´óÏó´«Ã½

A REEDHAM BOY'S VIEW OF THE WAR

CHAPTER 1

Early Days

I was only ten but, like everybody else, I knew the war was coming
because of the frantic preparations going on. We had already had gas
masks issued and after Neville Chamberlain's broadcast on September
3rd, announcing that we were at war with Germany, everybody started
carrying them around, first in brown cardboard boxes slung on a string
over the shoulder and later in special cloth or metal gas mask carriers.
Many people had Anderson shelters installed in their gardens, a kind of
family air raid shelter made of sheets of strong corrugated steel fitted into
a hole in the ground and with the earth from the hole then laid over the
top. Some people had fitted bunk beds in their shelters and started
spending the night there, but we didn't have a shelter at all and decided
the safest place in an air raid was under the stairs or the dining room
table! It was the period of the "phoney war" and although we heard on the
wireless that the British Expeditionary Force were in France, things had
seemed pretty quiet when I went off to take up the place that had been
found for me at Reedham Orphanage in Surrey.
On arrival I discovered that Reedham too had been making
preparations. The chief of these was the provision of proper air-raid
shelters. Those for the boys had been built into the sloping hillside on the
north side of the playground. A large wooden play shed had been
demolished and the entrances to the shelters were in the newly exposed
flint and brick wall. Double airlock doors led into a massive reinforced
concrete tunnel which sloped upward beneath the hillside, first in a long
straight and then in a series of right-angle bends which turned and sloped
down again before emerging at a second set of doors. It was lit by electric
bulkhead lights on the walls and smelt of cold, damp concrete. A
continuous concrete bench with a slatted wood top ran along each side.
Later, similar duckboards were made to be laid on the concrete floor for
use as beds. Under the direction of Mr Bristow, the housemaster, we duly
practised a drill for evacuating the buildings quickly and going to the
shelters if there should be an air raid.
The local ARP services in Purley also made preparations to deal
with a possible major incident at the school and a large scale exercise
was organised, in which we played the part of the casualties. We each
had a label tied on to say what injury we were supposed to have and were
then dispersed throughout the building to await rescue. My label said
"Compound fracture of ribs and sternum", and I lay on the second floor
landing just outside the "blocked" door of Livingstone dormitory. I would
rather have been one of the casualties inside the dormitory for they were
soon rescued through the windows by the fire brigade’s ladders. It was a
long time before I was discovered and my rescue involved just triangular
bandages and being carried in a blanket down the six flights of stairs.
Somehow I don't think my chances of survival would have been great.
Relays of ambulances then transported us all to the hospital down in
Purley where tea and biscuits ended a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.
The first indication I had that the war might be serious was the
news that the British Army was being evacuated from Dunkirk. It was not
announced as a heroic epic and must have been stunning news for the
country. Everyone expected a German blitzkreig and invasion to follow
immediately. Miss Shears, our class teacher, told us what had happened
and spoke gravely of the possibility of attacks on the school. We then
practised taking cover under our desks as quickly as possible on her
command. I suppose there wasn't much else that could be done, but
luckily the Germans did not come. Some of the Reedham teachers
disappeared into the services, Mr Wilkes to the navy and Mr Major to the
RAF, and then it was the summer holidays.

