On the night of 12th to 13th March
1941, police officer Sergeant Harold Claydon, was primarily responsible for the
rescue of ten people buried beneath the ruins of a tenement building hit by a
devastating land mine. His bravery on that night earned him the award of the George Medal.
Harold Claydon was born in Peckham on 30th
December 1907. Aged about 20 he joined the Liverpool City Police, being
promoted to Sergeant in 1938. The additional pay which would have followed his
promotion would have been very welcome as a year earlier he had married Minnie
Southern, who had been born in Woolton in 1915.
On the night of the raid Harold Claydon was on plain clothes
duty at Hatton Garden Police Station. He
had already been busy dealing with incendiary bombs dropped near the station when
a parachute mine exploded on a row of two storeyed tenements in Adlington
Street. Claydon organised the police and civilians into parties and began search
and rescue work. He was told that a woman was trapped in number 8, the house
which had taken the full force of the explosion. Finding it impossible to move
the large concrete slabs and iron work collapsed from the upper floors he
started to tunnel into the debris, effectively with just his bare hands. After
about 20 minutes he had managed to create a narrow tunnel and was able to pull
two women to safety. he then made another entry into the debris and found 70
year old Mrs Fagerass lying semi-conscious and partly trapped by rubble and
timber. He managed to free her and drag her to safety despite her weighing 16
stone. By this time he was suffering from exposure to gas fumes leaking in the
debris but he insisted on returning to the tunnel. He found a number of people
inside in a tiny space, some alive (including a young child) some dead. Frighteningly,
given the presence of gas, he could see that the embers of a fire were still
burning in a grate. He knew by this time he could not continue much longer so
he concentrated on clearing rubble and timber so others could pull them out. After
passing the child out he emerged from the rubble but soon collapsed and was
taken to hospital unconscious.
Throughout the rescue Harold Claydon knew his life was in
danger from either a collapse of the tons of rubble above him or the explosion
of the gas. Totally undaunted he bravely completed these rescues until overcome
by the gas.
He continued in the police after the war, being promoted
again to Inspector. He retired in 1967 and died aged 83 in 1991.
