大象传媒

. W---------
W------ was a bit slow or perhaps "not as quick as he could be鈥� but he meant well and in 1939 with a rush of patriotism joined the local territorial unit the 324th coy 31st S/L batn
(6th City of London Rifles) Royal Engineers T.A. ( I was in the same unit having joined in 1938 on my 15th birthday by putting my age up)
W------- and I were on a searchlight site in the autumn of 1940 that was roughly half way between London and the south coast approximately at the junction of Kent Surrey and Sussex. The site was known as 鈥淭he Pigs鈥�( being next door to a piggery) My job as a L/Cpl. was 2i/c of the detachment,controlling the sound locator and the AA Lewis gun. The equipment we had was originally designed in the 14-18 war which may have been fairly effective against Zeppelins and Gotha bombers in 1918 but was not very effective against Dorniers and Hienkels in 1940 The site was in a night fighter zone, unfortunately, our illumination rate was about 1% and the night fighters if operating at all were usually slower than the bombers. The kill rate was pretty low.
Anyway W------- and Tubby were manning the sound locator and I was directing the searchlight. At about 2am with a heavy raid on London there was a short spell when the Germans stopped for a coffee break and there were no aircraft about. W------ suddenly turned to me and said 鈥淚鈥檝e gotta go鈥� so I said well W-------- 鈥淚f you鈥檝e gotta go you鈥檝e gotta go but don鈥檛 take a comic鈥�. The loo was about 100 yards away shaped like a sentry box with corrugated iron on one side and front,presumably, not to embarrass the cows( or keep the wind off).I should add there were no lights or moon except for the glow of the dock fires in London.
A few minutes later the first bomber of the next wave came over and presumably seeing the AA fire over London decided to go for his secondary target. We were convinced was an area marked 鈥渃amp鈥� in old English on ordnance survey maps indicating a historical site, unfortunately, this was exactly the location of the 鈥淧igs鈥� S/L site.He unloaded a stick of bombs including a basket of about 200 2 kilogramme incendiary bombs on us Fortunately the H,E,bombs fell in open fields but the incendiaries fell across the site which kept us very busy dumping sandbags on them to put them out. Suddenly somebody shouted 鈥淲here鈥檚 W------?鈥� everybody having forgotten about him in the confusion. Looking around us we saw a glow from the loo. 鈥淢y God W-------!鈥� Three of us rushed up there and on rounding the corner there was W--------illuminated by the lurid light of an incendiary bomb, standing on the seat with his trousers around his ankles screaming for help with the incendiary bomb burning where his feet should have been, Unfortunately this appeared so funny that we all fell about laughing.Which of course set W------off and he started abusing us and shouting 鈥淕et me out of here you lousy bastards etc etc.鈥� Fortunately one of us came to our senses and dumped a sandbag on the bomb.鈥滱ll right W------ you can come out now鈥� 鈥渂ut I can鈥檛 move my legs鈥� 鈥淧ull your bloody trousers up then W------鈥� 鈥淚 can鈥檛 it might go off when I bend down鈥� 鈥測ou鈥檒l be a bloody sight worse if it goes off with your trousers down鈥� Anyway he wouldn鈥檛 move, so, dumping two more sandbags on the bomb (we were equally scared that it might go off) Two of us went in and pulled up W------鈥檚 trousers then with great difficulty we managed to get W------ out of his predicament. Although we got him into bed with a cup of tea (there was nothing stronger), poor W------ was shattered. We sent him back to HQ the next morning on the ration truck and that was pretty well the last we saw of W-------. Although we did hear that it took the M.O several days and a number of pills to get W------ to go. I often wonder,even today, what happened to W------who may have been one of the early casualties of what is now known as鈥� Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome鈥�.After 60 odd years I wtll probably never know.

Note:- the two kilogramme incendiary bomb had a small charge
under the sheet metal tail fin to either spread the fire or incapacitate anybody trying to put it out. One usually approached them with a sandbag in front of you covering your vital parts

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