Trefoil Guild Wales/Cymru

"Getting involved and making a difference"

© Trefoil Guild Wales/Cymru

Memories 70 years on! Three Nights Blitz - Swansea, South Wales.

 

In the autumn of 1940 my friends and I were at a meeting in Saint Mary’s Church, Swansea for our weekly Girl Guide evening. We were all working for our First Aid Badge and chatting about the war, when a Gentleman asked our Captain could he talk to us about joining the “Civil Defence”. He told us that we were ‘needed’ for the war effort with our skills!! A few of the Guides, including myself agreed to join, and the next day we went for training. After a few days I was the only one to last the training and pass the tests.

 

We had to have our bicycles as we were going to be messengers (in case the telephones failed). More tests followed and I got through them successfully. I was the only girl with a lot of boys, so I had to be very tough to keep up with them! I was UK’s youngest air raid warden at 17 years of age.

At first everything went along very quietly except for a few air-raids, but we coped quite well.

Then one night in February 1941 the “red” alarm came through and the seven of us wardens ran to our points to help. The Nazi planes flew over and the black smoke rose up in the air followed by huge flames which covered the area, acting as a beacon for our enemies. The first bomb to drop near us was on a house, leaving a man trapped on the top floor with his wife under all the rubble. Our training was soon put into action, we eventually rescued them.

 

The following evening the planes were back and hit us with thousands of fire bombs. We tried to cover them with sand-bags, but they had landed on the roofs and down chimneys. In the meantime heavy bombs had come down in other parts of the town and they did a lot of damage.

 

Myself, and another warden were on top of a bank, sweeping the flat roof of fire bombs when we heard a whistle (two blasts were needed to ask for help). I rushed down the stairs to find that a casualty had lost most of his leg. At this point I was able to put my First Aid training into practice and after the ambulance arrived, the medics told us that we had saved the man’s life. At this point I fainted! It was the last time I reacted in this way. In the two days that followed we had to deal with dreadful situations and all we could do was ‘do our best’.

 

The third night we were at our posts and that night they destroyed our town. We managed to rescue about twenty people from the flames.  We watched our beloved St. Mary’s Church in the centre of Swansea burning and heard the bells falling down the tower. There was nothing we could do as the firemen (the bravest men) had no water as the bombs had blown up the fire hosts.  After the worst night of all, eventually we heard the “all clear” and went off duty.

 

Today I feel so grateful that I got through those awful times, and I’m so grateful to my guide training. After the war ended I became a ‘Brown Owl’, and later took on the role of District Commissioner and District President. I have been a member of Swansea Trefoil Guild for many years and delighted to be with my Guiding friends.

 

Elaine Kidwell, Swansea Trefoil Guild, West Glamorgan

 

In February this year, Elaine appeared on BBC Wales TV, spoke on Radio and gave many talks at the Museum in Swansea, to mark the 70^th anniversary of the ‘Three Night Blitz’ over Swansea. We in West Glamorgan are very proud of Elaine and she promoted Trefoil by wearing her Trefoil Scarf for the TV reports.