大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a Volunteer from Reading on behalf of Mr James Mason and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Mason fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

C Company Home Guard was based in a house in Castle Crescent, just outside of Reading town centre. You had to sleep in a double bunk bed in the front room. Hanging on the walls were pictures of parachuting Germans, they were there so that we could learn what they looked like and recognise their uniforms. I was only 18 at that time and all I could think was that if I saw one I would keep running in the other direction!

During one air raid we were up Mount Pleasant where some new houses had been built. We saw an air vent flapping which we thought might be someone signalling to the planes overhead. Another time there was someone with a knife in Southampton Street, at the Pheasant pub. We went to the Air Raid Protection unit to report these things, but we never found out what happened afterwards.

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