大象传媒

This account is added to the site by Pat Waters of Folkestone Heritage Team, with the permission of the author.

Memories of the 2nd World War, viewed through the eyes of a Folkestone youngster.
Extracts from the autobiography of Len Gibbons, born 14/09/1930.
Written June 2000 - July 2003 at 'Kingfishers' Canterbury Road Etchinghill.

War! the degradation of mankind, usually brought about by the decisions of those few hundred so called educated, but misguided members of the community, who spend their days running up and down the corridors of power. They blunder their way from one catastrophe to the next, with little or no thought of the misery, grief, and heartbreak that they heap upon the shoulders of their fellow men, of whom it must be said, voted them into power in the first place, 'The Vicious Circle', from where emerge no winners, no winners at all!

Be that as it may, this very same 'War' seen through the eyes of a nine year old call Leonard Gibbons, with his friends, John Hann, David Hogben, and Victor Parks, in the main was a very exciting place, we had had five years of peace. In the wondering; however, it should never be forgotten, that millions, all around the globe, in the name of freedom, paid the supreme sacrifice, and that because of their unselfish actions, we supposedly inherited a better world. Looking at human behaviour to-day, nearly sixty years on, I think it's open to debate.

So Sunday, 3rd September 1939, morning church having been sidelined by an expected broadcast from No. 10 Downing Street, on the accumulator driven "wireless". "Having received no such undertaking." (A reply to an ultimatum) " We are now in a state of war with Germany". A short while afterwards, all the sirens in town sounded, which was either a false alarm, or a test run, slightly unnerving, as the whole town had previously seemed to be enveloped in meaningful silence.

At the time, I lived with my mother, father and sister Irene at No.303 Cheriton Road, almost opposite the old 'Kent Pure Ice Works', (now A.T.S.). Father was a builder and undertaker, his workforce of about twelve, reduced to three, on the books of the War Department, to repair damaged buildings, and to attend to some of the expected fatalities in the town. For some time now, we, ('we' being me and my friends named above), and all the other scholars in town had been front line witnesses to some very unfamiliar events, taking place under confidential circumstances.

Out in the town A.R.P and First Aid Posts were sited in strategic positions, sandbags stacked all round for protection, vehicles were commandeered for use as ambulances etc., white paint was applied to steps, trees, motor car mudguards, running boards, and anything else that might create a hazard in the dark, and all motor vehicle headlights had to be masked, the light emitting from three half inch slots across the mask. Tops of pillar boxes were coated in a paint that changed colour in a gas attack, window glass had sticky tape applied to stop it flying everywhere when shattered, and of course the windows had to be covered with black-out curtain or similar, to prevent even the smallest chink of light showing on the outside after dark. We were told that the pilot of an aircraft would be able to see someone down here lighting a cigarette, which I think was wishful thinking, and it certainly didn't stop us kids smoking our Woodbines, three in a paper packet for one penny, from the machines on the sweet shop wall.

Gas masks had been issued to everyone, which had to be carried at all times, and occasionally the Air Raid Wardens, with their little wooden rattles would let off a canister or two of Tear Gas in the street, which certainly sorted out those who had left theirs behind. We hated the things, as soon as they were put on, the little window steamed up and you couldn't see where you were going, they smelt, and I for one found it a job to breathe comfortably. Soon after their issue, a man came round to the school and taped a second canister onto the main one. This was coloured green, and was made especially to combat Mustard gas.

Other things that happened early on in the war, although I can't quite remember either the timing or in what order, were the issue of Identity Cards (mine was numbered DHOV 265/3), Ration Books, the removal of all iron railings and gates, to make tanks and guns, the voluntary donation of aluminium cooking utensils, used to make aircraft. Concrete 'Pill boxes' (gun emplacements) were built, slit trenches dug and most of the school children, including the evacuees sent to Folkestone from the London area earlier, were evacuated to the West Country or Wales.

