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I was a young schoolboy in London when the 2nd World War broke out, and was immediately evacuated by my parents to stay with relatives in South Wales where I spent the first Christmas of the war. Ironically on May 10th 1940 - the very day on which the 'Phoney War' ended and Germany invaded Belgium and Holland - I was brought back to London just in time to experience the Battle of Britain and the start of the Blitz. The air raids increased in frequency during the July and August and I remember hearing the rattle of machine gun fire and seeing the contrails in the sky as our fighter planes battled it out with the Luftwaffe. I also matched the orange glow in the night sky over Hampstead Heath as London Docks was first set ablaze - the fires visible for miles.
We all realised only too clearly the threat of invasion at this point, as government leaflets warning civilians what to do in the case of a German landing were sent to all households after the British evacuation from Dunkirk and the fall of France. My Father, who fought in the 1914-18 was also made an officer in the newly formed Home Guard and became involved in training the young Local Defence Volunteers.
Up to now it had not been too frightening, but things changed completely when the night air raids began in the late September. The air raid siren went off regularly at between 7.30 and 8 pm and my parents and I would leave the house and cross the road to the purpose-built shelter which we shared with our neighbours — three elderly ladies - and which was located in their back garden. From then on the nights became one long misery. The shelter, which was partly underground, had room only for a few chairs, but there was a kind of raised shelf on one wall where I was privileged to lie down and try to sleep. The noise of anti-aircraft fire was deafening and one could hear the occasional ping of shrapnel from the shells, which one found littering the garden path the next day and which was regularly collected by schoolboys as souvenirs. Had one been hit by even the smallest of these silver slivers of metal, one would have been seriously injured if not killed outright.
Up to now, in spite of the noise of the barrage, no bombs had fallen in our area of North London. Then one night we heard the roar of a German plane - we all had learned to recognise the throb of a Heinkel engine - there was a banshee-like scream. We instinctively ducked our heads and then came an explosion. One of our neighbours screamed and became hysterical until my Father slapped her across the cheek to make her snap out of it. 'Don't you dare scream in front of the boy', he said.
My Father, who had learnt to judge the distance of explosions in the trenches, said the bomb had landed at least 600 yards away. He was right.
Shortly afterwards the Air Raid Wardens in steel helmets came into the garden to make sure we were all right. They confirmed that the bomb had landed on a terrace house in a nearby street, killing five people.
After the 'all-clear' sounded at around 6 am we picked up our rugs and traipsed back home in the chilly dawn air to have a cup of tea and try to get a few winks of sleep. I hated the shelter. Its pungent tarry smell remains with me still. And I remember thinking, 'Dear God is it always going to be like this?'

With the Blitz clearly worsening, my Father decided to send me and my Mother again to Wales, this time to Pontypridd with his own sister and her husband.
By now, however, the night raids had spread to other British cities, and my Mother and I found ourselves in a local train returning from the Rhondda Valley the night the Germans carried out their massive raid on Swansea. The sky over the mountains was lit up by the fires. The whole centre of the Welsh city was destroyed that night and more than a thousand civilians were killed. My Mother and I sat in the stationary train terrified.
It was a journey I shall never forget.

My most graphic memory of the War was during the summer of 1944 during the period of the V Is — the Flying Bombs - or 'Doodlebugs' as we all began to call them. These fast rocket-propelled pilotless planes, which one heard but hardly ever saw in the sky, would fly overhead and them suddenly their engine would cut out and within seconds there would be the most deafening explosion. Londoners like myself soon got used to them and there was a rush to acquire one of the new self-assembly Morrison steel table shelters which one had inside the house, not outdoors. I put up a number of them for friends and neighbours and I still have a letter from our doctor in Hendon dated August 1944 for - as he put it 'fixing the mousetrap'.

The memory in question is of a day at what was about the end of June 1944 when my school Army Cadet Corps (we then called it the Junior Training Corps) was holding its annual Field Day in Radlett in Hertfordshire. We were about to take part in a platoon attack, watched over by several Regular Army officers when a whistle blew and our commanding officer - the physics master - suddenly bellowed, 'Take cover, take cover'.
We all dived to the ground, which was on the top of a hill just overlooking the village, when I saw a sight that I will remember all my life. A flying bomb, belching flames from its exhaust, was hurtling straight towards me while immediately behind it were two RAF Beaufighters, desperately angling close in to it to try and shoot it down. But the VI was flying at more than 450 mph and they were unable to catch it. I lay on the grass transfixed while this demon from hell tore towards me almost at hilltop altitude, coming eventually so close that I felt I could almost touch it. It was in fact probably about 500 yards from me. My heart was pounding and I only prayed that it would not explode as it passed, especially if the fighters managed to get a shot at it. I could hardly believe what was happening. But then, within seconds, the monster, still gushing flames, roared past and I realised it was moving away from Radlett in a north westerly direction. Minutes later I heard its engine cut and the explosion followed. We found out later that it had landed on a house in Kings Langley, killing an entire family. In many ways that day for me conjures my most terrifying moment of the Second World War.

I have another clear memory of the War, the significance of which I did not realise at the time it happened.
On what was, I think, the last day of May 1944 I had set out on my newly acquired bicycle to attempt a 100 mile ride. My route took me from Hendon in Middlesex, where I lived, through Staines and along the A30 towards Camberley in Surrey. In those days there was hardly any traffic on the roads apart from the odd military vehicle. Cars were almost non-existent. I carried on down the empty A30 until the road began to rise gently towards Blackbush Heath. I then realised there was a wooden barrier erected across the road immediately in front of me with three American Army military police acting as sentries. I pulled up and pushed my bike towards them, asking why the road was closed. They replied that they could not let me through as this was now a prohibited military area. I stood there, looking pathetic and claiming — rightly — that I wanted to get to Odiham and this was the only route I knew. They looked a bit embarrassed and after a brief consultation with an officer, a sergeant appeared who told them 'OK, alright, let the kid through'.
The barrier was raised and I gratefully cycled through, thanking the Yanks as I passed.
I then saw the most extraordinary sight. The whole area was crawling with tanks and vehicles. Jets of flame were belching out of long pipes, which I took to be some kind of flare path, as aircraft were also taxiing through the area. There were quite a number of soldiers and also some field guns. Obviously a major military encampment. It was only days
later that I realised that I had been watching part of the build-up of men and equipment for D-Day and the Normandy Invasion, which was to take place barely one week later. Not many people would have been permitted to see what I, an innocent British school boy, was able to witness. Every time since that I have driven down the road that passes Blackbush Airport, I find myself trying to visualise what it all looked like just sixty years ago.

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