大象传媒

My Memories Of World War II
(1939/1945)
Age 5 to 11 years old
Iris E Edwards
1991

The day that the Second World War was declared, on September 3rd 1939, when I was 5 years old, I can remember, being in a shop down the end of our road buying sweets with my two older brothers. As we came out of the shop the wailing of an air-raid siren sounding its warning was heard. A lady shouted to us that we must lay face downwards in the gutter to protect ourselves from the blast of possible falling bombs that may be dropped! I can remember thinking to myself 鈥渨hat a silly lady鈥�, when the all clear siren sounded- as it was a mistake, there were no German aircraft to bomb us and it was to be about a year onwards before we were to get a real taste of war in London, where I lived.
Everyone was ordered to 鈥榖lack-out鈥� their windows so no lights could be seen from when dark. Thick black curtains were bought by everyone, to hang behind the existing curtains. When it was getting dark of an evening, before you could switch on the lights, you pulled the black curtains across the windows first, tucking them well into the corners of the window frames, so that no light would show through, then pull the ordinary curtains over the top of the black ones. An air-raid warden would patrol the streets after dark to make sure no chink of light was showing from within. If he saw any he would knock on your door and tell you 鈥減ut out that light鈥�. In our upstairs rooms, my father just took out the light bulbs, so that we wouldn鈥檛 make any mistakes by turning on the lights accidentally. So when it was dark and time for bed, we just felt our way up the stairs and undressed in the dark and got into bed.
In July of the next year (1940), I can remember watching the 鈥楧ogfights鈥� going on up above us in the sky. Dogfights were what we called the battles of our Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft and the German planes, fighting each other up in the sky. The Germans had flown to Southern England and were bombing our airfields to destroy them and our planes, so they would put them out of action. Then they would be able to send over their armies to take over our country!! Daily we would watch these planes coming over and see our planes swooping and diving towards the enemy planes, and both sides firing their machine guns, trying to hit each other, to bring the planes crashing to the ground. We saw lots of planes get hit and go down in flames, and sometimes you could see the pilot bail out of his plane and come down by his parachute to the ground. We never knew whether the men were English or German pilots for sure, as the Dogfights weren鈥檛 immediately overhead but a couple of miles away, but I always felt they were the Germans that had been hit, and I would always cheer, thinking and hoping that we were winning. The Battle of Britain lasted from the 10th July until 31st October 1940.
In the next year, we started getting air raids during the night-time. We鈥檇 go to bed and be woken up by the sound of the wailing sirens, warning of the enemy planes approaching. Sometimes it would be a while before you could hear the aircraft- but sometimes you鈥檇 hear them almost immediately. You got to know whether it was enemy aircraft overhead by the noise of their engines. German plane engines would make a sort of throbbing, droning noise. It wasn鈥檛 always enemy aircraft up in the skies- our planes would fly over too, looking for the Germans to try and shoot them down before they dropped their bombs. You would often stop and listen as to whether it was 鈥渙ne of ours鈥� or 鈥渙ne of theirs鈥�. Our anti aircraft guns would start shooting at the planes in the air, from the ground. Sometimes the planes would get lit up by our searchlights, which scanned the skies, beaming their lights up into the dark skies looking for the enemy planes. If the enemy got caught in the beam from the searchlight, it made it an easier target for our guns down on the ground.
We would wait in our beds, hoping that the raid wouldn鈥檛 be overhead but invariably it would become so bad, we would have to get up and rush outside into our back garden and scramble down into our air raid shelter and hope that the falling bombs wouldn鈥檛 fall too near to our house.
I can remember these nights, lying in our beds, waiting to see if we had to get up. I would hear the sirens go, then hear the enemy planes coming over, hear our guns crashing like thunder overhead, and I would be so frightened that I would pull the covers over my head to try to stop the noise. I would sweat like mad, not being able to breathe properly under the covers, but I couldn鈥檛 get out of my bed, as I was so frightened. I would wait until my mother would rush into my bedroom and quickly tell me it was time to get up and go downstairs to the shelter. I would leap out of bed, grab my clothes and rush downstairs. We would quickly dress and then turn out the lights before opening the back door, as you were not allowed to show any lights for fear of the German planes seeing these lights from above and thus being able to pinpoint the light, and bomb you. My two brothers, my mother and myself, would rush into the shelter and we would feel a little safer from the bombs falling around us.
