"There were two or three theatres going. The big one mostly for taking limbs off. But the first casualties were firemen with burns .The incendiaries dropped first, starting fires, and of course they could explode in your face. I had to use a knife to excise the edges of a woman's head wound - she's been in the pantry and something fell on her. When I'd finished stitching her up I walked her to the nurses' home where we'd had to evacuate some of the patients. They were all lying there on stretchers and she said 'I'm not going in there near all the dead'. So I had to get them all to put their hands up to show they weren't . The hospital itself didn't get much damage, though it suffered very badly in April. In November we lost the laundry and the medical stores and there was  direct hit on matron's quarters but she wasn't there."

Gladys 'Spenny' Spencer, a nurse at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital.