Book description
"MacLeod is a splendid and elegiac narrator of neglected
patches of Scotland's history and brings his poetic gifts again to
this, the single most dreadful event in our nation's story" - The
Observer "An unflinching record of what remains of Scotland's
greatest human disaster in modern history" - The Herald Vibrating
with endeavours for Britain's effort against the might of Nazi
Germany, Clydebank was - in hindsight - an obvious target for the
attentions of the Luftwaffe. When, on the evening of 13 March 1941,
the authorities first detected that Clydebank was 'on beam' - targeted
by the primitive radio-guidance system of the German bombers - no
effort was made to raise the alarm or to direct the residents to
shelter or flight. Within the hour, a vast timber-yard, three
oil-stores, and two distilleries were ablaze, one pouring flaming
whisky into a burn that ran blazing into the Clyde itself in vivid
ribbons of fire. And still the Germans came; and Clydebank, now an
inferno, lay illuminated and defenceless as heavy bombs of
high-explosive, as land-mines and parachute blasters began to fall
...With reference to written sources and the memories of those who
survived the experience, John MacLeod tells the story of the Clydebank
Blitz and the terrible scale of death and devastation, speculating on
why its incineration has been so widely forgotten and its ordeal
denied any place in national honour.
