大象传媒

This story was gathered at Bedford鈥檚 VE/VJ Celebration event at Castle Mound and submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Gillian Ridley for Three Counties Action on behalf of Mr James Roland Biggs and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in Luton on 3rd February 1945 one of twins, unfortunately a Doodle bug landed near Ashcroft Road which blew my Mother out of bed killing my twin, my middle brother was also blown out of bed and thrown upside down against the wall, Dad just picked him up and put him back into bed, then put all the cups back up and put the door back in.

Dad, Ewart Fitzroy Biggs (Roy) was in the specials he did the day light raids clearing up after the bombings, picking up the pieces.

There was one occasion when he was in a Pub in high town (near where his mother lived) when he saw the silver steaks of bombs coming down he put his pint down and when up to Vauxhall, he knew where to go.

He also worked as a Chief estimator, after being pulled out of the hat industry (our family business); on the first Dehavalan Mosquito they built the first one from a kit up at Luton Airport.

On another occasion a land mine got wedged inside the conning (control) tower at the airport. The bomb disposal experts Dad and Bob Grant from the specials together lowered it down, but the bloke didn鈥檛 tell them that all the fuses weren鈥檛 out, they dropped it and luckily it didn鈥檛 go off.

Dad got the George medal for that after the war.

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