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In 1944 I was working in the London Chamber of Commerce when we had a close shave with a German Doodlebug.

I was on my way to work, and just before I got there this all happened. The familiar droning noise was heard by some of the other girls who I worked with. They were lining up outside the Chamber of Commerce waiting to start work when they heard the sound, and then even worse, heard it stop. This meant that the bomb had begun to fall, and they all threw themselves down on the floor to try and escape any flying debris from the explosion. The bomb came down and actually hit the building next door to ours, destroying it entirely. When I got there I saw the devastation. All of the windows from the Chamber of Commerce had been blown out, as had all the glass cubicles inside that we worked in. There was glass everywhere!

Nowadays I suppose it would have all been cordoned off for our safety, but at the time we all just went inside and spent the day clearing the glass up. That was the attitude at the time, you just got on with what you had to do. It was just lucky for the girls that they weren’t inside at the time with all that glass flying about!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton and has been added to the website on behalf of Joyce Marks with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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