Article sparks your memories of the Cunliffe-Owen raid...

SO MUCH heartache, so much grief. For the sons and daughters of the dead, and for those who witnessed the final moments, that dreadful wartime day nearly 64 years ago cannot be forgotten.

Yet many of the stories of those people caught up in the German bombing raid at an aircraft factory in Southampton have never been publicly told.

Until now.

An afternoon stealth attack by the Luftwaffe on the Cunliffe-Owen aircraft works at Swaythling killed 52 men and women on September 11, 1940.

Last week in Heritage a daughter of one of the victims made an impassioned appeal for information regarding the tragedy.

Helen Corben, 70, from Hedge End, near Southampton, lost her 31-year-old father, Fred Burnet, and her emotional request for clues regarding the awful event struck a chord with many readers.

The stories about the fates of so many people in the factory, which repaired fighter planes such as Spitfires and Hurricanes, are heart-rending.

Ken Miles, from Bassett in Southampton, wrote in about a pal.

"In 1939 a friend, Alfie Allan, and I clubbed together to buy a second hand trailer that we used to put our camping equipment in.

"The trailer was small, shaped like a caravan, and when used was attached to the rear of Alfie's cycle.

"We paid the princely sum of ten shillings (50p) for the trailer - five shillings each. My sister had been evacuated to a farm in Christchurch, and we would camp in the farm over weekends.

"Alfie got a job at Cunfliffe-Owen's and I got an apprenticeship at Vickers Armstrong's Supermarine Works at Eastleigh, just along the road.

"On September 11, 1940, the air raid alarm sounded in the Supermarine factory and we all rushed across the road to the shelters.

"We lads were all laughing and joking when there was a series of terrific thuds and the shelter rocked.

"We thought that our factory had been bombed but, after the all-clear, we could see smoke rising from the Cunliffe-Owen factory. Later I learned that poor Alfie had been killed in the raid.

"After a respectable period I called on Alfie's parents, who kept a pub in Lyon Street, Southampton. After expressing my condolences, I asked if I could have the trailer. Mrs Allan said it was mine now, but she could not let me have it as it was at the back of the garage which was difficult to get at.

"We arranged that I should return the following week to pick it up. During the week that followed there was another air raid and the public house was demolished, along with the trailer.

"I don't know for certain, but I think that, thankfully, Mr and Mrs Allan survived.

"Many years later I visited the old Cunliffe-Owen factory that was then occupied by Ford and was shown the Roll of Honour on which Alfie's name appeared."

Another Southampton man, Barrie Beavis, lost his dad, Sidney, in the raid.

Barrie recalled: "My parents lived in Lisbon Road, Shirley and my father worked in Bristol Docks and commuted home when possible.

"By a cruel turn of fate he obtained a position with Cunliffe-Owen and his first day of work was the Monday with the bombing occurring two days later.

"That morning his motorbike would not start and he returned to the house saying to my mother that he was worried that he could not get to work. He eventually started the motorbike and made it into the factory arriving late.

"During the raid he was caught in the open as the bombs fell. Shrapnel damaged his leg and it was said at the time that he saved his own life by using a hand made tourniquet to stem the flow of blood.

"He was taken to the South Hants Hospital, where my mother visited him for over a week and said he was in good spirits and, with his leg in plaster, thought he was on the mend.

"Tragically it was not to be. Gangrene set in and he died."

Retired Southampton seaman Henry Winch, 77, was a 14-year-old boy when he heard the buzzing of aircraft, as he was playing in his garden in Bluebell Road.

Soldiers were posted only a short distance away in an area then known as the Daisy Dip.

In the distance he could see a solitary fighter plane - they flew there all the time for refuel and repair, so not an unusual sight. When the fighter plane suddenly opened fire on the barrage balloons protecting the aircraft works, no one could react.

Henry said: "The Germans must have been using one of our planes, or similar, to get rid of the barrage balloons. Maybe that's why it wasn't shot at."

It wasn't until the next two planes appeared, green and brown bombers marked with the German Iron Cross, that it became clear it was an enemy attack.

The bombers carried out their mission unchallenged. They had flown so low Mr Winch said he "could see the faces of the pilots."