大象传媒

When I was 12 years old I was evacuated from SE London to Dorking in Surrey. One afternoon 'Uncle', my host, and I were doing a jigsaw in the front room when we heard ack-ack fire. We ran to the bay window in time to see a German bomber drop of couple of bombs at the railway line about a small field's length away. The plane continued towards us and my memory holds the wing-span filling the whole window space just before 'Uncle' yelled "Get down!" and pushed me to the floor. The bomber roared past just over our roof. I don't remember being frightened, just excited by the event.
Fortunately, the pilot had missed his target and his bombs fell short into the soft earth of the railway embankment, doing little damage. He also managed to off-laod a third bomb in a water-meadow not far away which became the target of our Sunday walks for weeks after to view the crater. We were grateful that local gunfire had prevented lives being lost in London, but we never knew if the bomber had been badly damaged and whether it had managed to creep back across the Channel.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.