On the nights of 13th and 14th March 1941, Luftwaffe crews in Heinkels of the elite KGr 100 Bomber Group wreaked havoc and devastation on the Clydeside town of Clydebank. The town never fully recovered. The events are forever etched on the memories of the many survivors. Starting with the terrifying wail of sirens echoing through the Clyde Valley, replaced minutes later by the dreaded sound of heavily-laden bombers approaching. The bombers spread to mark their targets. The merciless bombing started; people ran to safety; Clydebank began to burn.

Over the years Erskine Veterans have shared their memories, here is what they said.

John lived in a house at the top end of Kilbowie Road. He vividly remembers his front living room window frame, complete with glass, being blown into the room and narrowly missing his father. And when an incendiary bomb went through the roof and landed in the attic he went with a bucket full of sand to extinguish it. He will never forget the devastation and how it affected everyday life.

Fires ran rampant through the town at the Yoker and Auchentoshan Distilleries, the Singer Sewing Machine works, John Brown & Company’s shipyard, Beardmore’s engine works, Aitchison Blair engineering as well as fires on nearly every street - the emergency services were overwhelmed. A bomb, leaving a crater 30 feet wide by 20 feet deep, had severed the town’s water main in the early hours of the raid and cut fire-fighting supplies. Immediate assistance from neighbouring services was made impossible by the craters and collapsed buildings which blocked roads. For nine hours, wave after wave of bombers mercilessly pounded the town. Into the night, the deaths and destruction mounted. Dawn broke, the all clear sounded, and Clydebank's shocked citizens emerged from their shelters into an unrecognisable smashed and burning town.

Jim remembered his father coming home from work at 8.45pm to their house in Bannerman Street, just before the sirens started. “We never went into the shelter as it was damp” instead Jim and his family, along with the rest of the close’s occupants sheltered in the ground floor flat’s hallway. They were there all night. When his neighbour took a chance to run back up the stairs to fetch something, he saw a flickering through the glass over the Barclay family’s front door. On fetching Jim’s father they found an incendiary bomb. “My father got a sand bag and kicked the incendiary bomb down on to the landing so it couldn’t burn on solid concrete, and that saved our building. The building across the street was on fire. This bomb came right down on the gable end and it sheared its way right down and you could still see the pots and pans in the kitchen on the cooker.

Being blown up the stairwell of the close of her tenement block when a bomb exploded in the backyard was Jeans vivid memory. When Jean and her friend ventured out the next day they found, the gas mains in Kilbowie Road were on fire and the water mains were burst. Sadly Jean’s friends home had been bombed and her family bussed to the refuge of Helensburgh across the water.

Margaret was 19 years-old at the time of the Clydebank Blitz and lived in Edmund Street in Dennistoun, Glasgow with her parents and younger brother. "When the siren went off, my mum, brother and me all ran down to the air raid shelter which was in the abattoir in the Glasgow Meat Market in Melbourne Street, we were there all night. When we got home the next morning, my dad who worked in an engineering firm, Dawson and Downie in Clydebank, wasn’t home. Turns out he spent the night in a shelter in Clydebank due to the bombing. When he eventually got home on the second night, he said that the Germans had dropped bombs on the hills at Mountblow, the hills were on fire and a lot of the area had been flattened, it was dreadful.”

Charles was visiting his cousins in Glasgow when the bombing started. He recalls that not all the bombs hit their targets with one landing near Partick railway station which damaged nearby tenements. He remembers the block being split into two – one side rubble and the remaining side was left with rooms visible and a bath dangling precariously with the tap still running. He always said that the scene vividly showed the horrors of war and it left a lasting memory.

Sydney recounted: “When we were young my dad used to tell us that he worked as a messenger boy for the Partick Fire Station, he was just 15 years old at the time of the Blitz. In those days the messenger boys used a bicycle. Dad got the job as the previous messenger boy died from his injuries during The Clydebank Blitz. Our dad always remembered him and spoke of him often. He told us that on the night of the bombings Partick Fire Station was one of five stations in the city that received a direct hit during the bombing raids. A young messenger boy Neil Leitch (15) accompanied a Senior Fire Officer out of the area, but was sent back to Partick Fire Station with a request for assistance during an air raid. He was injured on his return to the station but continued on route. He was further injured but again, insisted that he continued with his message. Sadly he later died from his injuries. What a brave young boy he was! Our dad also remembered one of the ships on the Clyde being hit by an incendiary bomb. The bomb - went down the funnel of the ship and fortunately it didn't go off'.

On the 14th the evacuation started; 48,000 refugees were spread afar, with many never to return to Clydebank. The town was still burning that evening, when the bombers returned to a near deserted town to complete their task. When the drone of the last bomber had faded, 528 lay dead and over 617 had been seriously injured. Many hundreds more were wounded by shards of exploded glass. Clydebank had been razed to the ground.

The memories of the Blitz live on and quite rightly should never be forgotten. The Clydebank children in the years that followed listened to stories passed down from great grandparents and grandparents who survived those horrific nights, a fact to which Erskine Social Media Officer Luisaidh Davidson can attest to: “Growing up in Clydebank, the Blitz was something we were always aware of. We learned about it in primary school but most people’s grandparents had lived through it so we heard the stories first-hand. My gran would often talk about the war, and the Blitz in particular. The bombing started 2 nights after her 13th birthday. Her and her family were at home at the time, and her dad happened to glance out of a window upstairs, and whether he saw something or just had a bit of a sixth sense, he told the family he felt there might be bombing coming, so they started to leave just as the sirens started and bombs begin to fall. Within minutes, much of Clydebank was an inferno, with buildings reduced to rubble and many already dead. My gran told me that as her family were running to the shelter, she could hear a family of her neighbours screaming as they were trapped in their house as it burned. I can only imagine the trauma of the Blitz on anyone who experienced it, let alone a child having to hear that. I know those nights stayed with her for the rest of her life, and the vivid memories never faded.”

Today Erskine remembers Clydebank and those who lived through what has become known as simply the Clydebank Blitz.

To find out more about Erskine’s work please visit our website at www.erskine.org.uk, follow on twitter @ErskineCharity via Facebook www.facebook.com/ErskineVeteransCharity or listen to Erskine Veterans Radio at Erskine.org.uk/radio or Paisley FM 107.5