大象传媒

These are not only my memories of The Second World War, but also the memories that will be etched in my parents' minds for evermore. These memories they shared with me when I was of an age to understand the full horror of war. I was born in the Pollards Hill area of Mitcham, in September 1940, during The Battle of Britain. I had a sister, who was four-years my senior. My dad was a postman-driver and Mum was a housewife. My dad, who had served in The First World War, was too old for active service in this one. However, in order to do his bit for the war effort, he became an Air Raid Warden and a fire-watcher. I grew up with the sound of the air raid siren's wail in my ears, announcing that a formation of enemy bombers were coming our way. My lullaby was the drone of the engines of the lone-wolf aircraft, which flew around all night long, disrupting Londoner's sleep and their moral.
My mum thought that I would be as safe with dad as anywhere else, so as a very young laddie, I would travel with him in his G.P.O. '1932 Morris Minor' van. We travelled many hundreds of miles together, and to me it was one, long adventure
When the air raid siren went, we would dive under the van for shelter. We laugh about that now, saying,
"What protection would the van have given us if a ton of explosives had dropped on
top of it?"
But even if the raid was a bad one, I always felt safe under that van, cuddling up to
my dad
I remember one time when we were driving across Caterham Common, we came across a lone soldier dressed in running gear, who frantically waved us down, "Give us a lift, Mate?" he asked breathlessly. Dad obliged and bundled him into the back of the van out of sight. We drove on, passing the rest of the runners on the way. We dropped the soldier off several yards from the camp gates. "Thanks, Mate," was his cheerful cry, as he jogged, surprisingly fit into the barracks. How I loved going out with my dad in that van, you never knew what adventures awaited you. But the day was not over for my dad, for after working long hours at his day job, he would change his G.PO. tin hat, shaped like a Tommy's helmet, for his AR.P. one, which had a strong resemblance to a girl guide's hat.
On Sundays I would go fire-watching with my dad on the roof of the G.P.O. sorting office. I found this to be quite a boring affair. One Sunday, after doing all the things that I had done a hundred times before, I was more than ready to find something more exciting to do to pass away the long hours. I walked througl1 the open door and wandered off into the street. Dad was frantic when he realized that I was missing, and hunted high and low for me. He couldn't bear to think of his little, four-year-old son walking the streets of the city by himself, when buzz bombs could approach at any time.
It was quite dark before he found me in the Salvation Army Hall amongst all the singers, being well and truly entertained.
We had street shelters, built with a thick, concrete roof, supported by four walls. My grandfather, who was a foreman in the building trade, warned my parents that they were like death traps. So, not wanting to risk them, we either ran 15Oyds. to an underground shelter which was situated on the corner of Sherwood Park Road and Greenwood Road, or we dived under the stairs, alongside the gas and electric meters. In June, 1944, two Doodle-Bug bombs landed in our road. The street shelters, which we had been warned about, went down like a pack of cards. Consequently, many of our neighbours were killed outright.
Buzz bombs were terrifying. They made a loud, buzzing sound as they dropped from the sky then, you would hear the engine cut out, followed by a terrific explosion as it hit the ground. In one day we had three, near hits within 150 yds. In the morning, roof, back windows, French doors and ceiling all went for a burton. Workmen put a temporary cover over where the roof used to be. By late afternoon, the front part of the house was knocked down by bomb blast, including the temporary cover. To me there was only one casualty in that raid, my teddy bear, which had been made out of an old overcoat. In the rush downstairs to take shelter when the sirens went, I forgot my teddy. It broke my heart to find that poor Ted had been speared with jagged glass, suffering the same fate as my cot, where previous to the raid, I had been sleeping. Poor Ted, he lost a leg, and had to have extensive first aid to his tummy after that raid. I wasn't much bothered about the damage to the house, but fortunately, we were safe huddled under the stairs.
On the 13th June 1944, Londoner's heard strange, spluttering, motor cycle type noises in the sky, followed by violent explosions. The V-I rockets were in action The effect of those weapons was far more terrifying and almost as destructive as a fleet of German, bomber aircraft. The V-I s carried almost a ton of explosive. There was no beginning or end to a V-I raid. Bomber fleets at least went home. But at that time between June-December 1944, life was one, long alert. Half of the 1,400 V-I s launched in June were shot down over the countryside or the sea. Some V-I s were launched from aircraft, but most of them were launched from platforms or ramps. Some hit
Portsmouth, Gloucester and Manchester. A few went astray and landed in Berkshire, Bedfordshire and Norfolk Seventy V-Is a day landed on London. A Croydon dentist counted thirty-seven in one morning" flying past his window whilst he was attending to his patients. Cinemas and theatres still carried on as normal, althougl1 patrons were sometimes showered with dust and dirt from nearby exploding V-Is. One cinema, The Granada, in Clapham Junction, had their fire-exit doors blown off, but surprisingly, nobody took advantage of this and tried to sneak in without paying. People took no notice of warning sirens. They used their own sense of hearing. They knew that when the V-I engines coughed, it was time to take cover. Deaf people suffered a lot during those raids.

