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Though bombs were a formidable problem in wartime, our efforts to stop enemy aircraft blitzing our cities created a danger in itself. Shrapnel from anti-aircraft guns showered down on Derby, and one woman still has the evidence, Jill Gallone writes.

Jagged pieces of iron, capable of cutting like a knife, hailed down from the skies whenever enemy aircraft soared above Derby in the Second World War.

But they were not remnants of exploding German bombs – they were a home-made menace. The sharp pieces of metal came from the shattered shells fired by anti-aircraft guns.

“The shrapnel came from our guns but hardly anyone ever talks about it,” said Ivy Ryalls, from Alvaston, who lived in Porter Road, Derby, during the war. One night, after a particularly vicious air raid on nearby Sheffield, her father, Jack Dean, collected some poignant reminders of the fiery night.

Ivy Ryalls with a piece of the shrapnel

“He picked up lots of pieces of shrapnel from our garden,” said Ivy. “They were jagged pieces of iron. You would have known about it if something like that hit you at speed from a height.”

More than 65 years later, Ivy, 85, still treasures the brutal reminder of war, which her father placed in an old cocoa tin with the following note: “Anti-aircraft shrapnel. Picked up in our back garden at 27 Porter Road the night Sheffield was bombed”.

“I have always kept them because no-one talks about the danger that the shrapnel from our own anti-aircraft guns caused,” said Ivy.

“You couldn’t go outside during an air raid because of it. The night Sheffield was bombed, I can remember hearing shrapnel smashing on the dustpan and brush which my mother kept outside the back door.”

The shrapnel collected by Jack Dean

Anti-aircraft guns were dotted around Derby in wartime to take aim at the numerous enemy planes that came in the black of night to seek out city targets.

Ivy is unsure what year the Sheffield raid was but a major attack on Derby’s near neighbour took place in 1940. On December 12-13 that year, a full moon in a clear sky aided an estimated 300 German bombers, who aimed at mostly the central and residential areas.

In the city centre, much of the shopping area was demolished and tramcars littered the streets. Many people died because they had relied on air raid shelters under buildings that received direct hits.

The Germans returned on December 15, this time concentrating on the east end of the city where major armament firms were located. Over the two nights 668 people were killed and 513 injured. The authorities had not expected bombing on the scale of this blitz in the centre of England.

“It was a particularly bad night – but not the worst one I lived through,” said Ivy. “That occurred when I went to stay with relatives near Birmingham the night Coventry was bombed. That was horrendous. We spent the whole night in the air raid shelter.”

The result was even more horrendous. On November 15, 1940, the German Luftwaffe bombed Coventry in a massive raid which lasted more than 10 hours. It left much of the city devastated.

Though hearing the bombs fall was frightening, Ivy admits that people eventually became blasé about air raids and did not always go to the shelters. “I sometimes stayed in bed,” she confessed.

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County:  Derbyshire

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