The first major distraction, for us at any rate, was the building of the underground air raid shelters, all round the grounds at Harcourt School. Times without number, the message from a frustrated teacher to their pupils was, "Will you stop looking out of the window and get on with your work". When they were finished, each class was instructed in the requirements for an orderly and speedy transition from classroom to shelter, but in the event some months later, order was replaced by chaos, and speedy by meteoric, teacher arriving , very much out of breath, some time later.

Two of the biggest jobs around town, were the digging of the 'Tank Trap' along the hills behind the town, and the tubular scaffolding type defences along the seashore. The Tank Trap', a trench fifteen feet wide and about seven feet deep, ran roughly from the old 'Dolls House' or 'Northcliffe House' above Danton Pinch, to the 'Valiant Sailor' at Capel. A few men lost their lives on this contract, as the German fighters would occasionally fly along above the trench and machine gun the diggers, who had no protection whatsoever. the top of Ceasars Camp(Castle Hill) was honeycombed with tunnels in which was stored a considerable amount of ammunition. Another thing I can remember about the 'Camp' was one night, the 'Fascist Brownshirts' carved their emblem ln the side of it. It looked like a flash of lightning carved into the chalk, and went from top to bottom of the hill. It wasn't long before the powers that be, had hidden that up. Staying with Caesar鈥檚 Camp for a moment, for a period before the war, or during the early part of it, there was a man, (something to do with the 'Cheerful Sparrows Fetes', that were held on Folkestone Golf course each year, and had lost one of hears at the time). He had a Bull nosed Morris car, his name was I think Simons, or Symmonds, probably a military man, and used to make it his business to raise the Union Flag on the flagpole at Caesar鈥檚 Camp every morning. Does anybody remember or know anything about him? Of the seashore, from Sandgate westwards, we knew little about, as we understood it to be quite heavily mined, and for us at any rate was a no go area. Most major roads in the area, had fuel piped to them from storage tanks hidden some way away, which in the event of an enemy advance along them would have been flooded with fuel and set on fire.

And so the stage was set. All we needed now were the players, and they weren't long in coming. The first catastrophe was the unfortunate ending of a mock aerial battle over the town, between a Lysander and a Hurricane, after a bet had been laid that the heavy and sluggish Lysander could out manoeuvre the Hurricane. The end result was the crashing of the latter just behind the 'Royal Victoria Hospital' and when we lads arrived 'cock a hoop' at the scene a little later, the policeman on guard duty, informed us, "It's not a peep show, there was a man in that smouldering heap of wreckage, and just you remember that". We walked quietly away!

The thousands of soldiers, who a few months previously had marched down Cheriton Road from Shorncliffe barracks, preceded by military bands, and singing patriotic songs, were now being driven into the sea at Dunkirk. The order was given to rescue as many as could be saved and pretty well every boat in the South East sailed across the Channel and did what he could, bringing back in total, about three thousand men. The thinking of most people at that time, was that a German invasion would not be far behind, but everything was under control, Mr Anthony Eden had asked all able-bodied men in reserved occupations, to volunteer and form a resistance brigade, which went under the name of 'Local Defence Volunteers, (L.D.V.s). They were armed to the teeth with pitch forks, the odd shotgun, pickaxe handles and the like, but more importantly, the determination to do their level best to stop any invasion in it's tracks. However, a few months further on, when they were in possession of uniforms, gasmasks, rifles etc., and had been properly instructed in the art, they would have given just as good an account of themselves as would a regular army unit.

The rest of the children in the town were now asked, or told to leave. My sister and I were taken by our grandmother, to Resolven near Swansea in Wales, to live with family friends. We had hardly been there for a month, when the Luftwaffe decided to rearrange the place, and in the doing, hit quite a few oil storage tanks in the refinery at Skewen, just down the road. The black smoke from this had to be seen to be believed, and on top of all this, I fell into the River Neath and nearly drowned, so, on the orders of our father, it was back to Folkestone for us, if we were going to die, at least we would all be together.

