大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Sylvia Waller,a volunteer from Three Counties Action at The Glen Miller Festival, on behalf of Derek Hall and has been added to the site with his permission. Derek Hall fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

"I was born in the East End of London but moved to Dagenham when I was three to avoid the bombing, but the bombing was just as bad there. I remember watching the Spitfires going overhead and the 鈥渄og fights鈥� leaving their white trails in the sky.

One day, a German plane went over and the pilot baled out as the plane went down. As he baled out he lost his boot. We children cheered as we saw him coming down and one of the bigger boys found the boot on the electric railway, climbing over the fence onto the track to retrieve it as a trophy. We heard the plane as it crashed into Dagenham Station.

When I was seven a 500lb bomb fell into our back garden, cutting through the chain link fence and the concrete path, but didn鈥檛 explode. (I believe that the forced labour making these bombs for the Germans sometimes deliberately sabotaged the detonators 鈥� they saved our lives).The bomb buried itself about twenty feet into the ground. My family had to evacuate our house to stay with our grandmother while the bomb disposal team moved in to defuse the bomb. I remember standing by the crater looking down at the bomb; we have a photograph of the family standing by it. It damaged the foundations of our house so we were then moved out to Hainault to an unoccupied house. Seven families of our relatives who were also bombed out all moved into empty houses in the same street, so I had lots of cousins to play with.

One day I was playing in the street with my brother and we wandered too far. A German plane flew over in broad daylight strafing the street with machine gun fire. An air raid warden grabbed us and dragged us into a shelter. When the plane had passed over we were taken back home.

Nearby to where we were living was the RAF fighter station at Fairlop. A teacher at my school had a boyfriend stationed there who was a fighter pilot. As I had a bicycle she asked me to carry love letters to her boyfriend. I handed the letters into the guard room and sometimes there was a reply to take back. My teacher rewarded me with a sweet.

We often went to the 鈥減ictures鈥�. One evening as we came out an air raid started, so we took shelter in an ARP bunker. Being curious , I stuck my head out to look and was caught in the face by what felt like a brick but turned out to be a piece of shrapnel, which cut my father鈥檚 face and struck me in the eye. A doctor was called, who then called an ambulance which drove me through the East End to Moorfields Eye Hospital. There were fires everywhere through the East End that night and I remember the ambulance bumping endlessly up and down as it drove over all the fire hoses. At Moorfields they operated to remove shrapnel from my eye, which was left permanently damaged. I had to attend hospital regularly for a long time after that. I wore my mother鈥檚 white framed sunglasses to protect my eyes, these were so big that they nearly covered my small face. At school the other children used to tease me; they called me Mickey Mouse which was very hurtful.

Once, a German bomber crashed into a nearby field. I still remember the distinctive smell of oil and metal of that plane to this day. The three German crew members climbed out of the plane and gave themselves up to an ARP warden and were taken to the police station. We chased down to the police station after them where a crowd of angry women gathered around screaming and shouting for the Germans to be 鈥渟trung up鈥�. When the police brought the prisoners out to take them away the women banged on the Black Maria threatening to topple it over.

We children collected shrapnel as trophies and also belts of ammunition which the German planes jettisoned to make the aircraft lighter. One of the souvenirs I collected from the crash was a lovely parachute flare. Because the police we coming round to collect up any ammunition I took a shovel and went to a field to bury my 鈥渢reasure鈥�. I counted out so many paces from a tree and so many from a tank trap, then dug a hole and buried the flare in a cocoa tin, thinking I would go back to retrieve it when all the fuss had died down. A few weeks later I returned to the field, where I dug lots of holes 鈥� but I never did find my treasure.

The aircraft had dumped thousands of rounds of ammunition which were strung across roof tops and in gardens. My friend and I found hundreds of bullets which we took apart, shaking out the gunpowder. We dug a trench twenty foot long filling it with gunpowder to make a trail. The remainder we put in a cocoa tin and stuck it at the end of the trench. Then we lit a match threw it into the trench and watched the trail of lighted gunpowder travel down to the tin and ignite it, which produced a big flash and melted the tin. It was really exciting. We took a couple of bullets which were left over into my friend鈥檚 father鈥檚 shed. Here we put them in a vice to hold them steady, found a 6inch nail and were about to hammer the nail in to 鈥渇ire鈥� the bullets. Fortunately, his older brother walked in just in time to stop us possibly killing ourselves!"

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