CHAPTER 2

It warms up

The first real air raid I experienced came during the holiday while I
was at home. The nearest military target was Biggin Hill aerodrome but
this was a good five miles away from where we lived, in Petts Wood, and
we still felt safe. One afternoon, the sirens sounded an alert, but by now
we were used to false alarms and so we were all surprised when a lone
bomber came our way and decided to unload a stick of four bombs. The
whistle and whoosh of the first was exactly as I had heard on news-reels
and if I had any doubt what it was, the ear splitting bang and shock of the
explosion quickly dispelled it. The house shook and I dropped the heavy
biscuit-box full of lead soldiers I was carrying upstairs to my bedroom.
The lamp shade danced on its flex, dust floated down from cracks in the
ceiling and a few tiles slowly slid down our roof and crashed to the
ground. Three more bombs followed in quick succession but were
progressively further away. My mother had been scared, but mainly by the
sound of me dropping the box, and we were very relieved to find we were
both safe. The bomb had landed in the back gardens of houses 500
yards along our road, Crescent Drive. Four houses were wrecked by the
blast and others down to ours showed decreasing amounts of damage.
The other bombs all landed in farmland behind the houses and just left
deep craters for us to gawp at later.
These early air raids were in the day-time and there was normally
plenty of warning. A small bomb completely demolished a corner house
100 yards away from ours but that was the closest anything came. The
most serious incident locally was the dropping of a land mine by
parachute at The Crooked Billet Pub and this caused widespread
damage and many casualties.
When I returned to Reedham that September, the Battle of Britain
was well under way and now our air raid drill was put to the test. The fire
bells would sound and the whole school then trooped into the shelters in
an orderly way, just as we had practised, and stayed there until the all
clear came. Once in the shelters you could see nothing and hear little of
any action outside. We played pocket chess and innumerable card
games and it soon got very boring.
By now I had passed the scholarship and was one of the boys going
out to attend Purley County School at Old Coulsdon. Luckily it was
decided that unless a raid prevented us from setting off, it would be best if
we continued to attend there as normal. If there was an alert while
en-route we were supposed to take cover but there was little chance of
that. We wanted to see what was going on and thought ourselves lucky to
be in the open air making the two mile walk each morning and afternoon.
We had no thought of danger and several times watched German
bomber formations flying north westwards over the valley. We were all
familiar with aircraft recognition silhouettes and easily recognized the
Dornier 17 and Heinkel III twin-engined bombers flying in close formation
while a few British fighters, mostly Hurricanes then, kept wheeling and
turning to attack from the rear.
One morning as we climbed the unmade road from Lodge Lane to
Old Coulsdon we heard the crescendo whine of a plane coming down
and looked up in time to see a Messerschmidt 110, a twin-engined
fighter-bomber, diving vertically at tremendous speed out of the cloud
above us. It disappeared behind the trees and as we ran in that direction
we heard the explosion and presently saw a plume of black smoke. The
plane had nose-dived into the ground behind a house on the edge of
Coulsdon golf course and there was little to see by the time we got there:
a shallow crater of fresh earth in the green grass, a few lumps of twisted
machinery, a great many small pieces of metal and fabric scattered
everywhere and a pervading oily smoky smell. We had not seen any
parachutes descending and presumably the two-man crew had perished.
There was no way of knowing.
Another morning from almost the same spot we saw one of our
Hurricane fighters come down. The engine had stopped and it was in a
shallow dive, almost a glide, but very close and low when we saw it. The
pilot was in a hurry to bale out and pulled his rip-cord as he came out of
the cockpit so that the parachute opened immediately and the rudder of
the Hurricane seemed almost to hit him as it swept past. Both he and the
plane disappeared behind the trees. The 'chute was still not fully open