On our return, the 'Battle of Britain' was in full swing, and talking of dying, we very nearly did. My father and I, were standing outside the front door to our shop, when a stray cannon shell zipped past us and exploded when it hit the brickwork beside us. If we had been standing eighteen inches further forward, it would have passed clean through both of us. (At least we wouldn't have had to go far for an undertaker!!). Needless to say, we stayed indoors for a while after that!

In the passage of time, my memory of cannon shells was at least getting blurred around the edges, so my friend John Hann and I, started to venture out into the town, when our confidence was again put to the test with the arrival of the first long range shells from the French coast. These were fired from 280mm guns and were most frightening, because they just arrived "BANG" followed by the whistle of their imminent arrival, and then the rumble of their being fired in France. At night, if one stood on the Leas, the flash of the gun could clearly be seen on the French coast, about sixty seconds later, the shell would arrive in the town, but seeing that flash, thereby knowing a shell was on it's way, wasn't half as frightening as the ones that arrived unannounced in daylight. Some time later the size of their ordnance was increased to 406mm, with a corresponding increase in the "BANG" bit. There was a rumour, that the Germans had a range finder in Folkestone, most noticeable when shipping came under fire. The Royal Navy, when a convoy was passing through, used to lay a smoke screen up the channel, a mile or two offshore. When the convoy was passing through, between smoke and shore, it was uncanny how many ships were hit by the second or third shells, fired from guns over twenty miles away. No trouble now of course, but we're talking here of over sixty years ago.

However, by now the 'dog' fighting above our heads had lessened considerably, so we were allowed to leave home in the morning, taking with us a few sandwiches, and a bottle of drink, made by dissolving lemonade crystals in water, with the proviso that we return by six in the evening. A lot of our time was spent around the mothballed Cheriton Brickyards, and the clay-pits, in which had by now accumulated a considerable amount of water, ten feet deep or more. Between the brickyard and the hills, was one of the Army firing ranges, where on a good day, we could pick up as many live and blank 303 bullets as we could carry, to be hidden in the garden shed for future use. Bren-gun bullet cases were knee deep, and made admiral ammunition for our catapults. I often wonder how so much explosive material, lays undetected under the Channel Tunnel site. If it was swept with the say religious enthusiasm, as was Hawkinge aerodrome before they built on it, then there's quite a bit.

One occasion involving catapults comes to mind; it was while we were on our way home after spending a day out near Arpinge. On our route back to Cheriton, lay the reputedly haunted Northcliffe House, (Dolls House to the locals), which was both unoccupied and over grown, and standing in the garden was a chimney-pot. Just the thing for a bit of target practice, (not that we needed any practice, being quite good shots). Stones and bullet cases ricocheted off this thing to all points of the compass, and it was not long before we realised that chimney pots were not made of steel. It was an unexploded bomb! We duly informed the warden at Danton Pinch, who contacted the Police, and on being questioned and giving our names, was told that he knew my father, and would have a word. Of course he knew my father, who had joined the War Reserve Police earlier on, W.R. 49 was his number and I took quite a bit of flak when he came off shift. The 'bomb' had apparently fallen off a Lysander, who used to carry then on their wheel spats, along with rubber dinghies and other paraphernalia used for Air Sea Rescue, so was probably only a smoke bomb anyway.

Father, who had been a car driver all his life, when joining the force, put his name forward to be a dispatch rider. Working on the popular theory, that the less one knows about a particular subject, the more qualified you are to carry it out, he was duly issued with a pair of jodhpurs, a pair of shiny leather leggings and a 500cc Norton motor cycle. The next day, the Norton was wheeled out into St. Georges Road, and pointed in the right direction. W.R.49, standing astride the machine, kick started it, put it into gear, revved up, and one of two things happened. Either the clutch lever slipped out of his hand, or the clutch cable broke, because the Norton shot from between his legs, went straight across Cheriton Road and crashed into the front porch of the house across the road, where it laid in a crumpled heap, awaiting the vehicle recovery unit. W.R.49 was quickly transferred from dispatches to squad car duties.

