大象传媒

I was nine years old when war was declared on Sept. 3rd. 1939. I lived at our family home in Bexleyheath, Kent. My father worked as a maintenence engineer at Woolwich Arsenal. As it transpired, Bexleyheath was to become a point on the direct route of the Luftwaffe into London during the whole of the Battle of Britain and the Blitz which succeeded it.

On the day that German bombers first attacked London in day light, my twin brother and I, together with some other friends were trying out our new, to us, second-hand bikes by riding to Bostall Heath, Plumstead to look at what was happening on the Barrage Balloon site which was a great attraction for us kids. Suddenly, the balloon on "our" site started to lift rapidly into the air. One of the R.A.F. balloon crew came over to the wire mesh fence and said urgently, "Something big's happening! You kids had better get off home!" He was right, we could see Barrage Balloons rising everywhere we looked. We got our bikes and moved to a place where we could get a better view.

We looked down river, (the Thames,) toward Erith and Gravesend and saw an enormous fleet of aircraft flying in tight formation right up the Thames Estuary. Literally, the sky was black with aircraft. As this huge mass of airplanes got quickly nearer we could see other smaller planes diving into the formations, attacking them. We could hear the machine guns quite clearly. The anti aircraft guns nearby could not fire becaue of our own aircraft. This was the Luftwaffe coming to bomb London docks and the East End of London which surrounded them.

We now knew why the aircraftsman had told us to go home. We went as fast as our legs could turn the pedals. The pillar of smoke and, at night, the red fires lasted for at least two days.

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