and we never heard if he had landed safely.
Not everything happened in the morning. One afternoon we were
walking back along Old Lodge Lane and witnessed the end of a
twin-engined training aircraft, either an Oxford or an Anson. We were
watching it fly low over the golf course when the whole tail unit suddenly
twisted for no apparent reason and the plane went down. Before we
reached the scene the RAF had arrived and the badly crumpled
wreckage was under guard.
Another afternoon I came back late from the County School during
an alert. I was on my own and as I got to the top of the Reedham drive I
became aware of anti-aircraft fire. I heard the sudden sound of a plane
low overhead and looked up through the beech leaves in time to
recognize a Heinkel III as it passed over me and the school. It was low
enough for the German crosses on the wings to be clearly visible. I
thought I could hear small objects smacking down through the leaves and
in case it was shrapnel I hastily stood under the biggest branch I could
see! When all was quiet I carried on, but just before turning the corner on
to the playground I spotted a brass .5 cartridge case lying shining on the
verge. We still have this souvenir.
Kenley Aerodrome was about a mile from Reedham at the head of
the valley. It was a fighter station and the German bombers had already
attacked but failed to put it out of action. Now there were Hurricanes and
Spitfires taking off and landing there almost every day. We heard they
had a squadron of Polish pilots who were particularly daring and certainly
we saw some spectacular flying with victory rolls and steeply banked
low-level turns. One day three hedge-hopping Spitfires in line ahead had
some fun at our expense. They caught us in the open as we took our
usual short cut across the Coulsdon Golf Course and then buzzed us,
each plane diving a little lower than the one in front as we broke and ran
for our lives.
We were fascinated by all the activity at the aerodrome and some
days we would skip school in order to creep up to the barbed wire
perimeter fence and watch what was going on. Lessons at the County
School were always abandoned if the siren sounded and that meant
sitting in the dark in the brick air raid shelters built on the edge of the
playing field there. We reasoned that playing hooky was a much better
use of time than that.
Round the corner from the County School, next to the Parish
Church at Bradmore Green, there was a large house. We passed the
entrance every afternoon on the walk back to Reedham and for some
time we had known that it was some sort of RAF headquarters. One
afternoon there was a gleaming Rolls Royce parked on the road outside.
The top was black, the bonnet and sides deep crimson, and the radiator
and mascot were gold. Someone said it was the King's car so we joined
the small crowd of about a dozen waiting at the gate. Sure enough, the
small slight figure of King George VI, wearing the uniform of Marshal of
the Royal Air Force, presently came down the drive with a group of
high-ranking RAF officers. After salutes and handshakes he got in the
car. Someone in the crowd called "Three cheers for the King!" and he
smiled shyly and acknowledged our rather thin cheers as the car pulled
away.
Beside these events there was plenty of other evidence of action to
be found, and souvenir hunting became everyone's passion. The
anti-aircraft defences were continually being strengthened and so jagged
shell fragments became very easy to find, but more prized were the nose
cones of anti-aircraft shells. These fuse setting devices often survived
intact if they landed on soft ground and we became adept at recognizing
the hole they made and then unearthing them. Other sources of
souvenirs were the numerous crashed planes in the vicinity. The closest
of these was a Hurricane which crash-landed right on the County School
tennis court next to the gym, luckily not in school hours. Then there was a
Spitfire on the side of the valley towards Kenley aerodrome and another
which crashed on Riddlesdown. This last had belts of machine-gun
ammunition spilling out of its wings and many of the .303 cartridges
disappeared as souvenirs only to reappear for days afterwards in the
County School classrooms. With the bullet and the cordite removed a
school compass could be placed in the cartridge case and the whole
thing dropped on the floor to detonate the percussion cap with a satisfying
bang.