His being on shift work obviously meant that he would be away at night now and again, so it was decided (our not having taken advantage of a previous 'Anderson' or 'Morrison' air raid shelter offer), that mother and us two children, should sleep, or at least spend the nights down in our cellar. It was a sizeable affair, with a big kitchen range at one end, a couple of tons of coal shot upon the floor, two big carpenters work benches, and stacks of Ash, Elm, and Oak boards, ready to be cut up and made into coffins. Under the benches were a couple of 鈥榠n the raw coffins鈥�, one of which I slept in, mother and my sister sleeping on a mattress, on a couple of the boards supported by oil drums. Here we slept for the next two years and thought nothing of it. One night, I think in May 1941, there was an almighty explosion, not in the road outside as I thought, but in Morehall Avenue. It was an aerial mine, containing about 100lbs of explosive, wrecked 30 houses completely, and killed 13 people.

Life carried on very much as usual, in spite of it all, and it was about this time that I saw the first jet propelled aircraft, apparently out on a test. We were over at Woolage Green, near Barham, visiting a friend of my father, when 鈥榃hoosh鈥�, a monoplane, with no propeller, shot across the sky at quite a low altitude, and the noise, we鈥檇 never heard anything like it, but of course it was two or three years before it became operational. The friend of my father was an engineer, who worked at the garage of Edwin Hambrook, just across the road from our shop. This garage had been re-tooled for the production of disposable long range fuel tanks for 鈥楽pitfires鈥� and 鈥楬urricanes鈥� some of which, were stacked out in the yard at the back of the garage with 鈥榬eject鈥� written on them. Reject or not, we thought 鈥淛ust the job for paddling round the clay pit pond鈥�, so one evening, two tanks taken into custody, and transported to the brickyard on one father鈥檚 building carts. They did indeed make ideal boats, and with the aid of a plank of wood for a paddle, we scudded around for a while, until it became very noticeable that the amount of freeboard on one side of one of the 鈥渂oats鈥� was diminishing rapidly. A speedy return to shore was the order of the day, which was achieved with only moments to spare, and our 鈥渞eject鈥漵unk without trace. To our dismay, even before we鈥檇 thrown our paddle away, who should arrive on the scene but 鈥楧addy Dennis鈥�.

He was the poor man whose job it was to keep us hooligans away from anything to do with bricks. We had already depleted his stock of little four wheeled wagons, which were used to haul the clay from the pit up to the puddling machines above the kilns, by pushing them back to the out to the top of the sloping railway track, jumping aboard, and whizzing down to water level. This was only possible when the water was frozen to three or four inches thick, and the little trucks would continue on their way after leaving the rails for some considerable distance across the ice. There was no way we could get the trucks back up the inclined railway, their being to heavy, and when the ice melted of course, ten feet under!

This branch of activity only lasted for a couple of days, the power that be, D.D. quick to see the problem and the countermeasure, ran a chain through a couple of wheels on each truck, and chained them to the wall, end of story! However, to day he wasn鈥檛 too bad, and only confiscated our one remaining boat, saying, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 put a stop to that malarky鈥�, oblivious of the fact that we had a factory just up the road producing hundreds of the things. If any of his descendants ever read this, can I register our sincere apologies for the way we treated him. It wasn鈥檛 that we didn鈥檛 like him, it was because it seemed that he was always standing on the piece of ground where we wanted to be.

During the warmer weather in the summer, and maybe to give us kids something to keep us out of mischief, the lower pond in Radnor Park was pumped out, cleaned and refilled from the 鈥楶ent Stream鈥�, by the Fire Service. Every so often after that, they would come along, pump some out, and pump some fresh in, to keep the pond clean, and I can remember on some afternoons, upwards of fifty children swimming and splashing about in it. Great fun!

