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Cooperation

I was seven when the war started and lived in a road of twenty-four houses from which only two men were called up — the others were too old or in reserved occupations. To save paper every household subscribed to a different magazine and each week these were passed on to your neighbour. Eventually the periodical came back and was taken out of circulation. Thus one received a wide variety of magazines. Another way the road cooperated was by having a communal birthday party. By sharing food coupons a once-a-year party was held in the village hall for all the children. Towards the end of the war restrictions on access to some of the coastal regions were lifted and one pair of parents or two of the wives took many children to the beaches.

V2 rockets

Norfolk did not receive too many of these weapons but my sister and I watched them being fired from Holland. We climbed a tree and on a clear day could see the vapour trail zig-zagging upwards. After the war I was told that when we saw the vapour, the rocket had already landed, and that it could be seen as far inland as Cambridge.

Baedeker raids on Norwich, April 27th and 29th 1942

Norfolk’s geography and proximity to the continent meant that we spent more time in the shelters because of planes flying over us to bomb elsewhere than sheltering from raids on our own city. Therefore after a while we started to ignore air-raid warnings.

In late April 1942, in reprisal for the bombing of the city of Lübeck, the German Luftwaffe conducted bombing raids on British cities allegedly selected from the German Baedeker tourist guide to Britain. One of these was Norwich.

We lived three miles east of Norwich on high ground and I remember watching this raid. The enemy dropped flares over the city and from our viewpoint it was as good as Blackpool illuminations. It was quite uncanny as the wind was from the east and there was no sound of the bombs exploding. It was only on the following day that we discovered how severe the damage was.

Aircraft operations.

I remember in particular all the gliders being towed across to Arnhem. A very impressive sight. The aircraft from our airfields usually operated with the USAAF doing daytime raids and the RAF nighttime operations. Often, damaged planes limping back to base encountered each other and accidents occurred — either collisions or on occasion shootings down; some of these I remember witnessing.

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