大象传媒

I鈥檝e got a story from when I was 14, living in Swindon towards the end of the war in 1945.

I was in my last term of school when the air raid sirens went off, and we were all sent rushing home. Everyone else went the other way to me, so I waited behind until the crowd had gone, then began to run. My grandmother was staying with us at the time, and I knew I had to get home to look after her. I hopped over the church wall and was running across a farm when I heard a plane coming. I looked and saw that it was a German plane, coming directly towards me, a helpless 14 year old girl in the middle of a farm. Nevertheless, he began to open fire. I pressed myself right up against a tree, and could see the farmer and his wife calling to me from the house, telling me to run. I was literally petrified, I couldn鈥檛 move a muscle, just push myself back against the tree. The German plane went whooshing past, he was so low that to this day I can still see his face in the cockpit in my mind, his chin strap fluttering as his machineguns rattled the aircraft. Bits of barn were flying everywhere as the bullets tore into the ground and all around me. After he鈥檇 gone by I ran home to find my grandmother just as petrified in the house, her hands still gripping the sink and pans everywhere. The plane had flown passed so low that they鈥檇 fallen from the shelves. I managed to calm her down and thought nothing more of my own experience, concentrating on tending to my grandmother.

Later that day the farmer came knocking on the door, asking to see my father. He asked him whether he knew or not that a German pilot had tried to gun me down! Only then did it all come out. The tree that I had pressed myself up against had been hit, not six inches above my head as I stood there, and that was close enough for anyone! To this day it escapes me why I seemed to be such a prime target for a German pilot.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by James Barton and has been added to the website on behalf of Pam Bridges with his/her permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

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