大象传媒

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As war broke out I was in the Auxiliary Fire Service which supports the National Fire Service. Re the Blitz on 29 December 1940, was THE Blitz of London when Hitler wanted to destroy London, and if he succeeded then he would invade Great Britain. He had all the forces ready to invade.

On 29 December he sent over his aircraft with explosives with the intention to destroy buildings, followed by another fleet of aircraft that carried incendiary bombs. On that night, the explosives followed by at least 40,000 incendiary bombs set light to buildings. Hitler鈥檚 ultimate aim was to destroy London, and the people would have no fight. Sir Winston Churchill on that night spoke to the London Fire Brigade chief and his statement was 鈥淪ave St. Pauls鈥� because the cross on St. Pauls was the symbol of the morale of the British people.

I was a junior fireman in the Tottenham Fire Brigade and on that night, they sent a fire crew to London to help fight the fires. When we arrived in London, the fire officer in charge told us to go to Newgate Street to help fight the fires that were already blazing. We managed to get ourselves connected to water from various sources and helped contain the fires. Unfortunately, there was a team of firefighters from West Ham in the next street who lost their lives as the buildings collapsed on them.

Our fire crew in Newgate Street was reported lost and my family in Tottenham heard about this and my fiancee鈥檚 father came up to London to look for me, and he heard from the fire officer in charge that we were safe, and we were brought out from Newgate Street for refreshments at the Salvation Army van. We went back to fight the fires and to dampen down. We stayed there for three days, and then returned to the station at Tottenham.

After the Blitz, I then volunteered for the Royal Navy and was put on a special branch called the DEMS (Defence of Equipped Merchant Ships) put to protect merchant seamen. When Hitler learned that he hadn鈥檛 destroyed London, he turned his attention to Russia. As a Royal Navy man attached to the Merchant Navy I was to help them fight the U-boats. At this time, Hitler turned on Russia, and so it was the beginning of the end of the Nazi regime, as we supplied our Russian allies with food, ammunition and oil.

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