´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Shelagh on behalf of Ray Clements and has been added to the site with his permission. Ray fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

Ray’s Story

In 1941, when I was about eleven, the Air Ministry developed an idea and on the last day of March they came to my village — Great Wakering on the Thames Estuary with vehicles full of wire spools and gas cylinders. They blew up sondeballoons, suspended beneath them was a plywood dish containing about half a dozen four inch long sand bags. In the centre, there was a cylinder about the size of a cocoa tin. Also fixed underneath was a length of fuse cord.

As the balloons were released, at the end of a piece of wire, the fuse was lit. It was a clear, moonlit evening and we could easily see several dozen balloons in the sky at anyone time. We understood that the idea was to get the balloons to reach a height where enemy bombers would fly into the wires and draw the explosive into the engines where they would explode and bring the planes down!

All us boys rushed home, borrowed our dad’s pliers and spent the rest of the evening cutting the wires as souvenirs. Souvenirs were important to us boys!

The following morning was a Saturday and there was no school so we were keen to get more souvenirs. My best friend called for me but as I still had errands to run I was not allowed out with him. After I had completed my errands, I went out with another friend at about eleven o’clock. We found bits and pieces of destroyed plywood and remains of balloons but at about midday we struck gold! There, in a ploughed field, was the complete works — parachutes, cans of explosives, sandbags. We approached it and hurled clods of earth at it - nothing happened so we collected it.

Being a practical lad, I found somewhere comfortable and proceeded to take it apart with my pocketknife. During this time at about one o’clock, we heard a loud bang. We took no notice of it and shortly afterwards went home with our souvenir. My mother who was screaming and crying met us; she’d just learnt that the explosion we’d heard had killed my best friend and a younger lad.

The ambulance arrived at the scene driven by the father of the younger boy. It was a terrible shock and tragedy for us all. The bomb disposal squad arrived at our home and took away my souvenir covered in sandbags. I knew it was safe because in those days, nothing I reassembled worked again.

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