Our Land at War: A Portrait of Rural Britain 1939–45. Duff Hart-Davis
so, nobody was prepared for the attack at lunchtime on 26 August 1940, when four bombs fell on the Shelburne Cooperative Dairy factory at Campile, in Wexford. The first landed in the canteen, killing three young women; the second came through the roof and started a fire; the third hit the railway line and the fourth landed in a field. The Germans claimed that the pilots had become separated from the rest of their formation, and had jettisoned their bombs over open country. To the people on the ground it seemed that they had made a precision raid. No convincing reason for the attack was ever established, but great was the fury of witnesses who saw the German Ambassador come from Dublin to the women’s funeral sporting a top hat and a scarlet sash emblazoned with a swastika.
In England animal losses on farms mounted rapidly: in the nine months to December 1940 the National Air Raid Precautions Animals Committee – a voluntary body – reported 3000 air-raid casualties, mostly cattle and sheep. Of these, 843 were killed outright, 706 had to be put down and 440 were given first aid treatment. Many of the deaths and injuries resulted from the Nazi fighter pilots’ deplorable habit of machine-gunning herds in low-level attacks – more for target practice and their own amusement than from any hope of reducing English food supplies. From the dead stock, 30 per cent of the meat was bought by the Ministry of Food and sent for human consumption – but the salvage of a carcass depended on prompt action immediately after the animal had been killed. Unless some competent person – farmer, butcher or vet – tackled the victim within a few minutes, it would be useless; and the easiest method of disposal would be to bury it at the bottom of a bomb crater. The Ministry had its own arrangements for salvaging useable livestock, but told farmers that they themselves should be prepared ‘to slaughter, bleed and disembowel any animal injured beyond hope of recovery’.
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