大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from CSV Berkshire, Amy Williams, on behalf of Doug Bukin and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When the war was declared on 3rd September 1939 I was 10 years old. I lived in the east end of London with my parents.

We loved the barrage balloons. They arrived on a lorry-driven winch. They looked like great big silver whales in the sky but they protected us from low dive-bombers, who if they dived low and close could have a wing cut off by the cable. They were probably about three or four hundred feet up.

Occasionally the actual barrage balloon was shot down. Although they were full of hydrogen they didn't explode but gradually burst into flame and then slowly drifted down like a burning smouldering tissue paper. They just slowly came down. When the cable came down, there was about three or four hundred feet of cable falling to ground, that could be quite dangerous to those who might be underneath it so you had to watch out for that.

I always liked the barrage balloons. There were lots of them around. They'd go up and down during the day. They'd quite often drive them to another location. You might find that you had a barrage balloon one day and next day it's gone or you might have three, depending on where was vulnerable to attack. They were probably about three or four hundred feet up. They were a protection for us too.

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