大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War website by Angela Parks of CSV Media on behalf of Thomas W. Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

During the last years of World War 2, I was living with my mother, granddad and 8 brothers and sisters in Russell Gardens, London N20. My father was away in the army.

I was 11 or 12 when I had my first experience of a doodlebug raid. It was 6.30am on Friday 13th October 1944. We were all lying in bed, when we heard the flying bomb come over. We knew it could drop anywhere as we could hear it passing over the house. We were terrified. I was sharing a bed with four of my brothers and we all huddled together under the bed-clothes.

The bomb missed the house, but it dropped about 120 yards away, in Russell Gardens. The force of the bomb caused the roof and ceilings of our house to fall in and the windows were also blown out in the blast.

Despite the bomb, my mum still sent me to school. When I arrived, I was asked about the other families in my street, and whether I had been hurt. My leg had been cut, where part of the ceiling had fallen in on it, and my teacher sent me to the local clinic to get the wound dressed.

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