The Bomb - World War II

Life in Impington and Histon in 1941 was going on as normally as wartime allowed. People were walking along Station Road, the man who was destined to be my father was driving home from visiting relatives, and a group of Boy Scouts was returning from an expedition.

Suddenly the rural calm was shattered as a lone German bomber appeared out of the clouds and swooped towards Chivers jam factory. The Scouts saw its bomb doors swing open as they made their way home across the fields to the west. The leader ordered them to take cover in a ditch. On the road my father and his passenger, an evacuee lad from war-torn London, saw the bomber but decided to try to get home. He quickened his speed.

As he drove past the jam factory he heard a powerful explosion and saw something shoot through the roof of the car. The Scouts in the fields saw the bomb plummet down onto a large stack of barrels at the rear of the factory. The explosion threw jam pulp over a wide area and many of the nearby houses were covered with it. Fortunately no-one was hurt. The raider got away but another one was shot down near Arbury Road.

Alan Cornell