大象传媒

"The day that Catford Central School as bombed I was home due to the work duty rota. It was appraoching lunchtime and the children were coming home from our local school when we heard a couple of load explosions. No sirens had sounded so we thought an undiscovered delayed action bomb may have detonated but in a short time we had the instinct to dive for cover and many got under the hedges or wherever they could. My father, Sidney Williams, was an air raid warden and his post was at a junction near the school. He bundled all the available children into the warden post building and it was so full he could not get in himself and he stood in front of the doorway to protect the children as much as possible. All the while the pilot was flying round and gunning at the children etc. The man was sitting in his van at the corner of the road and the bullets went right through the roof and he was killed and was the only fatality in our area. My father was in his mid seventies and being a warden was his only job since his retirement 10 years previously and the parents of the children wanted him to receive a medal as they undoubtedly would have lost some of the children.
We learned quickly that it was Catford School which had been bombed. Nearly 200 children and teachers were killed buried in the rubble of the large school as well as being gunned. Some were trapped in the parts of thee blown away floors 4 stories up. There were Canadian soldiers stationed close by to us and they volunteered to go to dig the children out. It left very strong impressions on them and great was their sadness to see the little bodies laid out by the road.
As there had been no warning the barrage baloon sites did not have the balloons airbourne but the WAAFs ont he local site tried to to do but the pilot gunned them causing the gas filled baloon to explode and it landed on the girls and their huts, both girls and huts catching fire. My friend Maggie Caramner was one of them and in her shocked state made her way to my home, arriving with singed flapping trousers and hair etc burned. 'Lord Haw Haw' as he was called gave our in his nightly propaganda speech from Germany that the bombing was because the school was being used for war purposes. Actuallly there were two taxis with water tanks attached parked in the school playground ready to deal wit the fires caused by the many incendiary bombs. It was somewhat unnerving to hear out small community mentioned in such a way. We wondered about their spy system and how did they know anything about us, and how did the plane get in under the Radar screen?
There is a communal grave at Hither Green Cemetery where the victims are buried and to the meory of those never found.

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