In Weybridge, Surrey, a pigeon fancier lived near the Vickers Aircraft Factory. And
protecting the factory were thirty-six barrage balloons. The poor pigeons had to there. their way through cables, and then had to try to land between exploding V-I s. TI birds that survived food shortage were always liable to fall victim to the rockets. F, unlike cats and dogs, pigeons could not take shelter.
On top of all those raids we had to put up with the food rationing. It was rather grim I'd never seen a sweet, orange, banana or any kind of fruit, so I didn't miss there Bananas were like gold. If a certain shop managed to get hold of some, word of this would spread like wildfire. In feverish haste, housewives would rush to join the long queue at the said shop, hoping to get a couple of this very rare delicacy. Eggs came
tins They were powdered eggs. I couldn't believe it when I first saw a real egg. At what's more, I didn't like it one bit, powdered eggs went down a lot better with me. _ coped a little better with the rations after the war because my auntie, who had married Swiss gentleman, used to send us food parcels which were most welcome. My aunt was quite a plucky lady. In 1935 she had been living in Singapore and had survived the Japanese occupation by pretending that she was a Swiss neutral.
A wartime Christmas to a child who had known no other kind of Christmas was normal. We decorated the room with pre-war decorations. We were however, minus Christmas tree and lights, as Dad had knocked the lot over when he was drawing the wretched, black-out curtains. I liked helping my mum to stir the Christmas pudding: which was made with vegetables, carrots, potatoes and apples. All my toys were either home-made or patched up pre-war toys. I had a pre-war pedal car for Christmas 194and because there were no doors or floor covering in the house, I could drive it around quite freely.
In June 1944, my mum and I were visiting my grandparents who lived at the top I Pollards Hill, London SW 16. Our route was a footpath alongside the golf course (where the modern Pollards Hill Estate is now) roughly in line with Recreation Close, then up the steep sides of a hill. We had nearly reached the crest when the sirens went And above the wail of the siren we could hear the familiar, spluttering sound of a V1 When mum glanced over her shoulder she could see a V-I coming straight towards I from the direction of St. Helier Hospital, Carshalton. My mum threw me to the ground and lay on top of me for protection Seconds after the engine died, an enormous ban hit our ears. The rocket had come down on Mitcham Common, directly at the end, Manor Road That was a near miss, far to close for comfort.
Shortly after that terrifying experience, my dad decided that it was time for Mum my sister and myself to be evacuated. London in 1944 was not a safe place to be in. I that period nearly 1000,000 people were of the same mind, and left London for a safe destination People though, were very wary of travelling by train, because the railway had their fair share of attacks from those treacherous V-I rockets. They suffered 16 hi by the enemy which caused a great deal of damage.
The day of departure had arrived and we travelled by train to Taunton, Somerset Our first billet was in a very dirty cottage with an old lady, who my sister and I called "The Witch." We hated it there. The last straw came when my mum went into the larder and a mouse jumped out at her. She lost no time in vacating that horrible place. Our next billet was an enormous house in Kingston St. Mary. What a difference to our last digs. It was a beautiful house with large grounds for my sister and I to play in. I celebrated my fourth birthday there. My dad came to visit us, bringing with him my birthday present, which was of all things, a second-hand, German clockwork car, (which I still have). I had the pleasure of visiting that house in 1993, and it was just as
I remembered it.
Between the 13th June 1944 and March 1945, V-I fly bombs continued to rain down on our city. 2,400 of those deadly weapons out of a total of 10,500 that were launched, landed on London. The taxi drivers, joining in with the siren's wail, used to sound their horns as a warning of approaching V-I s. The damage that they caused was colossal. Trees looked like Autumn between June and October in the streets hit by the V-I s. The blast would strip them bare and the leaves would lie one-inch deep on the pavements. But worse was to come'
On the 7th September 1944, Mr. Duncan Sandys made this statement in Parliament, "Except for possibly a few last shots of V-Is, the attacks on London is over." The following evening the first V-2 rocket fell on Chiswick. The Government however, maintained a strict silence over the V-2 attacks. They blamed the damage that they caused on the gas mains. So Londoner's nicknamed the V-2 'The Flying Gas Man.' However, on the 10th November 1944.. The Prime Minister at last recognised the V-2 rocket attacks Although they never reached the proportion of the V-I s, up to eight a day hit London. No warning was possible with those rockets They were indeed the silent enemy. They carried I-ton of high explosive, and on landing caused a deep crater unlike the V-Is which scattered debris far and wide. And they caused double the amount of casualties.
Possibly, because the V-2s didn't make the terrifying, spluttering sound when approaching its target like the V-I s did, people didn't fear them the same. There was no anticipation with the V-2 The only sound that you heard was the terrific explosion when it landed. And by then, you would either be dead or alive. One of the worst attacks which my parents can recall was in November 1944, when a V-2 rocket hit Woolworths Store in Lewisham High Street. One hundred and sixty people were killed, mainly housewives and young children. And one-hundred people were injured in that raid. The Germans certainly hammered us with the V-I and V-2 rockets. 1.115 V-2s landed on British soil. 2,800 people were killed and 6,500 seriously injured. 9/10ths. of the V-2s that were launched.. fell on London and the outskirts. In London alone nearly a million and a half houses were destroyed or damaged in the V-I and V - 2 attacks.
After seeing all the devastation that the German raids had caused, and listening to the adults calling them fit to burn, I was very surprised when I saw some German prisoners of war in the flesh. They were building the Local Council Prefab Estate, and they actually used to say, "Hello," to the children. I couldn't believe that they were exactly like us, with one head, two arms and two legs. In my young mind I h imagined them to resemble horrible monsters.
The war changed my life completely and left its ugly scar. I never knew what it v. like to live a normal, peaceful life through my young years. The sound of the sirens and the whistling of the Buzz bombs as they whizzed through the sky, and the utter terror the V-I and V-2 rockets as they rained down on us as we crouched under the stairs, that was normal to me. And even today, whenever I see a war film or hear the sound of siren, a cold shiver goes up my back, and I come out in goose-pimples.

P.A. Wood - London.

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