CHAPTER 3

The blitz

As everyone knows, the failure of daylight raids caused the
Germans to switch to night-time bombing of the cities. At Reedham every
window was already fitted with blinds or shutters and heavy curtains were
hung to make a light trap at the entrance doors so that no chink of light
could be seen from outside. When the night raids began we were still
sleeping in the dormitories but were being woken at all hours by the
clanging alarm bells. Half asleep we then had to get up, put some clothes
on over our pyjamas, roll up a couple of blankets from the bed and carry
them down to the playroom for a roll call before filing over to the air raid
shelters.
After a weary week or two of disturbed nights it was decided it
would be better to sleep all night in the shelters. Mr Bristow rose to the
occasion as usual and organised things. There were no toilets in the
shelters so one of his priorities was to ensure was that everyone ‘went’
before going into the shelters for the night. We all laughed when he
ordered, “Lead over the lavatory seats!" What he actually meant was,
lead on those who would be sleeping on the seats in the shelter. Space in
the shelters was tight now that everyone had to lie down and so we were
all allocated sleeping places. I slept on the slatted top of a side bench,
another boy was on the bench opposite and between us two boys (one
named Arnold I remember) slept on duckboards laid on the floor. This
arrangement was repeated all the way along the shelter and once
everybody was in and asleep it was almost impossible to get through.
Only in dire emergency would anyone attempt to get out during the night.
The slats under us were uncommonly hard and left marks on our flesh.
The seats were narrow and there was always the risk of rolling off if you
turned over. We tried out many different ways of folding our two blankets
into comfortable sleeping bags, and blanket pins for fastening them
together were in great demand and worth their weight in gold. There was
no heating and very little ventilation, especially after one section of the
long tunnel was partitioned off for the head’s family and any staff not on
duty, fire-watching. Every night a tremendous smelly fug built up.
Condensation collected on the concrete walls and slowly trickled or
dripped on to our blankets. In the mornings the clean cold air outside was
delightful as we emerged blinking and dishevelled and carried our
blankets up to the dormitories to hang over our beds to air. No high
explosive bombs dropped close enough to Reedham to cause damage
but on many nights we heard the throb of airplane engines and the
constant muffled banging of the anti-aircraft guns.
I experienced more night raids during the Christmas holiday
break which I spent partly at home in Petts Wood and partly at my Aunt's
new address at Waltham Cross on the north side of London. In a house,
instead of an air-raid shelter, the action seemed much closer and
definitely louder. This was especially so at Waltham Cross where there
were anti-aircraft guns and rocket batteries close by in Bullsmore Lane.
During a raid, gun flashes and searchlights would light up the bedroom
through the curtains and intermittent bangs from the near-by guns
sounded loud above the constant rumble of the more distant barrage. At
Petts Wood my Grandfather was living with us. He was very deaf and
couldn't hear the noise of guns or bombs, but he always got out of his
chair very quickly when he saw us dive under the table. Once, he was still
on his hands and knees in front of the fire when the bomb landed and a
great cloud of soot came down the chimney to turn him into a good
imitation of a Christy minstrel.
My mother's brother, George, also lived with us at this time. He was
a fireman in the London Fire Brigade and stationed at Cannon Street Fire
Station near St Paul's Cathedral. He just didn't come home for days on
end during the blitz. When he did, he smelt of smoke, his eyes were red,
his voice hoarse and he was so tired that he slept the clock round. He
never spoke much of what happened during that period but just after the
war I visited the fire station and saw that it was the only building left
standing on the south side of Cannon Street.
Back at Reedham after Christmas, night raids were in progress and
many incendiary bombs were dropped in the Coulsdon and Purley district.
These small bombs, about 15 inches long and two inches in diameter,
were made of solid thermite alloy with a detonator in the nose and
pressed tin fins at the tail. When they landed they burnt with intense heat,
but if they could be reached they could be smothered by dropping a
sandbag over them. If one landed on a roof however, it would crash
through and start a serious fire inside. This was a major worry for the
teachers and staff who did fire watching duties over Reedham's hundred
year old buildings. However, most of the incendiaries fell in gardens or
open ground and on the way to the County School we often found a
rusting tin tail-fin lying inside a circle of blackened earth and white
cinders. If the earth was very soft an incendiary sometimes half-buried
itself without going off and then it could be pulled up almost as good as
new, to become someone's souvenir. This was not particularly hazardous
at first, but later the Germans "improved" the bombs, adding an explosive
device at the nose to make it easier for the bomb to penetrate, and
another inside the tail-fin designed to explode while the bomb was
burning and so spread the fire or injure any fire-fighters around.

