. The German aircraft was taking part in a raid on shipping in the Firth of Forth, most of us in the class jumped out of our seats with fright however our teacher was very good and got us to settle down and continue our lesson, only later were bullet holes found in the school wall. ... (continues)