大象传媒

Early in the nineteen fourties, after Dunkirk and the Home Guard, or the LDV as they were then known, had been formed. A cowman and myself were feeding cattle beet from a horse and cart on a meadow next to a big army camp. It was a terrible day, weather wise. The cowman, who was also the local plane spotter for the local home guard was driving the horse whilst I was unloading the cattle beet when over the army camp a twin engined plane dropped out of the clouds. The spotter recognised it as a Blemheim fighter-bomber and said, 鈥淔ancy a Blemheim fighter being out in this weather鈥�. I thought 鈥楾hat don鈥檛 sound like a British plane to me鈥� when all of a sudden I saw tufts of grass flying up from the meadow and I dived over and under the cart as I realised we were being machine gunned by a German Funker鈥檚 88. I was closely followed by the home guard just after I heard a bullet hit the cattle beet in the cart and he said to me 鈥� Do you know that鈥檚 what they call in wartime friendly fire鈥�. The only thing I could say was 鈥渋t didn鈥檛 seem very friendly to me, that was a b....y Jerry!鈥� I kept a good look out in case our so-called 鈥榝riendly'plane came back

After throwing out the rest of the cattle beet I found the bullet in the bottom of the cart, which I kept during the war. I learnt afterwards that the plane went onto machine gun the school playground at Beccles. Luckily no one was hurt but, like us, the children were pretty scared.

The next day there was a new home guard plane spotter on the post.

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