大象传媒

This story was submitted by Tommy Ryan, a volunteer at the Living Museum. The contributor agreed to the conditions of publication as explained.

Dad was maintaining the signal equipment on Croydon railway. We were getting daytime and night time air raids, and when he was on a ladder, about twenty feet up in the air repairing the signals, the German Luftwaffe shot at the whole area including him. Luckily they missed. Because of the large marshalling yards and junction, it was a prime target for the Germans, just the same as there's were for our own boys in the RAF. Dad would relate this story to us when he came home from work along with other stories such as when a land mine, which came down on a parachute, went up and killed a lot of people. Another of these came down and its 'chute got caught on the railway bridge and this prevented it detonating. Another thing I personally remember was about the remaining tower of the Crystal Palace Exhibition site which was believed to be a marker for the German Luftwaffe and so the powers that be decided to blow it up. And I witnessed this myself as we only lived about a mile away and saw it happen from the end of Ferndale Road. I saw it go up in a cloud of smoke. Ironically that night, the German planes inflicted one of their heaviest raids on the area. This made us think that the 'word had got out?' Maybe we didn't really need to have demolished the last part of the Crystal Palace after all? I also recall the 'doodle-bugs' [V1's] which came over day and night non stop for months on end until the launch sites were either destroyed or overrun by our forces of the Normandy Landings. The the big rockets, the V2's, startting to be launched by the Germans from their mobile launch vehicles. I remember one Saturday night listening to "ITMA' on the radio when there was an enormous explosion a half a mile away and the whole house shook on its foundations. The devastation was widespread and a lot of people were killed. After all is said and done, myself and many others managed to survive and on VJ night my parents and I were outside Buckinham Palace when the Royal Family came out on the balcony. Quite a night!

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