大象传媒

In June 1944 I was 8 years old. I don't remember anything of D Day, but I do remember the doodlebugs that started that month. These were peculiar looking things with stubby short wings, square at the ends, and with an engine spitting fire that was perched high on top at the back. All the while the engine maintained a steady note and the flames were burning you knew it was going to keep flying, however the minute it started to splutter it was time to look for cover, for you knew it would soon come down and explode. Soon after the flying bombs started, hundreds of grey balloons went up in the sky all around us. We thought they looked like flying elephants. I remember standing at the top of our back garden on a beautiful summer's day with my Mum and brother and lots of our neighbours in their gardens, watching these great grey things rise all around us. Hundreds of doodlebugs were coming over every day, from all directions, and at different heights. We saw many in the distance which were no danger to us, but occasionally they came overhead. If this happened while we were at school, our teacher Mrs Manktelow, would tell us to get under our desks, where we would stay until the doodlebug had passed. It was very frightening listening to this thing going overhead, and we would be praying the engine continued its steady note. Mrs Manktelow was great on these occasions because she would crawl on her hands and knees round the class reassuring us, and spending more time with those of us who were really stressed.

The doodlebug period was another time we took to the air raid shelter to sleep every night. We had double summertime during the war to give the farmers more daylight to get the harvest in, and we children would be going up our garden paths to bed when the sun was still quite high in the sky, and didn't want to go to bed at all. Any doodlebugs passing over at night didn't bother us much, until one night we were awoken suddenly by the sound of one that seemed to be coming straight for us - and its engine was spluttering! The cover over our shelter doorway was open because it was a warm night, and through the doorway it was pitch black. All of a sudden the doorway lit up with a bright flickering orange light, and the deafening noise of this doodlebug. I was on the top bunk on one side of the shelter, and Dad was on the top bunk on the other side. His hand came across the gap and he grasped mine. I lay there rigid. My eyes fixed on this bright flickering light in the shelter doorway, with my heart pounding and listening to this awful noise. After what seemed an age, and to our great relief, the light began to fade and pitch black was restored. The noise died down a bit as the doodlebug passed overhead, and somehow it managed to get over the hill at the back of our house.

That particular doodlebug landed harmlessly in farmland just over Broom Hill. I say 'harmlessly', but the blast caused considerable damage to my Dad's lorry. He was in a reserved occupation working for the Kent Electric Power Company, and it was company policy to scatter their vehicles overnight across the countryside. Dad parked his lorry at a sub-station on Brompton Farm Road, and when he got to his vehicle next morning all the cab windows had been blown out and the tarpaulin covering the back, ripped to shreds.

This story was entered on The People's War website by Stuart Ross on behalf of Dorothy Packer, who fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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