During the war, Michael Kennerk worked for a gas company called Woodall and Duckhams in Peterborough. His job involved casing the inside of gas towers in brick and every Friday, his family eagerly awaited a registered company letter with his wages. To help the war effort, his wife Josephine was taken from her job and put into a munitions factory. One day, as the foreman walked past her he muttered, ‘the Black and Tans didn’t do enough to you Irish’. She had to be restrained from hitting him with a soldering iron!
The family returned to Dublin in 1941 and settled in Newcomen Avenue on the North Strand. On the night of 30 May, Josephine was woken from her sleep by a dull drone. From her experiences of the blitz in England, she immediately recognised the sound as belonging to low-flying German Bombers but there was no time to react. A couple of minutes later, the windows of the little house were blown in and glass covered the bedroom. She walked up as far as Newcomen Bridge over the Royal Canal and was astounded to see the deep crater that the bombs had left