大象传媒

On September 3rd, 1939 I was a nine-and-a-half year old schoolboy living in London and well remember Mr. Chamberlain's radio speech telling us that since no reply to Britain's ultimatum regarding withdrawal of the German forces from Poland had been received, we were now at war with Germany.

My father had been a soldier in World War 1 and it seemed that most of my family remembered that poison gas had been used in that war and thought it would be used again. People everywhere were hanging up damp blankets at windows and doors in their houses, as it was thought that this measure would stop any gas seeping into the house. Whether this preventative measure would have worked or not is anybody's guess!

Shortly after 11 am on that Sunday morning the air raid siren sounded and suddenly aircraft were heard approaching. Instead of ducking for cover, people ran outside into the street to see what was happening. Two Spitfires flying fairly low were receding into the distance just as we caught sight of them overhead.

I was a Cub Scout at the time and helped collect pots and pans, iron railings and any other metal British householders could spare which was used to make ammunition. When I later graduated to the Boy Scouts, I spent time on rooftops with a stirrup pump and a bucket of water looking out for fires. Many of us also volunteered at the local hospital where my aunt was a nurse, becoming 'air raid victims' on which nurses could practice their first aid skills. Being carried on a stretcher is a strange experience, but even worse were the multiple bandages we were bound up in, pretending to be bleeding from various parts of our bodies or having splints strapped to a leg or an arm.

My bike was my main means of transportation and I rode to school every day. Not likeing school very much, if the air raid siren sounded whilst I was on my way to school, I would turn around and ride all the way back home, even if I was practically at the school gates, as an air raid was a valid excuse for being absent!

Combing the streets we youngsters all collected pieces of shrapnel from the anti-aircraft shells; found fins from burned-out incendiary bombs in the parks and occasionally we would finds pieces of German aircraft, some with printing on them. We often found unexploded nose cones from the shells, clips of machine-gun ammunition and other 'trophies' which were highly prized and avidly traded. One piece I was never able to see lodged itself in my knee during a bombing raid and is still there since the doctors did not think it worthwhile to open up my leg to remove such a tiny piece. I vividly remember it burning like a red-hot poker as it bit deep into my leg.

The first few nights of the Blitz were spent in an Anderson shelter at the bottom of our garden. However, with six people and a dog trying to sleep it became a hopeless exercise, especially when the dog would howl at the noise of the planes and guns. We then tried sleeping under a marble billiard table in our living room, but that too was very uncomfortable and within about a week or so we were all back upstairs and sleeping in our own beds.

As a member of the RAF shortly after the war ended I saw first hand what the allied bombing of Germany had done to that country and was horrified. The experience in England was bad enough, but I certainly am glad I lived in London during those years and not in Hamburg, Dresden or Berlin.

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