We had bunks around three sides of the shelter, where each of us children would eventually lay down and try to sleep, and my mother would sit in a deckchair in the middle of the shelter. I would feel a little less frightened, being as we were all together, as in my bedroom, I was all on my own.
My mother would light the candle that was stuck to the bottom of an empty jam jar, and she would tell us stories as she sat there doing her knitting. When the first planes had finished dropping their bombs, you would have a bit of a lull before the next wave of bombers would come over with their load of bombs, and the noise would start all over again.
These raids seemed to go on every night for weeks, and having been awake so many nights for so long, you would be so tired in the morning that sometimes my mother would let us stay at home from school, and we would go to bed to catch up on our sleep.
As you heard the bombs falling during an air raid, you heard a long drawn out whistle as the bomb fell, then an enormous loud bang. It was well known to us all, that if your house got a direct hit you would not hear a whistle. You could tell from how loud the bang was, as to whether the bomb had dropped some way away or whether it had dropped quite near. The morning after a raid, on the way to school, you would hear from friends and neighbours, who had been hit and where it was. Sometimes we would pass houses that had been standing the day before, but a bomb had hit it during the night raid and now it was a pile of rubble. If a bomb had dropped too near to our house, when we emerged from our air raid shelter, after the 鈥榓ll clear鈥� had sounded, as we went back inside our house we would find our windows had been blown in and been smashed, and the plaster of the ceilings had fallen down, making a white dusty mess everywhere. I can remember a time when we went back into our house to find both the front and back doors wide open! Apparently the blast from a nearby bomb, had blown the front door open, had gone straight through the hallways and kitchen and blown the back door wide open!
You cannot see 鈥榖last鈥�- it is a force of air, which is caused by the bomb exploding. If you are caught in the path of the blast, the force can hurl you into the air injuring you, or quite often, killing you.
We never went anywhere without taking our gasmasks, in its square cardboard box, as you were always in fear of the Germans dropping their gas. In fact, gas was never dropped in all of the war; we were not to know this.
On our way to school the following day after one of these night raids, we would look for pieces of shrapnel, that lay around on the ground. Shrapnel were pieces of metal that fell from the outer casing of the shells that were fired from our anti aircraft guns, up into the sky at the German bombers. The person who found the biggest piece of shrapnel was the envy of us all!
As time went on, with the air raids every night, one of my brother鈥檚 nerves got so bad. An Aunt of mine wrote to my parents, offering to take in my two brothers as evacuees, and another Aunt nearby, had offered to have me. The decision was made for us to go, after a really bad time of bombing over London. This spate of bombing was named, 鈥楾he Blitz of London鈥�. The Germans bombed us continually and I remember, as we rushed once more to our air raid shelter, the whole sky was lit up in a bright red glow. The bombs had hit the docks of London and they were all ablaze and burning.
Within days after this terrible time, we were taken by train to Wolverhampton, to stay with our relatives.
Our mother returned on her own to London, so that she could be with my father, who was in the police force. He was a policeman all during the war and though he worked through many of the terrible air raids, he was luckily never injured. My mother took her turn in duties as air raid warden.
My time living at my Aunts wasn鈥檛 very happy as I missed my parents and home so much. I stayed in Wolverhampton for one year and ten months. My mother, on one of her visits with us saw that I was unhappy and she brought me back home again to London. My brothers followed a while later. Life, for a time, was fairly calm with only a few air raids now and then. The Germans were bombing other big cities all over England, Wales and Scotland.
Our shelter in the back garden became damp and the bottom of the shelter had about one foot of water and was very unpleasant, so my parents decided to convert the two cupboards under the stairs into a safe place for us to go. One of theses cupboards was where we hung our outdoor clothes, the other was a small cupboard where the gas and electric meters were. My father, if off duty would take one of my brothers, during a raid, into the coat cupboard and sit on two chairs and my mother, other brother and myself would squeeze into the meter cupboard where my mother would sit on a chair and both of us would children would lie down on a mattress where the ceiling came down to a point on the floor under the bottom of the stairs.
