YESTERDAY afternoon, a lone raider passed over a town in the Southern Area and dropped a high explosive bomb on a private school, which was completely wrecked.

That was how the Gazette, reported a Luftwaffe attack on Thursday, October 24, 1940, towards the end of the Battle of Britain.

Wartime reporting restrictions forbade the newspaper from saying the school was St Vincent’s School, in Cliddesden Road, Basingstoke. But, no doubt, everyone in town would have known exactly which school was hit.

The short report was published in the paper the day after the incident, with a more detailed article with pictures appearing in the next edition on Friday, November 1.

Sadly, two people were killed and several were injured – but, miraculously, none of the children were seriously hurt.

Most of them were at nearby War Memorial Park when the bomb fell.

Among them was Elizabeth Lungley, who had been evacuated with her sisters, 12-year-old Joan and eight-old Mary, to Basingstoke, to avoid the London Blitz.

Elizabeth, who later married and became Elizabeth Wheeler moved to Chichester, was 11-years-old at the time.

She did not remember a great deal about the girl’s school when we spoke to her in 2010 – but she has vivid memories of the air attack.

She recalled: “We were at the park playing lacrosse when suddenly, without warning, a loan enemy bomber flew over, on his way back to Germany, with a bomb onboard, and he just dropped it right there.

“The teacher screamed at us to lie down and we all went down in one movement. I covered my head, but I peeped and out of the corner of my eye. I saw this massive plume of black debris going up. And then it was all over and we all got up.”

Elizabeth continued: “All of a sudden, a rather frantic whitefaced Fräulein came running into the park with her black hair all white – she looked like a ghost, as she had plaster all over her. She had been in the school looking after a child aged about four, who was resting in the afternoon.

“I just knew her as our Fräulein. She was a school resident who taught us German, believe it or not. She must have been someone who had fled Nazi Germany.

“She ran up to our teacher to tell her what had happened. We were then hurriedly marched to one of the park gates – and I don’t remember much after that.”

Elizabeth said she did not feel frightened by the lone bomber. “It’s funny, because when we were in London, we’d hear the sirens and the all-clears, sometimes 10 or 12 times a day,” she said.

“But, on this occasion, there was no siren or an all-clear. It was an isolated incident, but it was such a great massive bomb and it’s strange how it landed in the garden of our school.

“From the road, there was not a lot to see of the damage to the school – you had to go up the side of the house to see the crater.”

The more detailed newspaper report said the school suffered considerable damage, with a large portion of it being demolished and a number of people being trapped. The ARP services were quickly on the scene, and the rescue parties speedily released most of those trapped in the building.

Two children were in the house at the time – Janet Start and Patricia Clarke – both of whom received slight injuries and were taken to hospital for treatment.

Next door, where a dressmaking business was based, the house was demolished, and buried beneath the wreckage were two ladies. One, Mary Humphreys, aged 89, was quickly discovered, but was found dead.

The other, Jessie Green, who was buried under tons of debris, was found dead four hours later.

On the other side of the school, a nurses’ home had its windows and doors blown in and its roof damaged.

Other properties were also damaged in the area, with many roofs being broken by great lumps of clay which landed on them, with windows blown in and doors wrenched from their hinges.

Elizabeth and Joan were taken in by a local family who had two girls called Libby and Cherry Barker – day girls at the school.

Elizabeth said: “We stayed with them until my mother, who was busy driving stretcher parties around London after air raids, could make arrangements for us to stay with our grandparents at Sydenham Hill.

“I think we stayed on the farm for only five or six weeks. This was a terribly happy time where we had played cowboys and indians riding their horses, galloping around the place.”

The lone bomber did not put an end to the school, although it did relocate.

Elizabeth said: “Miss Foot, who was the head mistress, was a redoubtable Ann Widdecombe type.

She would not be defeated and set up the school in Alvestoke, Gosport.”