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I lived in the centre of Eastleigh at 137 Chamberlayne Road throughout the Second World War. My sister (who is one year older than I am) and I were brought up by our paternal Grandparents. During the 1940 Battle of Britain, we would all stand in the back garden and stare up at the sky watching the Spitfires and Messerschmitt weaving, diving, climbing in and out of the vapour trails and we could hear the rapid gunfire as they fought each other for control of the skies.

In August 1941 as a nine year old boy, I was playing with a friend in Derby Road between Cranbury Road and Chamberlayne Road when a German aircraft came swooping out of the sky with guns blazing. Bullets were actually striking the road and walls surrounding us. I ran to the wooden fence near the back way between the two roads and pressed myself as close as I could to those lovely warm sheltering boards!! The guns were very loud and I have no idea where all the bullets ended up but I was O.K.

We witnessed a plane taking off from Eastleigh airport just prior to an air raid siren sounding. As the siren wailed the anti-aircraft balloon that was sited on the recreation ground was raised into the sky on its steel hawser cable. Unfortunately the runway at Eastleigh airport runs north to south, the aircraft took off to the north and the barrage balloon was directly in its path. The left wing of the plane struck the balloon cable and the plane veered left on a return course and crashed onto a pair of houses in Nutbeem Road between Grantham Road and Derby Road. All the occupants of the plane were killed and the houses destroyed. Two new houses were built there after the war.

A Westland Lysander aircraft was also unlucky enough to collide with the same balloon cable on a different date.

Chamberlayne Road was only two roads away from the giant Pirelli factory, and the night that the factory was bombed is quite unforgettable. There was so much noise, thick smoke, roaring flames and people shouting and screaming. It was a true nightmare. I think the most vivid recollection of that war for me was on the 6th and 7th June 1944. I was 12 years old and a pupil at, what was then, Toynbee Road Boys school which is about 450 yards (1/4 mile) from the railway line running from Eastleigh to Salisbury. We were all sitting in our classroom, windows facing north towards the railway line across open ground and a cemetery when we saw these long trains with blanked out carriages and large red crosses painted on the sides travelling towards Salisbury and its hospital with the wounded soldiers from ‘D-Day’. In the year or so prior to that, I had cycled from Eastleigh to North Baddesley to visit my Father and my Stepmother. The journey took me along a two mile long stretch of road called Castle Lane. More than half of this lane passed through woodland and this wooded area was one of the bases for American soldiers. The woods were full of men, tents, bivouacs, equipment, lorries and of course jeeps. The total disappearance of all these men and all that equipment was unbelievable. The sad thing was that some of those men either did not return or they were being brought back to this country in those Red Cross trains. During the war, we did not have an air raid shelter and so we used the space under the stairs as a refuge. It was quite warm and cosy and although we could hear the bombs falling, see the flashes of fire and flames and smell they smoke all around, I felt quite safe and protected because my Gran and Grandad told me it was the safest place to be and I trusted them always.

In the build up of men and equipment, prior to D-Day, American troops would disembark at Eastleigh railway station and walk along Leigh Road to the recreation ground. They would all gather here to wait for the large American lorries to come and pick them up and transport them to Castle Lane and their temporary ‘home’. All these soldiers were carrying their full kit bags as well as numerous other packs and pouches. I used to wait outside the station steps with my friends, Roy Haskett, Harry Saunders and Hugh Williams. We each had our bikes and we used to tell the soldiers to drop their kit bags on to our bikes from handle bars to saddle and we would push the laden down and very heavy bikes from the station to the recreation ground in return for chewing gum or ‘K’ rations from the soldiers. Then we would race back to the station to ‘help’ the next batch of soldiers.

In Colden Common at the junction of two lanes, the Americans established a dumping area for all their unwanted rubbish. It became known as ‘The Yankee Dump’ and it was a favourite place for everyone to gather anything worth saving. I still have a large fork and spoon with U.S. stamped on the handles. On another occasion I came away with a very large unopened tin of grapefruit. There were always billy cans and mess tins to be collected and the dump was always crowded with eager children searching for a lucky find.

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