As I mentioned earlier, we now had quite a stock of bullets and blanks in the garden shed, and the idea was to make some of what we called hand grenades. It all started down in Wales, during the short period if time that we were there. I became friends with a lad called Leslie Day. He had learnt from his father, who worked in a munitions factory, how to make a small explosive device. First get a one-pound 鈥楥ocoa鈥� tin, make a hole in the lid with a nail, through this hole thread a short piece of string. In the tin, put a spoonful of Carbide. (This was the powder used in the forerunner of electric lamps on motor vehicles, obtainable during the war, but not any more). Speed is of the essence here, and a tablespoon of water, put on the lid and tie it down, quickly light the end of the string, (which will probably only smoulder), and place in a predetermined position. Vacate the area at speed, and after a few seconds there will be a fair old bang.

Back to the bullets, they contained one of two sorts of cordite, thin sticks, or, the material we wanted, little black flakes. We then acquired some hefty nuts and bolts from the electricity works at Morehall. At this point, just a thought, why didn鈥檛 the government use twelve to fourteen year olds as spies? Here we were, in an eleven mile deep restricted strip, right around the coast, and we could wheedle our way into the most secure of 鈥淣O ENTRY鈥� areas, and when caught we weren鈥檛 taken out and shot, all that happened was, a very loud voice saying 鈥淗ey you kids, what are you doing here, clear orf and don鈥檛 let me see you here again鈥�. And off we went!

So! Take one nut, and screw a bolt into it, just one turn or thread. Then fill the nut with the cordite, place a red match-head on the top, followed by another bolt, carefully screw in tight. Throw the thing as you would a grenade, and when it hit the ground, almighty bang, and by the time the householders who were living around there got to their front doors, we had removed our as yet unkicked backsides to another part of town.

1942, the seventh of January, and an addition to the family. My brother Bernard was born, rather an unsettled world to be born into, but there it was, he was here, and here he had to stay. Us boys weren鈥檛 interested in babies, so our days continued as before, but he gave my sister, who used to help my mother a lot, something else to help fill her day.

Another memorable occasion soon afterwards, was on the 5th May 1942. While standing with my grandmother in the back yard of her house in St. Hilda Road, our attention was drawn skywards by the passage overhead, of a number of paving slabs, a collection of ridge tiles, slates, earth and other rubbish. Despite no previous communication, a German Messerschmitt had just roared over, dropped a bomb in the road outside, the surprising thing being that there wasn't a hint of an explosion. When we rushed indoors to avoid the debris, it quickly became clear what had happened. Most of the front of the house was missing, a massive crater in the road outside, pipe-work gushing gas and water, and the lamp-post which usually stood outside the house, was now lounging across grandma's bed. After a few moments spent studying the carnage, grandma dispatched me, at considerable speed, to my parents at No. 303, to put their minds at rest, as regards to our well being. I have no idea where she spent the night, or indeed where she spent the next few weeks while her house was being made secure, but I do know that she returned to live there very soon afterwards. These little "hit and run raids" where the enemy planes used to hurtle across the English channel at wave top height to avoid detection by radar, pull up over the cliffs and zip across the town, machine gunning and dropping indiscriminately, the high explosive bombs carried under their wings. Owing to the low level flight of the planes, and to avoid being brought down in the blast, these bombs had a delayed action device incorporated in their structure, and performed some spectacular manoeuvres, bouncing off roads and buildings before exploding many streets away from the point where they first hit the ground. Somewhat disturbing if one was in the immediate proximity of such antics, and of a nervous disposition. One of these raids in October'41 didn't quite go according to plan. Two 'Focke Wulf' fighter-bombers shot across the town and followed the railway line going towards Ashford. At Westenhanger, they caught up with a train, raked it with canon-fire, and just as one of them was passing over the engine, its boiler blew up and the plane disintegrated in a thousand pieces. The driver of the engine died four days later in hospital.

