Glasgow man recalls 'close escape' when German bombs dropped over his Hyndland tenement

A Glasgow man has recalled the moment his home was nearly struck by German bombers during the WWII blitz. Doug Morrison, who now lives in Kent, says he "remembers well" the moment his mum rushed him out of bed and into an air raid shelter in their back garden on Novar Drive, Hyndland , in March 1941.

Despite being extremely young at the time. Doug says he remembers the bang, but has only recently learned of just how close the bomb was to his home, and the destruction it caused. The 85-year-old told Glasgow Live: "Our neighbour, as air raid warden, had keys to each flat. We woke one night to find him standing by our beds, telling my mother there was an air raid, we should put on something warm and head down to the large brick air shelter on the back green.

"Young as I was, I remember the blackout dark blue light bulbs. My Mum sat with all the neighbours on a long bench along one wall, with me on her knee. "Suddenly there was an almighty bang. The light went out and the bench collapsed.

The air was thick with dust. "The adults - my mum told me when I was older - didn't know what had happened. From the huge red glow they thought the docks had been bombed." However, on this occasion, it was not the docks that had been bombed. Instead the Luftwaffe had bombed a tenement just round the corner from his home, on Dudley Drive.

The bomb on Dudley Drive killed 36 people, with around 90 deaths believed to have happened in the surrounding area. It was dropped on what must have been two nights of horror for people living in the west of Scotland. On the nights of March 13 and 14, more than 400 bombers targeted Glasgow and the Clydeside, leading to the deaths of 1,200 people, according to the National Records of Scotland.

However, it is only recently that Doug, who used to play cricket with his friends on the bomb site, realised just how close to home the bombs fell. He added: "It wasn't until very recently my theory about the astigmatic bomb aimer was exploded, thanks to the tireless research of a local lady named Ann Laird. "It seems the bomb site we played cricket on when I was older, was actually all that was left of the tenements which had stood at the Novar Drive end of Dudley Drive- just 200 yards from 127 Novar Drive. "I had no idea about any of these catastrophic events which had occurred just a few doors away." And he believes the brutal campaigning of bombing was the catalyst for the RAF's Operation Varsity - which saw more than 16,000 para troopers dropped into Germany, helping the allied forces gain a foothold into Nazi territory.

Doug added: "During all this my Dad was flying for the RAF, subsequently towing a Horsa glider full of paras on Operation Varsity - the aerial invasion invasion of the Rhine. "As a Glasgow man, I feel his part in Operation Varsity was an act of revenge for all the folk who died just a down the road from us."