大象传媒

This story was submitted by David Durow to the People's War team in Wales and is added to the site with his permission.

At one stage 鈥� when I was about eight - my mother鈥檚 nerves had got bad so my father sent us out to a little tiny village where my aunt was staying. It was a very primitive place. It was very lonely there was no water, gas, electricity or sewerage. We had paraffin lamps for light, we had a wood stove for cooking on. We had a pump which provided the water and the toilet was a bucket at the bottom of the garden. One afternoon my cousin and I were walking down this tiny country lane, and in Hampshire there was lots of flint around on the surface 鈥nd we heard an aircraft. We looked up and there flying around the treetops was a German Dornier bomber 鈥� a big black twin-engined job. And as we looked up we could see the pilot quite clearly, and the gunner quite clearly. And the gunner saw us and he suddenly swung his machine gun and started firing at us. I was fascinated by the bullets coming along the road hitting all the flint鈥nd it was a strange effect because time seemed to stand still. It was almost like looking at the world slightly out of focus and the colours were dull鈥nd when that happens, suddenly all the colours become brilliantly clear and your vision becomes precise 鈥nd I could see the sparks coming up off the flints, and I could see all different colours in them and there were different shellbursts and I was absolutely fascinated by this 鈥� it must have happened only for a split second, because my cousin and I dived into a ditch and the plane went over. And as we were looking鈥uddenly from nowhere鈥t was almost as if there was the Dornier on its own and the next split second there were two Spitfires on its tail and the Spitfires were so close to it that I thought the propellers were chewing up the tail of the German aircraft but it must have been bullets that were hitting it and flying off鈥�.and it weaved off and disappeared over the trees and we heard this tremendous crash and a big column of black smoke went up and that was the end of him. And when I told my mother about it, my mother said: 鈥淥h鈥ell we鈥檇 be safer in Portsmouth, at least there鈥檚 some defences there鈥�. But I think really she was secretly pleased to get away from the primitive conditions she was living in!

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