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“This Story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jan Hewett a volunteer from Three Counties Action at The Royal British Legion, Cranfield on behalf of Mathew McHugh and has been added to the site with his permission. Mathew McHugh fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Names: Mathew Mc Hugh. — Miss Hodges.-classmates Marilyn Brimble and Ruth
Location: - Luton Bedfordshire.
Title: Dive, Dive Dive. It’s the V2 Rocket.

I went to school in Luton, Queens Square. Church of England school (Junior) about 1944/1945. It was a very disciplined school. Miss Hodges was the only teacher for us in our particular school. I think that was the first year. She taught us everything and, of course, trained us in the use of our gas masks and emergency procedures. These training sessions happened on a weekly basis. We were taught that in case there was a loud explosion or anything like a sudden breaking of glass or ringing of bells then we had to dive under our desks. These were the only shelters we had in the school as I remember. One day we were in class and there was one enormous explosion, which shook the building, broke windows and scared us out of our wits. The response was immediate. We’d been well trained. We dived under our desks, the girls screaming. Subsequently we found out that this explosion was the V2 Rocket that had landed on the Commer car factory. The factory was in the Leagrave Road, Luton, approximately 3 miles away from our school. A lot of people got killed at the factory. It caught fire. There were 1100 rockets sent to Britain until we bombed them out of production.

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