大象传媒

It was June 1944. D Day had started on the 6th of June. For days on end the air hd been full of war planes over London on their way to attack targets in France.
At the time I was living with my family in St John's Wood, not far from the West End, and Central London.

We ahd been bombed out in the Blitz in May 1941, and were living in a recquisitioned flat, as was the procedure for homeless air raid victims in those days. Many luxury flats had been left vacant by the well off, and were used by the government for this purpose.

My family consisted of Mum and Dad and 7 children, 4 girls and 3 boys. Vera was the oldest at 20, of the girls, and had married a pilot in the RAF and was living in High Wycombe. The rest of us were living at home. Kath was 17, Dorothy was 14 and Margaret was almost 3 years old.

I was 15 at the time, and my 2 brothers Eddie and John, 8 and 6.

A few days after D Day we were woken in the night by the Anti Aircraft barrage simultaniously with the air raid sirens. We were used to Air Raids over the years, but this seemed different as we usually had advance warning, with the sirens sounding at least 5 to 10 minutes before the bombers arrived.

In the event of an Air Raid we would go to an Air Raid Shelter under a block of flats, a short distance away. Mum and Dad would go with the girls and I would be responsible for taking Eddie and John, as we boys slept in the same bed.

On this occasion I heard the rest of my family leaving for the shelter, but in the heat of the moment and a little panic I suppose, i was having a little bit of difficulty getting John dressed. He was in a bit of distress from being dragged out of bed, and the sound of the gunfire. He started to cry, and said he was unable to move his legs, so I picked him up, held him over my shoulder and decided to run to the shelter, and in the meantime Eddie had decided to run to the shelter on his own.

As there seemed to be a brief respite from the AK-AK, we left the flat, and I started to run down the street. Immediately there was another barrage of gunfire, and the sound of a low flying plane overhead, which later i learned was a V1 (Doodlebug).

Now the street we were in had previously been badly damaged by bomb blast and the houses unoccupied for some time, so I decided to take cover inside the nearest one.

With John still on my shoulder I stepped inside the open doorway. Unfortunately the floorboards had been removed, and I took a nasty fall. By now John was absolutely hysterical , and screaming. After a few minutes the gunfire ceased and I was able to continue on our way to the shelter which was about another 200yds.

On arrival in the shelter, we discovered why John was unable to walk properly, as in the haste and panic he had two legs in one trouser leg. Somehow, when we fell he had escaped injury and I got away with a few cuts and bruises. Myum was getting quite anxious as John and I arrived later than the rest of teh family, and was so relieved to see us.

We all spent teh rest of that night in the shelter, so we didn't get much sleep. Early in morning (6.30am approx) the all clear sounded, and we went back home. Then shortly afterwards the sirens sounded their warning again. More sparodic gunfire was heard and distant explosions. At the time we didn't know that London was being hit with the 'Flying Bomb, V1, Hitler's secret weapon.

On that first night and following day, there seemed to be utter confussion, guns were being fired haphazardly, skywards, and people were cheering as those flying bombs were falling to earth, supposing that our guns had shot them down. But we soon learned differently. For the next 2 o 3 months the air riad alerts were sounding constantly as London was subjected to a constant stream of these bombs.

Once again a full scale evacuation of children took place. Both of my brothers were taken to safety in Buckinghamshire. Most people had to carry on working despite the danger.

As for myself, I was working for a small factory, just off Marylebone High Street. During peace time it had been a locksmiths, and like many other firms had converted to manufacturing for the war effort, and I had to go into work as usual. All th work was carried out by a staff of young men, all under the age of 18 apart from the foremen who I suppose was in his 30's and one elderly man about 60 years of age. The work was quite monotonous, and repetitive, continually making the same products (ie pins and parts relating to submarine detection). Although I didn't like the work I wasn't allowed to leave, only if agreed by a National Serivce Office from the Labour Exchange. So I turned into work as usual that morning as everybody else. There never was a though of not oing so. the War Effort came before anything else, and you lost pay by staying away.
Anway, that day was the start of a continuous sound of sirens, and the noise of the V1's passing overhead, or explosions as they came down.

For the next few weeks we were becoming acustommed to sleepless nights, and hectic days from this ceaseless bombardment from the buzz-bombs, but somehow we managed to carry on. We were now sleeping in the communal shelter every night, as the V1's came continuously.

In the factory we could only stop work if ther was imminent danger. This was signalled by a lack bag being hoisted on an ARP post on the roof of the Royal Academy of Music nearby Marylebone Road. So a rota was devised whereby we all took turns to sit on the roof to spot the signal, and we would hit a hanging bell with a hammer. The foreman would then stop all the machinery which was activated from one generator by overhead belting. All the workforce would then descend down the stairs to the ground floor, and sit under a couple of metal benches. Of course we wouldn't of stood an earthly chance hdw we had a direct hit. The work had to carry on regardless of the risk. I should point out that the workforce consisted of about 12 people.
Within a week or so, all the AK AK guns had been moved out of London to Kent and Sussex to intercept teh V1's before they reached London, along with the Barrage Balloons they formed a defensive line. This didn't stop all of them getting through, and many were shot down by fighter planes. Those that did hit London caused quite a lot of damage and casualties. Perhaps one of the worst incidents was one which landed on Lewisham Market at ta very busy time. This possibly could have been avoided had teh government not given the order that the Air Raid Sirens were not to be sounded if only one V1 was approaching. Thereafter, with the heavy casualties from this one incident, the order was reconsidered.

As the days went by, people became accustomed to the continual sound of the doodlebugs, as the warnings and all clears of the sirens went on all day and night. Although we lost a lot of sleep, somehow we did carry on despite the conditions.

I spent a lot fo my time after I had finished work playing cricket in Regents Park. We used to play at a spot near a children's playground known as 'Grannies Hill' just off teh Outer Circle.

Most evenings we played on despite the buzz bombs, but one particular evening, vivdly remains in my memory. The park was full of people on this lovely sunny evening, and we had just finished playing and were about to go home when we heard the approach of a doodlebug in the distance. Then as its engine cut out we waited for the expected explosion, but unfortunately for us, this one glided across Regent's Park and appeared above us on it's way down. So we threw ourselves down as it came down on the outer circle about 50 yards away. Therw was a huge explosion as pieces of debris landed around us. We were so lucky as we were laying at the bottom of Grannies Hill and were protected from the blast.

We immediately ran to the spot where it had landed. The body of an RAF Serviceman lay by the side of the road, and in the gardens of a big private house was a huge pile of soil from the explosion, and somebody's leg was protruding from it.

My friend and I began to dig the soil away, but then a policeman arrived and made us stop. Apparently some people had been walking their dogs in the grounds and had felt the full force of the buzz bomb. All I can remember, as we dug at the soil was a woman's voice moaning 'my head, my head' and all these years after, it's something I'll forget. Apparently the three people and two dogs all died.

Quite a number of the V1's fell in 'Regent's Park, which was very fortunate, as St John's Wood at teh time was a base for the training of RAF bomber aircrews, and there were about 10,000 or so trainees stationed in the many requisitioned flats there. Miraculously to my knowledge none of their quarters were ever hit.

Then there were the lighter moments in that summer, particularly at work. We used to spend a lot of time making bits and pieces on the side. Most of the materials we used were copper and brass, and we made cigarette lighters, rings and many other things. The Foreman caught us on one or two occassions, but was powerless to sack us, due to the probable intervention of the National Service Officer.

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