大象传媒

I was seven when the war began. The closest I came to death was due to friendly fire, which is funny because it wasn鈥檛 the Americans but the British! I was nine and living twenty miles east of Hull at the time. It was winter and there was very high wind and snowfall creating drifting with four to six feet of snow on the hedge rows. Me and a friend from the village thought we could build an igloo. It was daylight and a solitary German bomber flew over us as we were building our igloo. Suddenly we stopped building as we heard a loud whistling sound. Instantly we knew what the sound was and leapt head first onto the ground, when a shell exploded only 100 yards away from us. My mum had been watching the whole time in despair from the window of our house. We later found out that the shell came from an anti-aircraft which was mistimed. After the explosion we went to the field where the shell had exploded and examined the crater.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Krysten Hall CSV 大象传媒 Coventry and Warwickshire volunteer on behalf of Ralph Butcher and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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