CHAPTER 4

Boys will be boys

Technical details of the weapons used by the armed forces were
common knowledge among all the boys at both Reedham and the County
School. The illustrated war magazines and many newspapers and comics
carried descriptions and cut-away diagrams of the weapons and
equipment being used by both sides. We thought we knew all about
everything, but it was really a case of a little knowledge being a very
dangerous thing as the following incidents illustrate.
The first concerned a Mills bomb, a kind of hand grenade used by
the British Army. Walking back to Reedham from the County School one
afternoon a group of us went down the unmade road from Bradmore
Green. At the bottom, where the road joined Old Lodge Lane, there used
to be the ruin of a solitary old cottage. There was no other habitation
around in those days. As we came down the hill we heard a few bangs
and getting nearer we saw that a section of soldiers was using the ground
beside the ruin to practice throwing hand grenades. We kept out of sight
at a safe distance and settled down to watch as each man came out of
the ruin and threw his hand grenade as directed by the sergeant. They
would pull out the pin, hurl the bomb with a stiff arm and then fling
themselves down behind a low wall. The bomb sailed through the air and
we heard the tinkle as the loose handle fell to the ground, then a slight
thud as the bomb landed and a few seconds later the sharp bang as it
exploded. All went well until one bomb failed to go off. There was some
discussion and then the sergeant walked up to the grenade and placed
an old tin can over it. Then he went back to his section, they all got into
their 15 cwt truck and drove off. Even to us, it seemed highly
irresponsible to just leave the bomb but we presumed that they thought
nobody would know it was there until it could be disposed of.
We walked on and talked about why the bomb hadn't exploded. We
thought we knew all about Mills bombs and decided there were two
explanations: either the striker had not fired the percussion cap or if it had
the detonator had not gone off. Either way it would be safe to pick the
thing up because even if the percussion cap then went off there would
still be at least an eight second delay in which to throw the bomb. I don't
know whether this reasoning was faulty or not but I decided to find out.
The next morning I went to the spot on my own and uncovered the
grenade. I picked it up, heart pounding and muscles tensed ready to hurl
it as far as I could if the percussion cap fired. Nothing happened and as I
turned the heavy cast-iron object in my hand I saw the striker was indeed
jammed. Gingerly, I unscrewed the base plug and the shiny detonator
complete with fuse and percussion cap slid out. Now I was sure the bomb
was safe, but to make doubly certain I threw the detonator down the old
rubbish-choked well behind the ruin and followed it with the yellow
explosive powder from inside the bomb. Now I had my souvenir and I
soon fitted it with a handle and safety pin from among those still lying on
the ground from the previous afternoon. I had got away with it but what a
foolhardy idiot! I still quake at the memory.
Another idiotic exploit took place some time later. During a night
raid a large parachute flare had been dropped but had failed to operate.
The complete object, an aluminium casing about eight feet long and one
foot in diameter had crashed to the ground in the woods by the golf
course. It was intact although somewhat dented. A small crowd of boys
from the County School had found the thing and attacked it with an iron
spike. When I arrived the metal casing was already ripped open and the
flare material was being rifled. An older boy was actually in the process of
removing the fuse which had failed to set the flare off and my own
contribution was to remove the end-cover and purloin the unopened
parachute - for my mother! Inevitably there was a tremendous fuss when
the authorities found out. Police were at the school and we were all
questioned until everybody's part in the affair was ascertained. I handed
over the parachute and several of us had to appear at Wallington
Juvenile Court charged under the Defence of the Realm Act. Suitably
contrite we admitted the offences and were bound over. The boy who had
removed the fuse was represented by a solicitor and his case was
dismissed because it was claimed that, "as a member of the O.T.C. he
had learnt how to handle explosives and had only removed the fuse in
order to prevent an accident to the younger boys." A likely story!
Luckily not everything we did was as irresponsible as this.
Reedham formed a cadet company under the enthusiastic leadership of
the housemaster - ex sergeant-major Joe Bristow, now promoted to
acting Captain - but to his annoyance drilling was not allowed on the
playground or manoeuvres in the grounds in case German
reconnaissance planes thought the school was a barracks. The scouts'
trek cart collected waste-paper from houses in the nearby roads and a
great smelly mountain of it was stored under the play shed roof. Part of
the Reedham land was ploughed up for corn and extra vegetables which
some of the boys had to hoe to keep the weeds down.
My contribution to the war effort took place several evenings a week
at a private house in Higher Drive. The owner had a small machine
workshop in his garage and we used to help make small metal
components for munitions. It was not very skilled, mostly turning and
drilling small rivets from hexagonal steel rod, although I also remember
turning conical aluminium castings on a lathe. I was told they were to be
used in Rotol variable pitch airscrews. I used to look forward to these
sessions, meeting and talking to the engineer and his wife while we
worked, listening to the news and programmes like ITMA on the wireless,
and doing justice to the liberal helpings of cocoa and cake that were
supplied. After a session in the workshop it felt quite special returning to
Reedham in the blackout and clambering over the sleeping bodies to get
to my place in the shelters.

