大象传媒

When I was ten years old,we heard the solemn news over our radio in September 1939 of Prime Minister Chamberlain announcing that war had begun,which was exciting to me as a boy,however, I was rebuked for what amounted to my frivolity of such a serious matter. We lived as a family of five Children at a village called Chaldon Surrey, that is about three miles from the Guards Barracks at Caterham, and maybe four miles from a fighter aerodrome called Kenley, which was destined to play a vital part later in the Battle of Britain as a fighter station.
One could hear the sounds from the famous Caterham Barracks like orders being shouted and small arms practice fire quite well when the wind was in the right direction during peacetime, so we were used to these sounds, as well as Aircraft flying from Kenley which were mostly biplane fighters.(maybe Bristol Bulldogs or similar).

I had no idea what was in store for my own war to come, the first shock of the reality of war, was one summer Sunday at lunch time when the air raid sirens sounded,soon afterwards we heard the roar of aircraft, when we came out of the front door of our house into the garden, we saw German bombers at just above roof top height, their black crosses were very clear and most vividly, one could actually see the crew in their seats. This attack caused many casuaties at Croydon which is about ten miles from our home. I should add that we lived on the North Downs and our house was about seven hundred feet above sea level.

As the war progressed, we endured the air raids, and as well as our local bombing, we suffered a great amount of the traffic heading towards the London area. The sound of enemy bomber engines became very familiar, I now wonder if the Germans deliberately gave them a special note to create more fear for us. One night,I remember watching the searchlights scanning the night sky when two beams fixed on an enemy aircraft in the form of a cross, the local anti aircraft guns hit the plane and I saw a wing become detached and the wreckage came down in Upper Caterham in a small park.

My Mother was always very reluctant to go to the air raid shelter, however, on one particular night it was very noisy and she said we would go into the garden shelter, as we emerged from our house, I saw a bright light on the ground about half a mile away and in the glare of the light I saw the crew of a bomber coming down in their parachutes,, their aircraft had almost landed itself in Queens park in Upper Caterham,it skidded across the park into some Bungalows and set them alight. The German Pilot demanded an Officer of equal rank to arrest him and in good English he said he knew where he was since he was an ex Civil airways pilot and used to come to Croydon regularly.

Things slowly hotted up with daylight and night raids, I remember standing in a queue at a Fish Shop, when there was an air raid warning, we could hear that planes were coming, I could either stay in the queue or lose my place by taking to the shelter, I nervously stayed put, I should add that by this time I became quite nervous of the air raids. On occasions,Soldiers would knock on our door to say that they would be firing their mobile Bofors anti aircraft guns at the verge outside our house frontage and would we open windows to prevent breakage. When they were firing,the noise was awful.

The Battle of Britain dog fights over our heads were a daily occurrence and we saw some amazing sights, it was hard for me to comprehend that men were risking and losing their lives, there were countless spent cartridges in the garden. On one occasion, we saw a parachutist being circled and machine gunned by a German fighter. We had many Canadian soldiers stationed in camps around us, and we heard that they vowed to hang the next next German that came down and it was said that they did do that. Later in life,I told an ex fighter Pilot this story and he said to my surprise that it`s the enemy Pilot you are after, not just the machine, because the Pilot can fly to fight another day. A Spitfire made a successful landing in the twenty acre field behind our house and was taken away on a vehicle called a "Queen Mary".
During one raid, an unexploded bomb landed in the field about 100 yards behind our house, this took about three weeks to dig out by hand by the bomb disposal men. The bomb weighed a ton and with fins,it measured thirteen feet tall, it was exhibited in a shop in Caterham Valley for the remainder of the war to raise money for the war effort.

I was scheduled to go to South Africa for evacuation, but this did not happen because the vessel was sunk, so, for the time being my Mother sent me to the local School at Caterham on the Hill. One day, there was no air raid warning, and just after leaving the School gates with many other children, I heard a heavy aircraft engine noise above in the low cloud, then machine gun fire, the bullets were all round us but it took a few moments for me to realise this, the constant cracking sound rather like cap guns, was in fact bullets hitting the ground, its a sound you never forget, there was a number of immediate bomb explosions, one in the middle of Chaldon Road that I was in, but further ahead up the road, which killed our grocer Mr Medwin who came out to the door of his corner shop at where the bomb fell, another bomb landed outside the gates of the Guards Barracks nearby, by that time I panicked and ran up to a house and I knocked on the door and the people let me come in to take shelter. A German bomber was brought down that same day which I beleive was the same one described hitherto. Fighter planes from Kenley were scrambled, and I was told that one fighter literally flew up the exhaust pipe of the enemy aircraft and shot it down,it crashed on White Hill Chaldon about two miles from my home. A few days later a friend and I decided to go to the scene of the crash hoping to find souvenirs, access to the scene was along an unmade lane where we were confronted by an RAF Regiment guard who told us that we could go no further and no nearer to the crash,however, after hanging around,and chatting to the guard who was quite obviously bored,he said that they were still picking up bits of bodies, then he showed us a sack of human remains, the first that I had ever seen, he then showed us a head under a bush, and a little further along I saw a large machine gun lying on the grass verge with the hands still attached. I remember thinking to my self, I wonder if those hands were the hands firing down at the other Children and me, we collected our bits of souvenirs and went home. I had many bad nights afterwards.

