It was supposed to be a move to spare two young lives the horrors of the Blitz. Giacomo Ferrari had his two young sons, John and his younger brother evacuated from the family home in Portsmouth. Their new home was in Limerstone, near Shorwell on the Isle of Wight. The area is in the southern part of the island about three miles from the Military Road that spans much of the south. Both boys had previously attended St Luke’s School in Portsmouth.

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The Isle of Wight was on the flightpath for German aircraft when the important docks in Southampton and the naval establishments in Portsmouth were to be bombed. There would be bombs dropped on the island with bombers jettisoning their bombs or missing other intended targets. The island was also bombed in the early part of the Blitz as Ventnor Radar Station was attacked with later deliberate raids on Cowes and Shanklin.

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John joined the Auxiliary Fire Service as a messenger boy. He had three month’s service under his belt and was stationed at the Shorwell Wardens’ Post on 5th April 1941. He was accompanied by Warden H Barnes.

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At 1.45pm incendiary bombs rained down about a mile away. John and the Warden set off on their bicycles, covering the distance in a few minutes.

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On arrival they immediately dealt several incendiaries in a pig-sty adjoining a farm cottage, then turned their hand to extinguishing those that had landed in a nearby field. Little did they know some of these were of the exploding type.

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As John was tackling one of these, by turning on to them with a pitchfork and had successfully extinguished quite few when all of a sudden he plunged to the ground unconscious. Warden Barnes immediately set off for medical help to no avail.

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The tragedy was reported in the Portsmouth Evening News later that day, the article stating that John was hit by a fragment from an anti-aircraft shell. Warden Barnes was the only witness to the death there is no mention of a fragment of anti-aircraft shell in the source I have, indirectly from Warden Barnes.

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A service for John was held in the parish church in Shorwell. John’s family attended along with many members of the Civil Defence, including seventy from the island’s Fire Service, plus representatives from John’s School in Portsmouth.