大象传媒

AIR RAID SHELTERS

I was a thirteen-year-old schoolboy in Isleworth when war was declared in 1939. I missed the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 speech at 11.00 a.m. on Sunday, 3 September, as a group of us were walking back from bellringing for the morning service at All Saints Church. At about 11.15 the air raid sirens sounded the Alert and, as the only picture we had in our minds of an air raid was in the film of H.G. Wells 鈥楾he War of the Worlds鈥� of about 1937 where a sky full of bombers filled the screen and the city was bombed to complete ruin, we all hurried to the local public shelter recently built in the grounds of a school (once Sir Joseph Banks鈥� home) at the bottom of our road. It was a square section, concrete tunnel, half buried in the ground. Anticlimax-nothing happened and All Clear sounded. Word got round that an unidentified light aircraft flew up the English Channel.

It was near the end of the summer holiday and about 1 September. My young mate and I were bored playing sand castles in the large sandpit in the bottom corner of our garden and we decided to excavate instead, producing a four feet deep, six feet diameter hole, stopping where we exposed some roots from next door鈥檚 large apple tree. When Dad came home from work our day鈥檚 efforts were not exactly appreciated. 鈥淔ill it in!!鈥�

Came Sunday 鈥� WAR and official encouragement to make private air raid shelters. Dad changed his mind and 鈥楳ight as well make use of that hole鈥�. He had bought a load of broken red concrete from the recently demolished Great West Road cycle track, (the new one was to be twice the width), intending to lay a garden path. Instead, he enlarged the hole, lined it with concrete blocks, made dog-leg entrance steps, put an old door over the top and finished it with more concrete blocks laid loosely over that. Inside, wooden boards were laid over blocks to make benches. Thus we had the first private air raid shelter in our road.

My school was Isleworth County, a boys grammar school, which was moving into new buildings for the autumn term. As all was quiet in the 鈥榩honey war鈥� we began term in November. Hastily dug shelters were on the edge of the playing field 鈥� corrugated iron tunnels with concrete floors and angled entrances, all earth covered, enough to hold the whole school. On an alert being sounded, classes walked briskly to their allotted shelter and the master in charge would hold a roll call. There was no lighting but luckily the All Clear,a continuous wail, would usually sound before long. The second half of 1940 saw many daylight alerts and air raids over London with the occasional bomber over Isleworth before turning south for home. Before long, boys in the fifth year and upper sixth studying for matriculation (G.C.S.E) and Intermediate B.Sc. (H.S.C) were left in their classrooms, only going to shelter if enemy aircraft approached which was indicated by anti-aircraft gunfire being heard.

Our first night alert was on Monday, 26 August, 1940 and Mum, a girl friend and I sat in our shelter until the All Clear sounded at 3.30 a.m. when I then saw her home. No aircraft had come as far west that night. Thereafter raids occurred every and all night, so we took sleeping bags and managed to somehow sleep in the cramped space. About 1.00 a.m. on Tuesday, 3 September, an enemy bomber jettisoned his load clear of London and the stick of bombs landed at about 200 yard intervals, the first in our district. The first bomb was 30 yards beyond our house, blowing out most of our front windows, the second struck a tree alongside a friend鈥檚 house (they came round and joined us for the rest of the night) and a third set fire to a garage. At this stage of the war the bombs were small-the first bomb produced a crater only about six feet across.

Thursday, 31 October had a three-hour alert during school, but the night raid was only 6.30-9.30 p.m., so we slept in the house, the first time for over two months. Subsequently, most of the night raids were short and evenings only. On Monday, 11 November a bomb landed by our local Post Office and another in Pears Soap works, about a quarter of a mile east. During this time Dad enlarged our shelter, building in new concrete (cutting through the apple tree roots!) and making better and wider steps. Henceforth we could sleep in comfort, lighting being by oil lamp and torches.

Dad was an Air Raid Warden, on a duty rota during Alerts at a small, brick, wardens鈥� post at the top of our road. During 1941 all large buildings became guarded by firewatchers, probably as a result of the burning of the City after Christmas. Our school was covered each week-night and all weekends by a rota of two sixth formers and one master; all were trained in the use of stirrup pumps, for which we paid 1/6 (7陆p) 鈥攎ore than my weekly pocket money. My turn came up about once a fortnight.

Early in January the school formed a unit of the Air Training Corps, which I joined. Lecturers and drill were for two hours after school on Mondays. All 16 and 17 years old boys were required to register on 28 February at the local Labour Exchange (now called a Job Centre) to ensure all were members of a Service Corps or some form of youth organisation.

Air raids had quietened down somewhat by the time I sat my Intermediate B.Sc. (H.S.C.) exams in 1943. At the end of August the seniors went on a harvest camp to Monks Risborough, Bucks, where we all slept in the village hall. Transport to local farms was by our bicycles and open lorry to further ones. Many of the farm workers were serving in the forces, so we worked hard in the glorious sunshine, stooking and carting corn to the rick yard. One or two modern farms had tractors, the rest horses. We were told that all farm workers took a bottle of cold tea into the fields, supplied for us if we wanted. We soon found out that farm workers 鈥榗old tea鈥� looked much the same as 鈥榤ild鈥� cider!

1944 brought heavy air raids by both sides. On Sunday evening, 26 February, although the raid lasted only half an hour, things were very lively and we were grateful for our shelter. The following Thursday, another heavy raid, 9.30-10.15. We heard the hiss of falling incendiary bombs and looked out to find a canister had been detonated overhead. We rushed out and joined our neighbours to put out fires before they could take hold. Mum was the only one with the presence of mind to scoop up a bucket of sand, which was used to confine a fire to the ground under a bomb. Our local single storey bank had one starting up on its flat roof. A man with a stick shinned up a drainpipe and flicked the oversized 鈥榮parkler鈥� on to the pavement below. The last one burning had fallen in the angle between a tiled roof and a chimneystack of a house in our road. It burnt its way through a ceiling and dropped into a suitable bowl of water just as the magnesium fizzled out 鈥� from where the remains were flushed away by pulling the chain! Most of the rest were duds, filled with cork or similar material, thanks to the actions of the slave labourers in German factories.

After one air raid, there was a strong smell of oil and when our next door neighbour opened the door to her front room, she found a large hole through the ceiling and floor, where a very dangerous oil bomb has crashed and buried itself in the soil. Thank goodness the detonator had failed or several houses and, possibly our air raid shelter, would have been engulfed in burning oil with many killed.

Soon after I was off to college and the R.A.F, so the main things I then encountered were rationing and 鈥榙oodle bugs鈥� (V1 or flying bombs) when I was home on leave.

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