大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Peter Barrington and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I served the last six months of the war with the Royal Observer Corps at the observation post in Herne Bay, Kent. This post had a magnificent view of about 300 degrees over the Thames Estuary. As a part-time boy observer, I was asked to complete at least three four-hour duty shifts per week, although I often did extra to this. The pay for a sixteen-year-old boy was the magnificent 9d per hour plus extra rations so that one could buy tea, butter and bacon.

Incorporated into the observation post was a concrete shelter, in which was a coke stove, which never went out and was used for making tea and toast at frequent intervals.

There were thousands of aircraft flying over the North Kent coast at this time. The task was to report their movements to the ROC control room at Maidstone, where selected information was passed on to the Royal Air Force.

There was little enemy activity at this time (winter of 1945), although the German reconnaissance aircraft overflew at very high levels every day. These were fast jets that were virtually ignored.

The main concern was to assist aircraft in distress, especially British and American Bombers returning from raids damaged or out of communication. There was what was known as a 'crash runway' at RAF Manstone, about ten miles away. Damaged aircraft were encouraged to land there, as fire and medical services were on standby twenty-four hours a day.

There were still several instances of air-launched flying bombs. They started with a magnificent flash that lit up the whole sky over the North Sea. Also, in the early mornings, I'd see the vapour-trails of the V2 Rockets fired from Holland as they went up vertically into the sky. One evening, one of these dropped in the sea about 200 yards away from the ROC post. Fortunately, it didn't cause any damage, but it must have killed a lot of fish!

The Royal Observer Corps was stood-down at midday on the twelfth of May 1945. It had started operation on the 24th August 1939. (It came back again six months later and stood down completely in December 1996.)

One of the items of uniform issued was a pair of rubber Wellington boots, which at this time of the war were unobtainable by any means. It was with great reluctance that I had to hand them back with the rest of my uniform, as I had to buy a second-hand pair to replace them!

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