On another occasion,I was in the town of Redhill Surrey when an air raid warning sounded, I heard what sounded like an enemy plane, the bowler-hatted man in front of me looked up, then so did I and I saw the bomber and incredibly enough I saw two bombs leaving the aircraft, then I looked down again, the man in front of me was lying down in the gutter, so I followed suit.

One of my older Brothers and I decided to go to the pictures at Redhill which was seven miles from our home. There was a single decker hourly bus service and in order to catch the last bus home we had to miss a bit of the film, there was no air raid warning at the time, we tried for the rear seat without success, when the bus reached Merstham, it was just moving away from the bus stop when there was an awful explosion, my head was thrown back and I saw the night sky with masses of sparks going skywards, the roof was blown off, then a deadly hush, then the Conductor started singing which seemed amazing to me, someone switched on a torch and I saw lots of bits of glass and debris and blood on the floor,I was not sitting with my Brother, so I immediately panicked to find him,when I did, he was slumped in the seat and he was momentarily unconscious because he came to when I shook him, one of the silver vertical hand supports had hit him.

What had occurred, was that a parachute land mine weighing about a ton had come down, and the bus was between the bomb and a church opposite the bus stop. The church was almost demolished and on both the bus and in nearby houses there were casualties. A message was sent to our Mother via the Police, when the village Bobby cycled to our house, he said to our Mother "did you have two sons that were coming home on the bus", my Mother nearly fainted. The Canadian Soldiers rebuilt a small part of the church for the local community which they continued to use for years.

On the lighter side, a friend and I were scrumping apples in an orchard near Chaldon church, when we discovered a fresh hole in the ground that we thought was made by an unexploded bomb, after a search of our consciences, we decided to go to the Police, we traded the information on agreement that no questions would be asked, later the bomb was removed.

The `Doodle Bugs` were a shock to us, one morning we heard a loud explosion and a little later that day, one of our neighbours came round to tell us that a flying bomb had landed on a peice of waste ground a few yards from the Clifton Arms pub killing a passer by. We soon learned that Hitler was supposed to have eighteen thousand flying bombs. I started to count those passing over us and became tired of counting at around seven hundred, quite a number came down in the vicinty of Caterham. I remember one occasion quite vividly, I was out later than I should be one night, and my Mother was in bed, she was giving me a long telling off in her bedroom in which there was a large wardrobe with a long oval mirror, in the mirror I could see the red glow of a doodle bug coming from the left, I tried to interrupt my Mother, but she still carried on.. the doodle bug engine cut out and it came down in the village of Chaldon. A young neighbour and I went to the scene next day fearing it had come down on a house of a mutual friend of ours who was quite eccentric, he travelled about on a motorcycle combination, and his Jack Russell dog used to sit in the side car. We arrived at the place where our friends house had once been, the bomb landed in his garden and his wooden house was matchwood,anyhow, he greeted us to our delight complete with J/R and he said that he didn`t like the sound of the doodle bug and took to his garden shelter in the nick of time.
We began to notice that when you could hear the buzz of a doodle bug for a long time, and getting gradually louder, it was going to come directly overhead and when it did pass overhead, the noise was deafening and the house and windows would rattle, no doubt the Germans varied the compass settings, but they seemed to follow a regular pattern of flight overall, thankfully, we didn't have overhead ones every day, when they came, you held your breath wondering if their engine would cut out which meant serious trouble. In the course of time they were very nerve racking. I remember one summer afternoon when a number of doodle bugs were coming over, one of our fighters managed to dive at an angle firing tracer bullets which we could actually see hitting the doodle bug without success. I believe that most of our aircraft could not keep up with them in terms of a chase.

The V2 Rockets were very unpleasant, because there were no warnings sounded, they just arrived at will, I remember seeing a newspaper picture showing a double decker bus in a V2 crater. Thankfully, no V2 Rockets landed in our immediate area.

We had about two acres of land attached to our house, and we kept some poultry, my Mother asked me one afternoon, to walk to a poultry farm about three miles from our house to collect some chicks, I had to go along a lane of about a mile without any houses, doodle bugs started coming overhead, and they were fired at by three Bofors anti aircraft guns at a site nearby in Willey Lane, I could hear the shrapnell falling and I was more in fear of that than the doodle bugs, I ran as fast as I could to a Pub called the Harrow Inn, I went through the open door and found everyone in the cellar, so I joined them.

My younger Sister and Brother were evacuated, my two older Brothers joined the army and became paratroopers, I became the general factotem for general maintenance at home.

Our Stepfather was away in the army for three and a half years in the Reconnaissance Corps, he landed in North Africa, went across the desert, landed in Sicily, then Italy and on into Germany. We had high hopes for all the things we would do when the war ended, he survived the war,and three days before he was due to arrive home for good, a little brown postcard from the War Office landed on the mat advising that he had been killed in a traffic accident, it was a very cold snowy Feruary day, the shock was devastating, my Mother aged very much in the following years, she never got over the awful loss. Worse was to come, because almost exactly four years later, she too was killed in a road accident as a pedestrian in our own road. I was very close to my Mother and found the loss very hard to bear for many years.

I consider myself very fortunate to have been a survivor of the war and my own experience is humbling compared to those less fortunate, and more especially those who lost their lives.

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