大象传媒

In1939 at the age of 9years I was living at Loughton in Essex where my father a stationmaster, had just taken charge of the brand new Railway staion there. The family consisted of my mother and my two sisters and my older brother Ernest, who was serving with the 7nth Hussars in Egypt. Father had joined the LDV, later to become the Home Guard of course, and I remember him coming home wearing his LDV arm band and an old WW1 Lea Enfield Rifle slung over his shoulder. Dad was a 1st class marksman and had many medals from his earlier days. Things were very quiet until around the middle of 1940, when a bomb dropped fairly close by at about9pm with no alert having been sounded. It dropped just off the high street, and demolished a house killing one old lady and a fireman in the fire station opposite. It must have been one of the first bombs to drop in the London area. That was the first, but much more was to come. Later that year a whole stick of bombs landed on Tyshurst Hill and demolished an almost complete row of houses,also a bomb landed on a bungalow that backed on to our long garden,killing the two lady occupants I beleive. Fortunatly, the blast from this bomb did not damage our house. We had no air raid shelter, so we used to get under the large oak dining table when things got rough. Like most lads in those daysI had an interest in aircraft recognition, and had a perspex disc with the silhouettes of German warplanes on. One afternoon, in the play ground of our school next to Epping forest I was talking to a friend when we spotted a plane overhead circuling and getting lower. I held my disc up to it, and saw to my suprise that it was a German Dornier 17 bomber. 'Get away', my friend said, it must be an RAF Blenhiem, no alert had been sounded Just then all hell was let loose as the AA gunners realised what it was and started firing at it, and at the same time it jetisoned it bombs and made off into cloud. By this time my friend and I were moving rapidly to the surface shelters that were in the play ground. There were no military targets in the area, so what the intentions of the pilot were are a mater of conjecture. It was not unknown for them to attack playgrounds and schools. There were a lot ofAA guns in the area ,some of which were mobile and roamed the streets at night making a great noise but very good for moral. They caused shratnel to fall like rain, we used to collect buckets of it. The old couple living next door usualy never bothered to get up during a raid but on one extra bad night they did. Just as well, because a large brass shell nose cap came though the roof and landed right in the middle of the ladies pillow, lucky escape. Thier only son had been at Dunkirk, and it was a great day of rejoycing when he came back safe and sound . At school, there were sad days when some of the desks would be empty, and you knew that the little friends who had occupied them were no longer with us. Later the Germans dropped anti personel bombs, known as butterfly bombs, because of the wings attached to them, some were found in Epping forest I understand butI never saw one. I think the greatest frustation about all this was just having to sit there and take it. My friend ALan Eaton, was an ARP messenger but he was 13 and had a bicycle. On the afternoon of September 7nth 1940 a great air battle was being fought above us and at just before 5pm a plane crashed not far away. Soon after we saw a parachutist who appeared to be landing in our long back garden. Thinking it must be a german, I went and got my fathers 12 bore shot gun. Just then, much to my disapointment, or was it relief, a gust of wind caught the chute taking it over some houses and into a field. The pilot who had bailed out of his Hurricane after trying typically, to steer it away from houses and into a field was ,I later found out, Captain Marian Pisarek of the Polish 303 Squadron. He almost succeeded in doing this, but unfortunatly, the aircraft crashed in a garden of a house next to the field killing three civil defence personel in an air raid shelter. When Marian landed in that field he was given a rather rough handling by the LDV because they thought he was a German. He could speak little English at the time, but was able to remove part of his flying overall and show the Poland flashes on his uniform tunic. There were profuse apologies made then, and I understand that the pilots of 303 squadron from Northolt were invited to a diner at the local Town Hall by the Mayor to make ammends. Marion Pisarek was later to become one of the most effective Aces of the Polish Squadrons. Sadly, he was killed in 1941 leading his squadron as thier commanding officer in a sweep over France. His Spitfire was seen to come down in the Channel after being shot down by a Folker Wolf 190 that had jumped them.

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