大象传媒

"The Little Blitz" died down around April in 1944, and it was Business as Usual again in Bermondsey.
We still had sporadic Air-Raids, mostly at night, but with fewer Nazi Planes.
The Searchlights would catch them in their criss-crossed beams as they flew high above the AA barrage, just dropping their bombs at random, then running for home.
Dad had got the contract to supply the local School Canteens and Londoners Meals Service Restaraunts with Fruit and Veg, as well as a few Factory Canteens, so business was booming.
He was finding it difficult to manage. Percy, my older brother worked for him, but Mum had to help in the busy shop and look after two young children at the same time, as well as cooking for the family, while Dad was at the Market or out delivering most of the day.
I intended to go into the business when I was older anyway, so I left school at fifteen, and worked for Dad full-time.
We no longer slept in the Anderson Shelter every night, but were back in our own beds in the house now, as nightly Air-Raid Warnings were becoming quite rare.
Until the night of 12 June, that is,
when I was awakened in the small hours by the crash of AA Gunfire and the sound of a Plane. It seemed to be in trouble as the engine was making a funny noise, very loud, a bit like a two-stroke motor-cycle without a silencer.
The engine noise stopped suddenly, and seconds later, there was a loud explosion. I turned over and went back to sleep, thinking a German Plane had been shot down.
Unbeknown to me, it was our first V1 or Doodlebug, and it had landed on a railway arch at Bethnal Green, just across the river, causing many casualties and making more than 200 people homeless.
V1's were Jet-propelled pilot-less Planes, or flying bombs, with a warhead in the nose
containing 850kg of high explosive. The engine was programmed to cut out when it was over London, the Doodlebug dived nose-first out of the sky and exploded on contact, causing devastation over a wide area. All the blast went outwards, there was no crater. I think they got the nickname of Doodlebug because of their erratic behaviour if it was windy when they came over. Some people called them Buzz-bombs, but Doodlebug became the most common name, either way they were most unpleasant items.
Within a couple of days of that first one, they started coming over in earnest and falling all over the place, each one causing a great deal of damage and casualties. No-one seemed to know what they were yet. The AA guns were firing at them, and people cheered when they saw one fall, not realising that it was coming down to explode anyway.
After the first big attack, the Government had to let the Public know what was happening. The facts were announced in Parliament and we learnt what we were up against.
The big field in the local park that had previously held a battery of AA Guns was now full of Rocket Launchers. I counted seventy in there when we went in for a look after they arrived a few months back
These all went off together, and any Plane caught in the pattern of exploding Rocket-Shells would have had it, but they arrived too late in the War for them to do us any good.
I only ever saw them used against Doodlebugs in the first few days of the attack, before the Gunners knew what they were. On that occasion, one of the Shells didn't explode. It came down and fractured a big Ammonia pipe on the outside of the Cold Store. There was a cloud of evil smelling gas around for a while which didn't do the plants in the local gardens and Allotments any good at all.
Luckily for us, the Authorities soon got their act together, and re-arranged the defences to bring the things down over open country before they reached London.
They even had a line of Barrage Balloons across the North Downs in Kent to catch any low flying ones, which was quite effective, but the most successes went to the RAF. as is well documented.
Nevertheless, a lot of Doodlebugs got through to London, and just one could demolish several streets of houses, doing more damage than several HE bombs.
Not many came down in our Fire Division, fortunately, and there were no major fires caused by them.
Us Messengers would go and help with rescue work, even when they fell outside our ground.
Each incident was so large that the Civil Defence needed all the help they could get. The Doodlebugs nearly always seemed to fall on residential or busy shopping areas.
I saw some horrendous sights and witnessed many gallant rescues, often carried out at great risk to the Rescue Squads.
Sid and I had one lucky escape ourselves at Great Dover Street, Southwark. Some shops with three floors of flats above had taken a hit, and there were people trapped in the wreckage.
We'd been helping to pass the baskets of rubble down from the Rescuers in quite a long drawn out operation when we were relieved by a fresh Rescue Team. We made our way to the WVS Mobile Canteen, and were just having a welcome cup of tea when we heard a crash.
A wall towering above the rescuers, with fireplaces still intact, had collapsed without warning, killing one man and injuring others.
The trouble with the Doodlebug was that you never knew where it was going to land. You just took cover and hoped for the best when the engine stopped. Usually, it would plummet straight down, but sometimes would glide a good way away. If it was windy, it could be caught up by the wind and land anywhere after doing a few somersaults.
