大象传媒

This story is by Jean Murphy.

I consider the worst weapons of the war the V1 and V2 rockets. The unmanned rockets were launched from France and had fuel enough to go to London.

In shelters people heard the omnious droning sound made by the rockets engine and then there was silence as the fuel ran out and everyone waited for the rockets to drop and annihilate everything in their path.

When the droning stopped it always seemed as if the engine had stopped immediately overhead.We felt sure the rocket was going to come down on top of us and everyone felt the same.

As well as the individual shelters in gardens, there were also larger street shelters, made of brick with a concrete roof.These shelters could hold a large number of people.Many people used the underground stations at night. They put their bedding down on the platform and this way they got uninterrupted sleep.

Some houses had Morrison shelters which were normally situated under the dining table but were
not nearly so safe.

Sometimes Dad and I would come out of the shelter when the bombs had stopped falling and watch our planes go over towards Germany.

In 1945 Germany surrendered and i remember being in school on the day peace was declared. The Headmaster came into our class, spoke to the teacher, who then said to us, "When you get home and hear that the war is over, you can all have the rest of the week off school."

I recall that I went home and asked my parents, "What is peace?" You see, up to that time I had only known war.

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