A lot of our time was spent around Folkestone harbour. We made friends with one or two of the lads in the fish-market, who had legitimate access to some of the rowing boats there moored, and spent many hours trying to catch fish, crabs and suchlike, getting absolutely soaked in the process, but drying out on the long trek home. It was on one of these jaunts that it nearly all ended for me. The tide was about halfway up and the surface like a millpond, so as we had done many times before, we donned our swimsuits and waded out until the water was level with our shoulders. It was most unfortunate, or with hindsight maybe a good thing, that a Royal Navy launch, at that moment came roaring round the sunken block-ship into the harbour, creating a considerable amount of wash (waves) the first one which lifted me off my feet, turned me upside down, which meant my hands were on the sand and my feet sticking out of the water. Luckily, after what seemed ages, I managed to right myself, and when my head came out of the water I gulped so much air I nearly created a vacuum in the fishmarket! A very frightened young man clawed his way up the harbour steps, and not long after this put his name down for swimming lessons in the recently re-opened open-air pool on Marine Parade, the instructor being the leader of the sea cadet corps.

By the summer of 1943, quite a few residents had returned to their homes in the town, always assuming they still had one, bringing their children with them. Therefore it became a priority that some seats of learning be set up to extend their education and resulted in one or two of the schools being re-opened. All the children were expected to attend for lessons, and as the mornings were the quietest part of the twenty-four hours, with regard to enemy action, it was decreed that we only attend up until lunchtime. This gave us the opportunity to continue our nomadic activities in the afternoons, so not all was lost. We had to attend Morehall school, Chart Road, and with hindsight were exceptionally lucky in having two teachers who really made sure we were heedful of their ministrations, one, by his ability to hold your complete attention by skilful delivery, the other, again by skilful delivery, but of the blackboard rubber, to the body-work of any idiot foolish enough not to pay attention.

Our undivided attention was also to be focussed on things lying around on the ground. The Germans had recently taken to dropping small toys, fountain pens, pencils and the like, which when picked up would explode taking off one's fingers or even a hand. There were also the anti-personnel, or 'Butterfly' bombs, which could be found anywhere, hanging in trees or on gutters and under nl circumstances were to be touched, as these were powerful enough to kill, Having said all this, we were very quick to learn, and I don't recall anybody locally, having been injured by these devices.

This intensity of learning however, was not entirely confined to school hours, as it was thought by father (wrongly as it turned out) that now would be a good time to introduce me to the art of beekeeping. He had some hives of bees in the back garden of No. 17 Cherry Garden Lane, the home of Mr Toop, our butcher, and I was invited to attend the weekly inspection of the hives, unsuitably (as it turned out) attired in hat and veil (which had many patches and darns all over it) tucked into a boiler suit about ten sizes too big for me, tied round the ankles with string, and a pair of woolly gloves to protect the hands. So, first of all, the lid was removed from the hive, hmmmm!, than the quilt covering the frames was removed, more hmmmm!, and finally, one of the frames is levered out of the super (a box containing nine frames), covered with, in a rough and very quick count, about a million bees. The sight of all those potentially lethal bums, and the agonising wretchedness that they could inflict on one's person, brought me out in a cold sweat, as they were brought towards me for perusal and instruction, the situation improved not one iota. A debatable peace of mind reigned for about three seconds, then, an excruciating pain in my ankle, which stirs those not made of steel, to question the intelligence of their getting out of bed that morning. Next a high pitched buzzing right in front of my nose, causing the eyes to adopt the mode of cross, followed by another stabbing pain in the back of my hand. At this point, common sense begins to take a grip of the situation, and is not at all in line with the advice being meted out by father, "don't panic" came the order of the day, "don't panic". Here I am spinning round like a top, my feet boring a hole in the ground, with what feels like 'Halley's Comet' in the back of my trousers, looking for the quickest rout out of the garden, and father says "don't panic". I lost interest in bees and beehives very quickly after that!