CHAPTER 5

Getting used to it

As the war went on, we took for granted conditions and events and
life became a routine of blackout and shelters, and economies in diet and
clothes, all accompanied by good and bad news items about the progress
of the war. The stock answer to almost any complaint was, "Don't you
know there's a war on!" There were always airmen from Kenley and
soldiers from Caterham barracks to be seen and regularly an aeroplane
or a tank would be on exhibition outside Purley fire station to help raise
money for the war effort.
Reedham Orphanage needed money as well and because my
father had been in the Royal Navy I was included in a fund-raising
photograph of "Reedham War Orphans". 1944 was the Reedham
Centenary Year and a special effort to raise money was being made. This
included a display and parade in the park near Purley Congregational
Church with King Haakon of Norway as the guest of honour. We were all
lined up in a big square while he made his speech and then walked along
the rows to shake hands and say something to each of us. A tall, thin
gentleman, with aquiline features and a beard, wearing a long naval
overcoat. On the way back to Reedham afterwards, Mr Bristow marched
proudly at the head of the Cadet Company and ordered a smart "Eyes
right" as we passed Purley Ice Rink where two guardsmen from
Caterham literally jumped to attention on the edge of the pavement and
saluted us.
Although Reedham may appear to have been in a very dangerous
spot, close to London and very near to a fighter aerodrome, we stayed
there right through the war until the V1 flying bombs started to arrive in
1944. The first of these pilotless planes came at night when we were in
the shelters. We heard the distinctive sound as it flew over, quite different
to the familiar sound of bomber engines, and shortly afterwards the
engine cut out and there was an explosion. Mr Jenkins the estate
foreman had been fire-watching and in the morning we heard him
describing with Mr Widdecombe, one of the teachers, what they had
seen. Apparently the missile had come in low over the downs with flames
shooting from its back. Everyone thought it was a plane in trouble and
when the engine cut out and was followed by an explosion they thought it
had crashed. Only when similar reports started coming in from other
districts was it realised that this was some new kind of weapon. They
were soon named "Buzz-bombs" or "Doodle-bugs", and increasing
numbers of them came over in the next week or so. On our journeys to
and from the County School we sometimes saw one, usually in the
distance. They were small and fast and they seemed to fly straight and
unscathed through the barrage balloon defences and anti-aircraft fire.
Even if you couldn't see the bomb you would hear the loud buzz of its
pulse-jet engine. They sometimes flew into the ground with the engine
running, but usually the engine would cut out and the bomb would glide
on for a bit or perhaps turn over and dive straight in. The silence after the
engine had cut was full of nervous suspense until the bang came and you
knew it had landed somewhere else. They carried a ton of explosive and
did not bury themselves when they landed. The damage caused was
tremendous. Our closest encounter came one afternoon on our way back
from the County School. We heard the bomb coming down the valley
from the direction of Kenley Aerodrome. It was losing height steadily and
as we watched it passed between us and the Reedham buildings on the
opposite side of the valley. Over the railway the engine cut out and we
saw it dive steeply and disappear before the explosion came and rolling
clouds of smoke started rising from near the Brighton Road. Later we
heard that it had landed on houses behind Purley fire station.
As there was almost no warning with these new weapons, the
air-raid shelters were useless and after four nervous weeks it was at last
deemed best to evacuate Reedham. The wisdom of this decision was to
be underlined when Hitler's next secret weapon, the V2 Rocket, started to
arrive. These were faster than the speed of sound and so gave no
warning at all. However by that time we were all safely out of the way in
Nottingham. The story of the evacuation is still to be told.

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