91热爆

Told by Mairi Milroy (nee McKenzie) to East Ayrshire Library Staff
I was born on the Isle of Lewis in 1940 and guess that this incident would have taken place around 1943/4.
One Sunday, we were on a local beach having a family picnic and the beach adjoined what we called the aerodrome. A plane approached and we thought that it was going to land at the aerodrome. We weren't alarmed as we were used to passenger planes landing - but this being a Sunday, my father looked up and identified it as a German plane going by the markings and type. He told us to shelter in the nearby sand dunes - which we did. The plane came lower and machine gunned the picnic spot where we had been moments before.
After this happened my father realised that the pilot could have killed us all if he had wished to, as we were not that well hidden - the pilot must have decided to leave us with a show of strength.
As children we were unaware of the dangers and were just annoyed that our picnic had been ruined by the "nasty plane".
Many years later - well after the war - we saw aerial photographs of the surrounding area taken by German reconnaissance aircraft on display in the Stornoway library. I wondered if they had been taken by our "nasty plane"

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