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John Bain — Memoirs

I am John Bain. I came down to Kent in 1940 and I was in the Anti-aircraft First Light Division and was in charge of the searchlight at Elham and also the one at Broad Street. I had twenty men under my command, our Unit was purely Geordies (Newcastle) and Scots from Scotland. We were a real gang but I can tell you we did a lot of hard work.

I wasn’t here during the Battle of Britain but I experienced the London Blitz and also the early bombing of the Aerodrome at Hawkinge, which was quite near, and we were kept busy at night with the searchlights.

In 1943 I was posted to Essex and spend two years there purely looking out for doodlebugs etc. but did not have much to do with the bombing. We did get a fringe from London bombing but not much. My last episode was when I was posted to York, I was put in charge of the demobbing centre; we all got our trilby suitcase, we looked a real freak lot I can tell you, and I was demobbed in 1945.

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by BARBARA COLLINS-NEWING from ´óÏó´«Ã½ KENT on behalf of MR JOHN BAIN and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions."

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