大象传媒

Bombing and the doodlebugs
In the latter part of the war I can remember a dog fight over our street, I couldn't tell you what planes were involved but I remember much to my surprise, that you could actually see the bullets from one plane streaming across the sky much slower than I would have expected. We were warned about the Doodlebugs ( V1 rockets, the first of hitlers revenge weapons ), the sound of a Doodlebug was a sound you never forgot, the best way I can describe it is likened to a car when the exhaust has gone, a loud rattling noise. The problems came when this loud noise suddenly stopped, when this happened the rocket dropped from the sky like a stone and exploded, we were told that once the rockets engine had stopped to throw ourselves onto the ground face down and cover our ears, I can remember doing this at least once I also remember the dark sinister shape of the V1 in the sky. The V2 rocket was a very different thing alltogether, this rocket was silent, very fast and there wasn't any warning that it was coming, our family had a close encounter with one of these and I have covered this in a previous story. These rocket attacks were codenamed ' Big Ben events'. We were supplied with gas masks, my memories of them were a strong smell of rubber when you tried them on, also laughing at the' fart like sounds you made whilst wearing the gasmask. As we were never subjected to any sort of chemical attack the mask was never worn in an emergency situation.
The germans also dropped bombs that were on a timer and used to make a ticking noise like a loud clock, my brothers frank and Gordon would tease me sometimes by hiding and making ticking noises to scare me, until my mother came and told them off, when hearing these noises I would hide in the cupboard under the stairs. I can recall collecting shrapnel, small pieces of twisted metal, I wonder whatever happened to these bits I expect they ended in the bin.

This story will be followed by a story on bombed houses and bomb sites

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