大象传媒

1940
My small bedroom was over the porch. We could just see Shooters Hill at Woolwich, which rises from the right bank of the Thames there. Each evening as darkness fell, an air raid warning siren would begin to wail far off, quickly followed by our noisy local ones, and all was set for the usual nightly raid. We would watch the distant searchlights scanning the sky over the River, and see the bright sparks of shells bursting in the sky. The throbbing of the approaching bombers would gradually increase, and nearer and nearer would the shells fly into the sky to burst, and rain their shrapnel back onto the suffering suburbs. I never saw a German bomber actually explode in the sky, but no doubt many were damaged.
Once the raid was established and the roar of the planes was overhead and our local guns firing, we would collect downstairs in the hall, just inside the front door. The staircase is the strongest part of a house, and small windows do not shatter as easily as large ones, or shed so much broken glass.
At this stage, we had Great Aunt Mimie staying with us. She was 86 years old, and did not approve of air raids, but she did not panic. When the bombers got very near, we would fetch her down from her room to join us in the hall. We soon learned to distinguish the various sounds: Shells make a swishing sound as they go up; there is then a silent pause followed by a cluster of explosions high in the sky. A falling H.E. bomb sounds quite different from an ascending shell. It has a fierce, intensifying whine, ending in one loud explosion, and the impact reaches you through the ground.
Very occasionally, a bomb would fail to explode, and it was very unnerving to hear the whine, perhaps feel some impact, and then be left explosionless. Many of these D/A (delayed action) bombs were intentionally so, and exploded some hours later. Others, of course, were duds. In either case they were a great trouble to the gallant Bomb Disposal men and to everyone nearby. The drill of evacuation and so on when a bomb is to be detonated is all too familiar after ten years of Irish troubles and needs no repetition here.
One evening, when Mother, Dad, Aunt Mimie and I were together in the hall, poor Mimie was afflicted, like the Duchess in the Limerick, with long and embarrassing abdominal rumblings, not unlike the whine of distant bombs. Aeroplane engines were throbbing dully, not immediately overhead, and desultory gunfire uttered from time to time. Waiting for the next one is always a rather tense experience, and poor Aunt Mimie's tummy was evidently feeling the strain, for from somewhere within came a long, not loud, whining sound, then silence. "That," said my father, who was a little deaf, "must have been a D/A!" Mother and I suppressed our mirth but nearly contributed an explosion of our own to the general m锚l茅e.
From time to time showers of small 2-lb. incendiary bombs would come our way, and at first people would dash out to extinguish them. Many fell in gardens or open spaces and burned out comparatively harmlessly, but they lit up the neighbourhood dangerously and destroyed the blackout, so that it was important to put them out if possible. The Fire Service and the A.F.S. were needed to extinguish established fires. On one occasion I was washing my long hair when the clatter and spatter of incendiaries on rooves and paths sent me grabbing my tin hat and a bucket of sand to cope with a lively little bomb in full spate up the garden. Bending over the flames in my tin hat, my long, wet hair swinging below, silhouetted against the firelight, I lacked but a pair of ram's horns atop to complete the Viking-like image! They were amused!
Very soon though, extinguishing incendiaries was out, because a proportion of the bombs was armed with an explosive charge, and proximity might mean blindness or other injury. One of our neighbours on firewatching duty lost a finger in that way. So everyone had to watch helplessly while the fires burned themselves out, or set alight to buildings, and fires could only be tackled after a delay to take account of a possible explosion. This naturally led to far more fires getting a hold, so that every able-bodied man and woman was enrolled as a fire-fighter. Offices and factories were manned every night on a rota basis, and every residential road had to arrange for people to be on fire watch duty every night. On average, people would be on duty once a week or perhaps every tenth night. Minimal training in fire fighting and the handling of small fire pumps were given to everyone concerned through the Civil Defence Service, and the official fire service was thus better able to take the strain. Firewatching was voluntary in the sense that it was un-paid, and was not considered as an excuse for not turning up for normal work next day.
I don't think we realized at the time how near we came to the brink. Churchill's rousing, but encouraging, speech in 1940 about fighting on the beaches, and the general expectation of an invasion after Dunkirk, we certainly understood with our minds, but by the heart, the seat of the emotions, the arrival of Hitler and the Nazis in force in this country, taking over London and conquering our own country, was intolerable and not really accepted, so we all carried on with less and less of the things we had been used to, with more and more strange and violent happenings around us, and a strange common will to keep going and get the job done. Being on duty by day and by night in tense circumstances, and during relaxation times, sealed friendships rapidly and broke down barriers. Many I have lost touch with, many have died, but shared intimacy in time of hardship or danger creates a bond which is for ever, like a family relationship, which is, whether we would like to alter it or not. So the bond has lasted from that earlier terrible War between men entrenched together. Those who came back were linked by their experiences to the end of their lives, to the living and to the dead. My small war experiences did not partake of such horrors, but the links were forged even in those milder conditions.
So the first blitz dragged on. I remember the terrible fire of London, when so many lovely City Churches were destroyed. The fires raged all night and, as the dawn came, the white light which follows the red glow of a great fire shone in the morning sky. I love London, and felt the loss of so many beautiful Churches and other buildings. My tears were no help in extinguishing the glowing embers.
Not long afterwards I went to the City for some reason I forget, and was amazed to stand near St. Paul's and see across the City to Moorfields, just rubble and the remains of walls. The line of Paternoster Row I knew so well was there, but all the buildings were gone. The pavement alone was visible marked by a bank of rubble. What a wonderful escape the Cathedral had! There was, of course, some damage, but the thousand pounder which would have caused devastation fortunately fell unexploded into the forecourt, and was heroically defused by a brave Bomb Disposal Officer.
In the 1940-41 blitz, our house was not much damaged apart from broken windows and fallen plaster, and eventually a comparatively quiet time set in for us while the attention of the Hun switched to provincial targets, and one after another large towns would be selected for attack. From the point of view of the general London public this meant a quiet night, though, when on duty, it meant a purple warning. This indicated that the country somewhere was under attack but that London was not the main target. Quite often, however, a few bombers would be sent over London as well so that the public sirens had to be sounded and the services were kept on the alert. Also, those who chose to sleep in shelters spent a less restful night than they would have had in their own bedrooms, and so the day's work was affected - all part of the wear and tear of the situation.
Without documentation, I cannot recall exactly when the aerial activity waxed or waned, but from time to time after a lull, we would have another considerable raid. Having withstood the raids much better than I had expected to I remember feeling very panicky once when, after a quiet time, the bombers turned up again over southeast London and I burst out crying. I was at home at the time and it didn't matter, and maybe it did me good, because I soon felt reasonably all right again.
From time to time we had to take gruesome and detailed messages on the telephone about conditions and casualties at an incident, but, though imagination might horrify, it was infinitely better to be in the control room, snugly underground, than out there having to deal with the injured, for which I was totally unfitted. The Control Room had been constructed underground to withstand a direct hit from a 500 pound bomb, so that, apart from such an unlikely occurrence, we were in a good billet while on duty. Getting to and from the Town Hall was more hazardous, but when we came off duty at 23.00, we slept in the building and went home next morning.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.