Bombed Off Her Bicycle

Heroes Remember - The Second World War

Bombed Off Her Bicycle

Transcript

I was out in a private home and it was very near Coventry and I had a funny thing happen to me. I had to have a bicycle because I lived quite a long distance from the hospital, another girl and I, and we used to have to go to the hospital whenever there was a raid and that would be every clear night. And this night I was pedaling furiously to get there and I used to have little shortcuts down little roads. And one bomb came down pretty close to me to knock me off my bicycle and covered me with earth and I was so surprised to have a man standing beside me hauling me up and saying, "Are you alright?" He had followed me, knowing where I was going and that I might need help. I thanked him and he said, "You know, I can only hope that someone will be as kind to my daughter when she needs help."

Description

Ms. Carter describes attempting to reach her hospital during a bombing raid on Coventry, England. She is thrown from her bicycle by a nearby exploding bomb.

Doris Carter

Doris Carter was born in Birkenhead, England on June 9, 1910. Her family emigrated to Woodstock, New Brunswick and in 1932 she enrolled in Nursing at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal. Ms. Carter graduated in 1935, and was recruited to a wartime surgical team, prior to the war's onset. On November 30, 1940 she went overseas with #1 Military Hospital to nurse civilians injured in the bombings of Coventry and Birmingham. Ms. Carter was then sent to the Mediterranean with #5 Military Hospital. She served in North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Northwestern Europe. After the war, Ms. Carter pursued a career in Public Health Nursing.

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