| A survivor is pulled from the wreckage of a bomb shelter. Sapper Albert C. Robbins (May 27, 1919 – July 1979) has been identified as the lighter-haired man in the center without a helmet holding the woman. On September 24, 1940, the Nazi German Luftwaffe (“Air Force”) sent 50 Messerschmitt Bf-110s to the Supermarine Works in Woolston, where Spitfire fighters were manufactured. While the main production plant escaped serious damage, a direct hit on a shelter outside the factory killed an estimated 100 workers. Anti-aircraft gunners responded with exceptional accuracy, destroying 1 Bf 110 outright and forcing 2 more to crash into the sea. A 4th aircraft, damaged by flak, managed to return to France with difficulty. Robbins was working with an excavator to remove bodies from the shelter. While he believed this woman in the photo, who has never been identified, survived, he saw scores of dead and injured in the Supermarine Works Shelter. While bringing up a dead girl’s corpse with a rope around her midsection, “the body broke in two,” and her legs fell back into the shelter. Robbins, traumatized by the experience, left his post and disappeared for 3 days, turning up at his mother’s home dirty and unshaven. He never spoke of this trauma to his parents; never revealing where he had been for 72 hours. Robbins, as a Sapper (Combat Engineer), was assigned to land in Norway, but his appendix burst, and his replacement was killed defusing a Nazi German shell. Robbins survived the war but died of a heart attack. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0291.jpg |
| Image Size | 1.88 MB |
| Image Dimensions | 3741 x 3244 |
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| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | September 24, 1940 |
| Location | Woolston |
| City | Southampton |
| State or Province | Hampshire |
| Country | United Kingdom |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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