SOUTHAMPTON was somewhat battered and bruised, but definitely not beaten, seventy five years ago this week after German Luftwaffe bombers carried out its second daylight bombing raid in successive days over the district.

In spite of the deadly cargo rained down over the town by the Nazis, there were thankfully no fatalities and few casualties , as the occupants of several houses had remarkable escapes and the damage done to the town was slight.

The most startling damage was at one Southampton residence where a huge crater, 25 feet in diameter, was made in the back garden of a large house in a suburb.

The bomb wrecked the back of the dwelling, smashed two green-houses, demolished a substantial brick wall, and threw large lumps of earth high over one of the greenhouses. Remarkably the three persons inside the house, who were having tea at the time, escaped without a scratch. Speaking to the Daily Echo at the time, one of them said, "No sooner had we heard a screaming sound than we found ourselves on the floor. Whether we threw ourselves there instinctively, or were hurled by the blast I cannot say. Although the windows were blown in and a part of the wall fell down, we were, to our great surprise, unhurt."

Despite escaping with her life, the housewife was far more concerned with the damage the Fuhrer had caused to her vegetable patch. "Hitler has spaded my potato crop and just look at all my ‘bombfall’ apples!” the lady exclaimed, pointing to the bomb-blasted fruit strewn across her garden.

The crater was only about 10 yards from the room in which the occupants were taking tea, and it is thought that a brick wall, which was partly demolished, saved them from the full effect of the blast. Apples were shaken from trees in vast quantities, and a vine in one of the greenhouses was destroyed. "Our coal is under there," said one of the occupants, pointing to a pile of debris.

The great value of Anderson shelters was again demonstrated in another suburb, where a bomb which fell only five yards from the shelter, demolishing the rear of the house and making a huge crater, caused no injury at all to three occupants of the shelter.

The wife of the occupier and her three years old son had been joined in the shelter by her next-door neighbour, who had returned from Australia five weeks ago. "We heard the scream of a bomb and a loud explosion, but had no idea until we came out of the shelter that the house was so badly damaged." she said. "It is the finest advertisement for an Anderson shelter that you could imagine. “Beyond being covered with dust, we were untouched. My little boy’s great concern was for his toy train.”

The bomb ripped off the back of the house and sent furniture hanging crazily from wrecked rooms that were left exposed by the blast. The Daily Echo also reported than an incendiary bomb had fallen on a tram track in the centre of a roadway in the heart of the town, but fortunately without serious consequence.