Brother Percy and I were standing outside the shop one day when it was very windy, watching the silent antics of an engine-less Doodlebug. The engine had stopped when it was right overhead, and we dived for cover, but the wind caught it and blew it all over the sky, back and forth. It would come halfway down, then get tossed up and away again. While this was going on, another one came over and the engine cut out. The wind caught that one too, and we watched the pair of them performing aerobatics for a few minutes before they finally came down and exploded a long way away from us.
Apart from the one that devastated the area around the Clock-tower at Lewisham in July, the worst doodlebug incident I know about was the one that landed on Woolworths in New Cross Road one lunchtime in November. The store was crowded with shoppers and about 160 were killed as well as many injured. It had already suffered bomb damage earlier in the Blitz and strangely enough, stood on the site of the premises that my mother's family were bombed out from by a Zeppelin raid in the First World War.
In July, evacuation started again. Mum and the children were given a Cottage in the Village of Ettily Heath, near Sandbach in Cheshire.
They met some wonderful people there who became lasting friends. Percy and I went up there with Dad for Christmas, and had a great time.
Sandbach, which most people know for the Salt-Mines nearby, also had two Lorry factories with famous names, Foden and ERF, and most of the local men worked at one or the other.
In the Autumn, Dad became ill and contracted Pleurisy. When he'd got over the worst, he was still a bit groggy.
Our family Doctor, who'd tended him at home all through the illness, advised us to get him up to Mum in Cheshire to convalesce, as lying in the damp, draughty house with makeshift window coverings was stopping him getting better and might bring on complications.
Dad didn't put up much of a protest when we took him in a Taxi to Euston and packed him off on the train to Sandbach, he must have felt too ill.
When he returned home, almost fit and well, a few weeks later, he brought with him a couple of friends from Ettily Heath who were employed at Foden's Motorworks.
This Firm had a famous Brass Band, and Dad met some of his old aquaintances there, including the Bandmaster, who he knew from his WW1 Army days, when he was a Trumpeter in the Band of The Royal Scots.
Dad's friends had come down to London on a week's holiday hoping to experience an Air-Raid and see a Doodlebug. Jerry duly obliged them.
The three men slept in the Anderson Shelter, while Percy and I, fatalistic veterans by now, slept in our own beds.
One morning, after there'd been a few bumps in the night, they came in for breakfast.
Ernie, the older one of the two, who wore the remains of his hair in the Friar Tuck style, was holding a bloodstained handkerchief to his head.
He'd been asleep on the lower bunk in the Shelter, when he was awakened by a loud bang.
Alarmed, he promptly sat up in the darkness and hit his head on the upper bunk.
Consequently, he took home to Cheshire a scar on his head which he proudly displayed as an injury received in a Doodlebug raid on London.
While Dad was away in Cheshire, Percy and I ran the shop and did all the deliveries on our own.
Quite well I thought, except for one little episode I'm not too proud of.
We used to get our dinner from the Londoners Meals Service Restaraunt in the School next door.
The Cook would have our meal packed up and ready every day when one of us went in to collect it.
There'd be two dinners and two sweets on plates with separators, and another plate over the top.
After eating, we'd wash up the plates and take them back next day, but after a few days of this, my brother and I started arguing about whse turn it was to wash-up, so the dirty plates stayed in the kitchen.
With neither of us backing down, we conveniently forgot the dirty plates every day, so after about four weeks the kitchen was full of dirty plates, some of them going mouldy.
In the meantime, the Canteen Women were running short of plates and complained to the Cook.
Mrs Carter, the Cook, a sharp featured lady with glasses and her hair in a big bun on top, suddenly realised where all her plates must be. She and another Lady came charging into the Shop one day with a trolley demanding the plates.
We were a bit embarassed to let her see them all still dirty, but she said it didn't matter, they had a big dishwashing machine and we should have taken them back dirty every day if we were too lazy to wash them up. So luckily we got away with just a wigging.
The V2 Rockets had actually started coming over in September, but none had landed near us and we hadn't heard much about them, only rumours of Hitler's Secret Weapons. The mysterious bangs we heard were officially said to be gas explosions, although there were rather a lot of them.
The Government hadn't released any information as yet, perhaps they didn't want to let the Nazis know their new secret weapon was successful, and it wasn't till November that details were announced in Parliament.
The V2 was a long-range ballistic missile carrying almost a ton of high-explosive. It travelled faster than the speed of sound on a trajectory reaching a height of up to seventy miles. Coming down with great velocity, it struck randomly in the target area and then exploded, causing widespread devastation. Another bang, or sonic boom, followed the explosion, which could be heard sixty miles away.
To be continued.

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