大象传媒

I was born in April,1939,so did not pay much attention to the war until about 1942. My father was called up and served in the RAF for the duration of the war, while my mother and I remained in the family home in Petts Wood until about 1943. Petts Wood is only a couple of miles from RAF Biggin Hill,and as the air war intensified,our street suffered a number of direct bomb hits as the Germans tried to take out Biggin Hill. We had an Anderson shelter in the back garden to which we evacuated whenever the air-raid siren sounded,and a heavy AAA battery about half a mile down the road would make the ground shake as it engaged the enemy bombers. My first specific memory of this part of the war was hiding in the cupboard under the stairs as a number of German aircraft swept low overhead (there had been no air-raid warning),and we learned later that day that they had bombed a school at Lewisham,killing a large number of children and staff. Another event which stuck in my mind was the destruction of the "Crooked Billet" public house nearby by a V2 rocket one evening, when the bar was full. There were,naturally,many casualties. In 1943,we were evacuated to Hove,to live with my aunt. The air war was less obvious to us there until the advent of the V1 flying bombs or "Doodlebugs",and we were forced to take frequent refuge in my aunt's indoor air-raid shelter - beneath the dining room table! We returned home to Petts Wood in 1945,and my father was demobilized and returned to us unscathed in 1946.

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