大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Richard Jackson on behalf of Nigel Pearce-Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Pearce-Smith fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

In 1943 I was an eight year old boy living in Lymington. It was a tremendously exciting time for a young lad. Occasionally at night there was the drone of German bombers approaching, aiming for Southampton, and the air-raid siren used to start blaring. This was the signal for everyone to get out of bed and take refuge in their make-shift 'air-raid shelter', which in our case was a cupboard under the stairs. Sometimes my brother and I used to risk staying in our bedroom to watch the action through the window. The sky was ablaze with criss-crossing searchlights and anti-aircraft fire.

At this time there were several anti-aircraft guns positioned in the fields around where we lived. We used to visit them sometimes during daylight hours, and the operators used to let us sit on the guns and manipulate the controls.

In the following year came the build-up to the Normady Invasion. The whole area was awash with American troops. There were Sherman tanks parked along the back streets of Milford-on-Sea. We had an uncle who lived in Milford, and whenever he saw a convoy of tanks passing on their way towards Lymington he used to telephone us, and my brother and I rushed down to Pennington Cross on our bicycles to watch the tanks go by.

There were some American troops billeted in a house at the end of our lane, and they were very happy to feed us with titbits of food when we stopped by, their rations being a lot more ample than ours. We also visited American troops who were camped opposite the Balmer Lawn Hotel in Brockenhurst. They let us sit in their jeeps and pretend to drive them!

I suppose at our age we did not fully appreciate the seriousness of the situation, but it was certainly an exciting time.

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