“I noticed that a girder had come down from above and crushed my two companions, but that the curve of it had just cleared me, and held up the other debris from crushing me. What an escape but escape from what, I wonder, for I am in a living tomb. Fear takes hold of me, and I join my shouts again with those poor wounded and dying, but little did realise the depth of the ruins above us. No one from outside could hear our cries.”

- Frank Hilley, Small Heath, Birmingham. November 19th 1940