On June15th 1944, during a night raid, we heard what we thought was a German plane flying very low, with what seemed like it had engine trouble. It sounded very near, when suddenly its throbbing engine stopped and all was silent for a while 鈥攖hen there was a great big explosion as it hit the ground. We were safe, our house was still standing and we breathed again. We were to hear later that it wasn鈥檛 a plane crashing as we thought, but a VI Flying Bomb, soon to be known as 鈥楧oodle Bug鈥� or 鈥楤uzz Bomb鈥�.
This bomb was a new German invention of a pilot less robot plane, full of explosives, which were launched miles and miles away over in occupied France. They would fly as far as the rocket at the back would take them, then the rocket would burnout, the engine inside would stop, and it would glide for a while then dive down to the ground & the bomb would explode. This first bomb of its kind had landed about half a mile away, to me it sounded like it had fallen in the next road!
These Doodle Bugs were sent over day or night. Being as they were remote controlled the weather didn鈥檛 matter, like when piloting an ordinary plane of these days. Whether it was cloudy, foggy, rain or sunshine- over they came.
You would hear the throb of the Flying Bombs and then you hoped, for you, it would keep going on past overhead. You could see the Doodle Bugs flying above you, once the rocket cut out you would dive for cover. The VI would cruise or glide for a while most times, but occasionally it would dive straight down. Our house was in the flight path of a lot of these VI鈥檚, so we saw a great deal of them.
One day we were all out in the front garden talking with our neighbours, when we heard a Doodle Bug coming. We looked up and there it was above the big house on the other side of the road. At that moment the rocket and engine cut out, my father shouted to us all to run for the shelter. Everyone ran 鈥攂ut I found I could not move. I was terrified and fascinated both at the same time. My father had noticed that I hadn鈥檛 followed them and he came back and grabbed me up in his arms and ran with me to the shelter. As we got there, luckily in time, we heard the terrific explosion. It landed a few roads away; the bomb had had a long cruising time before coming down this time. I remember I trembled with fright for quite a time, realising what could have happened!
Once more, after quite a few weeks after the start of the VI鈥檚, my brothers and myself were again evacuated. This time we went all together, to stay with my cousin and his wife, in Newport, Monmouthshire and this time I was happy. We were there for eight months. While in Newport, the Germans had sent over southern England a new weapon called the V2鈥檚. These were big rockets with higher explosives than the VI鈥檚. They were in the shape of rockets, as we know of today, being very long and slim with no wings like the VI鈥檚 had. You had no previous warning of them coming, just a big explosion as they landed. By this time though, the forces of Britain, America and our other allies had landed on the beaches of France and were fighting their way across Europe towards Germany. On their way through the various countries, eventually they found out where the launching sites of both the VI鈥檚 and V2鈥檚 were and they destroyed these sites, and in March 1945 we saw the last of the bombs.
My brothers and myself came home in the April and one month later, the war in Europe was over and the Germans had surrendered. We celebrated V.E Day on the 8th May 1945 with great joy, taking all the blackout curtains down, putting light bulbs back in every room of the house, going outside our house in the darkness of the evenings to see the lights shining out from the windows, and putting our Union Jack flags and bunting outside our houses. We had a street party 鈥� all the children who lived in our road all sat at long trestle tables, which were decorated in red, white and blue. We wore red, white and blue hats, and the girls had ribbons in their hair, and Union Jacks were hung and draped everywhere. Everyone supplied something for the party. Some mothers baked cakes, some made sandwiches, others jelly and sweets- everyone supplied something and we had a great party with treats that had been so rare, during the six long years of war.
This wasn鈥檛 the complete end of the war though, and another four months went by before the Japanese surrendered. On the 2nd September 1945, V.J Day was celebrated, again with another street party. In the evening, a huge bonfire was lit right in the middle of the road, and we danced for joy around it. The heat from this huge bonfire started to melt the tar on the road, but nobody cared- the war was completely over. After the celebrations, my brothers and I were taken for a ride in a car around the streets of London, to see all the bright lights shining in the shops, and lights shining from the houses with their curtains open. I could not ever remember seeing lights like this before, it seemed like fairyland to me.
I was 11 years of age at the end of the war, but still, after all this time, I can clearly remember how terribly frightened I had been.

Iris Edwards

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