大象传媒

I was born in Kent, just outside London and was 6 or 7 years old when war broke out.

Home was at Welling in Kent. We used to attend school every day, but it wasn't a pleasure. Often on our way, to and from school, the air siren would sound, and we would go and knock on someone's door and ask to shelter with them. Many folk had Anderson shelters in their gardens and the shelters were often about seven feet deep and had three rough wooden bunks across. In this part of Kent, the shelters were most heavily used when the V2 rockets came across towards the end of the war. One lady, in whose house I used to shelter had no Anderson shelter in her garden, but an indoor shelter, like a reinforced table, constructed out of old railway sleepers. A couple of weeks after I had sheltered there, the house received a direct hit, was razed to the ground - and there were no survivors.
When I was a young schoolboy, my mother, sister and I used to stand under our porch to watch the dogfights overhead with Spitfires pursuing the German bombers. My mother had been warned that it was dangerous to do this, because of the dangers from falling shrapnel, but still we watched. One night, fortunately, we didn't follow our routine, because it was very late. In the morning, we discovered that a large piece of shrapnel had pierced the porch roof and had fallen, just where we usually stood. I also remember the big AA gun, that we called "Big Bertha"; this was stored in a coal yard by day and at night, run up and down the railway track near our home.
After a raid, we boys used to climb down into the large bomb craters, to look for souvenirs - despite frequent "tellings-off'. We used to swap pieces of metal and shrapnel and would compete amongst ourselves to acquire the best collection.
We had an air raid shelter, down the bottom of our garden, designed for a family of four or more. We did not use it much during the first part of the war, but later on, when the "doodlebugs" flew over, we took up almost permanent night time residence there. When we saw our first "doodlebugs" we did not recognise them as bombs, but once we realised the threat that the VI s posed, we headed straight for the shelter. We could see the exhaust of the "doodlebug" glowing red as it passed over, often with two Spitfires on its tail, attempting to send it off course and to force it to crash in the river. At least you could hear the "doodlebugs", when the first V2 rockets came through Kent, it was a horrible experience, because you didn't know where it was coming from - all you heard was the loud crash of the explosion. When you went to view the damage, not one, but three or four houses were destroyed. After this the government evacuated all children and mothers. My father came from Taunton, so the three of us, my mother, my sister and I travelled down to Somerset. My father was an armature grinder and worked for the railways, (a reserved occupation), so he had to remain at his post in Kent. In addition, he served as an ARP warden.

John Atkins

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