大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Jacky Hayward of Hastings Community Learning Centre for 大象传媒 SCR on behalf of Mr Clifford Millett and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Millett fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The first thing I remember about the war was when I was 3 years old and living in Maple Road Strood, Kent. I used to like looking out of the window and down the street.
One day in 1943 my mother and I saw some four engine bombers coming back from a raid and being midday, they were American air force (the English air force did night raids and the Americans did early morning). One of the planes was trailing smoke and flying low, as it went over we saw three parachutes leave the plane they seemed to take a long time to come down and started to disperse but one landed in our street, he actually landed on the roof of a house opposite, I remember hearing the sound as he hit the roof, he then slid from the top of the roof dislodging the slates and crying out in pain and his chute collapsed over the chimney, he was left dangling over the guttering. Someone went to fetch the police and a special constable turned up, by which time some of the locals had got a builders ladder and were helping the crewman down. Unfortunately he had a broken leg and had to be carried down with great care and difficulty. When he was down the householder took him inside and gave him a nice British cup of tea. We as children all rushed there to see the friend of Roy Rogers (we thought he was a cowboy because he came from America).
Someone from his unit game to pick him up that evening, after he had been given some powdered egg omelet and more tea. the After that, every six months or so they got a food parcel from America containing exotic tin fruit and jam, from his family thanking them for there help, this was still going on in 1947 when we moved.

I also remember when a doodle bug in August 1944 came over in the evening at about 6 o clock British double summer time (8 o clock), the siren went and my mother called me to go to the shelter which I didn鈥檛 reach as I was on my tricycle, as I looked to the left I saw the shape of the doodle bug with the flames from the back and the buzzing noise from the engine, it disappeared behind some houses further down, there was a crump followed by an explosion and one minute later a severed barrage balloon came over our house from the direction of Graves End, it came over with gas escaping and the balloon went towards the allotments which were about a mile distant were it landed. I then got to the front gate and waited for my father to come home at about 7.30pm I met him as he got off the bus and begged him to take me down to see the balloon on the allotment. When we arrived one special constable was trying to guard the balloon but not with much success, every one had a knife and was hacking bits off as even treated Eygptian cotton was very valuable along with parachute silk.

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