A few weeks later we learnt that a Scout Troop was being restarted in Cheriton, and for the want of something to do in the evenings we thought it a good idea to put or names on the list of interested boys. At the opening meeting, held in the 'Grange Hall' behind Cheriton telephone exchange, three patrols of eight boys each were formed, the troop was to be named 'The 2nd Cheriton' and the Scoutmaster was Dick Pearce, who worked at the electricity generating works at Morehall. I started off being a second, one stripe, was promoted to patrol leader, two stripes, as more boys joined, and eventually became Troop leader, three strips. Soon after starting up the troop managed to obtain the use of, rent free, one of a pair of dilapidated cottages that stood on the corner where Ashley Avenue meets Cheriton High Street. All members turned up to give the place a good clean up, and was decorated throughout with varying colours of 'Distemper' liberated from fathers paint shop. Here were held all our meetings including weekly sessions of training in ropework, splicing and knotting, by Mr Sunders, the sail-maker of 'Tontine Street', tree recognition, management and felling, the proper way to sharpen steel woodworking tools, by a Marine, Mr Hickman, and First Aid by two men from the St Johns' Ambulance Brigade. We were taught self preservation in the wild, map reading, navigation by the sun, the stars, and the natural world around you, edible plants and roots, in fact a hundred and one things most of which during the rest of my life were very useful things to know. More than can be said about the History, Algebra, and Drama lessons we had at school.

Another thing that stemmed from being a scout , the older boys provided they owned a cycle , were allowed to become messengers, taking messages from for instance Cheriton First Aid Post, to the one at the sports ground, or the police station at the Town Hall. For this there was a small remuneration, but my father, older and no doubt wiser than I, told the powers that be to put my earnings in the poor box , which was duly attended to. Not my line of thinking at all. I was allowed to wear a National Service badge on my uniform however, which went a little way to easing the hurt.

Towards the end of 1943, it became noticeable that the number of Army personnel in the vicinity had increased considerably. as did their hardware. There were field guns parked under pretty well every tree, each with it's towing vehicle, which was full of ammunition, and a full compliment of gunners and drivers etc. Reversed into the gardens of empty houses and covered in camouflage netting were hundreds of Churchill tanks, half-track personnel carriers and Bren-gun carriers. Every day all their engines were started up and run until hot, switched off, checked and petrol tanks replenished. They must have used thousands of gallons of fuel, and never moved an inch. Up until May 1944 that is, when every night for about a week, so many vehicles would start up and move towards Shorncliffe station ( now Folkestone West), be loaded on to flatbed railway wagons and transported we knew not where. Every ten minutes or so, could be heard the sound of another steam engine or engines, taking up the strain, and roaring off into the darkness. The bottom of Station Road was like a ploughed field, the tarmac being torn up and pushed into a heap nearly three feet high across Cheriton Road, by the tracks of the tanks when they changed direction and slewed round the corner. Within a week, Folkestone was once again transformed into a ghost town, what with the exodus of the military, and still only a small number of residents living in the borough.

And then the news to gladden everybody's heart. The allies had invaded Hitler's Europe, via the Normandy beaches, and had formed a considerable bridge-head, with little resistance, apparently wrong-footing the German armies by amassing all the hardware in the south-east of England, which suggested an imminent attack in the Calais area.

The rejoicing in Folkestone however was short lived for Germany had for some years been working hard on the pilot-less flying bomb, (V1 or doodlebug) and the V2 rocket.
the doodlebugs were now ready, and the first one launched against England, I'm pretty sure, was on a Thursday night, and was looked upon with wonderment and fear by the population of the town. How could a flying machine, loaded with a ton of explosives, no propeller, and twenty feet of flame shooting from it's back end, fly from France to London without a pilot? And so began another exodus of the population.

