"The start was a Saturday afternoon [September 7, the very first day of the blitz] when they bombed the docks and set light to them," Kathy recalls.
On that day, 116 B-29s were dispatched to bomb the Empire Dock area at Singapore's southern tip.
It bombed the Najin docks only 17 mile south of the Siberian border and 10 mile from Vladivostok.
Liverpool's blitz was second only to London's and got a lot less newsreel coverage because of the propaganda value for the Germans of knowing how badly the docks had been bombed.
Instead, Joan and her sisters, mum and brother live through the Blitz, close enough to the docks to hear the bombing.
Bombing, the waning of manufacturing, the closure of the docks and government policies designed to reduce the city's dominance were responsible.
Bombing raids brought major loss of life as the German Air Force targeted the docks at Swansea, Cardiff and Pembroke.
Coventry was bombed, for the factories making tanks etc, Plymouth, Swansea and Southampton because of the docks, to name but a few places.
"Refugees thronged the docks.