On the Friday morning John Hann and I decided to play truant, get astride our bikes and go where the action was. We came to rest on the Leas beside the gun emplacement opposite the War Memorial at the top of the Road of Remembrance. It wasn't long before things started to happen, as from out over the channel came the dreaded sound of one of these infernal machines, hell bent on despatching half an acre of Greater London buildings complete with residents to history. The strategy designed to deal with these hooligans, was that the first line of defence would be fighters, out over the channel, who would operate up to a line where the anti-aircraft guns could take over, followed by another zone inland where fighters would again take charge of the situation, with a final belt of barrage balloons around the capital. This arrangement, in the main seemed to work quite well, but occasionally things went a bit pear-shaped, and on this Friday did just that. One of the fighters, a 'Typhoon' or 'Tempest' I think, got carried away, and followed one of these flying bombs into the ack-ack zone. I can still see it now, one of the tracer shells from the gun were standing by, curls away from the end of the barrel and hit the flying bomb amidships. This caused at least three things to happened. (1)The resultant explosion, which occurred at about three hundred feet above the town, and probably did more damage to the buildings thereabout, than if the thing had crashed to the ground. (2) The fighter pilot, being close on the tail of the villainous contraption, could do nothing but fly through all the debris right in front of him, and in so doing, wrecked his machine, but miraculously so we were to hear later, landed successfully at Hawkinge, the local fighter station. (3) the gun which began this sequence of events was at first firing away from John Hann and me, at the incoming doodlebug, but as it came in over the Leas, the gun followed it round and ended up firing straight over our heads. the noise was terrific, and I can remember it like it was yesterday, our ears were ringing and hissing for days afterwards, and I maintain that this was the cause of my current hearing problems. From that moment on, gun emplacements were crossed off our list of places to visit, although it was seemingly impossible to avoid the noise. As the doodlebug offensive hotted up, more and more guns were brought into the area, apparently becoming the greatest assembly of fire power ever seen in this country. they were backed up by what we came to know as Z batteries, a series of projectors which fired I think about sixty four, three inch rockets in a block. Later even these were replaced by the Royal Navy's 'Tonsil', a similar tool but firing four hundred rockets at a time. When they were in action, there was a square mile of sky out there, which was, at the best, to be avoided. Another thing worthy of mention here, was the involvement of the American Gunners. They had two or three sites around the town, had 90mm guns, and scored many direct hits on the Buzz bombs as they called them, usually with the second or third shot. Marvellous stuff!

One other encounter with a doodle bug comes to mind, I and the gang were preparing to do a bit of boating on the brickyard pond, with one of our stock of hundreds of fuel tanks, when the (by now) familiar sound of a flying bomb was heard approaching the town. On looking up, we sighted it out over East Cliff, on a course which would bring it right over our heads on it's journey to the capital. this in itself constituted no danger to us, but suddenly the engine stopped, and as it began its long glide earthwards, the predominant feeling, which very quickly too precedence over our somewhat befuddled thinking , was that it would arrive at ground level on precisely the piece of ground we now stood upon. Consequently, a lightning and unanimous decision was made, to the effect that it would be foolhardy to remain in our current position, and with one accord, we clawed our way up the almost sheer, sixty foot wall of clay, and were halfway to Cheriton High Street before the thing hit the ground, exploding nearly a mile away at Danton Pinch.

By now it was getting towards the end of August 1944, and due to the advances being made by the allied forces in France, the capture of all the V1n launch ramps and the long range gun sites, things were getting quieter all the time. Not to be outdone however, the Germans did manage a few more V1s towards London, but these were launched from aircraft over the North Sea I think.

Eventually Peace. Our war, had been one big adventure, we had learnt more about life in five short years, than any of our counterparts, before or since. Two and a half years of our schooling, scattered to the winds, our bent and battered world a challenge in which to start our working lives. Now here we are, a further sixty years up the road, retired, a lot wiser, and better of than we've ever been. Our memories and health perhaps a little frayed around the edges, and fear of what the future may hold for our grandchildren. Over twenty two million people lost their lives in the second world war, most in terrible circumstances, and what has man learnt from all this?

The answer is NOTHING.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.