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4. SHELTERS
5 V. WEAPONS

4. SHELTERS

On our return from being evacuated in Leicestershire, I noticed a mound of soil at the bottom of the garden. This was our shelter to protect us from any future bombing. From the inside it was of corrugated metal (silver in colour). Curved at the top it was long enough for a full size bunk bed and wide enough to have these bunk beds side by side and yet have enough room for another bunk bed down the middle, if required. We had three steps down to the floor and then the adults could stand up without having to bend.
Our shelter had a floor made up of wooden boards. After the hole had been dug for the shelter, Dad discovered that there was an area made up of sand. This material being hard to come by at the time Dad dug some out and stockpiled it. This meant that under our floor we had quite a large hole. In the event that we were to be trapped we had an extra supply of not only air, but if it got too hot we could go down this hole.
The shelter had a metal door, which we could pull closed if required. Dad adapted it so that it would not close altogether but was open about 2 inches at the top.
He also built a blast wall that was taller than the door, a doors length away from the shelter, so that if a blast caused the wall to be blown over it would not fall against the door. Our shelter was covered with the soil taken out to half cover it.
We had 3 lots of incendiary bombs land on the shelter, but because there was nothing to catch alight there was no damage done, apart from the burnt vegetables we were trying to grow.
It was a practice that we used the shelter every night and in the morning Mum would slowly open the door to see if it was safe to go out. There were a couple of occasions when the doors were opened late at night and the back of our house was bright red. We thought our house was on fire but it was only the reflection of the fires burning in the city.
Another thing, which used to frighten us children were the flares dropped by the enemy planes to see where they were and the brightly coloured tracer bullets trying to put them out.
Our shelter was called The Anderson. The family who used to live in the lower part of our house declined to use our shelter, so they had one of their own in the downstairs front living room.
This was called A Morrison. It consisted of a large metal plate that was laid on the floor, a heavy-duty mesh type cage was assembled around this base and then another large metal plate formed the top. One side of the cage was the entrance and all you could get in was a double mattress. You could only sit or lie in it.
There were other types of shelters.
One of these was brick built with a concrete roof. These were built in the streets at the side of the road and were for those that could not make use of the Anderson or Morrison shelters, or were not near any underground stations or church crypts. These could house up to about 100 people. They were constructed of a wall of a brick and a half thick and in such a way that a reinforced concrete column was built in, to resist side way blasts. The concrete roof was about twelve inches thick, again reinforced. At the ends of these shelters away from any blasts were some half brick panels (about three feet square), which could be knocked out if the main entrance was blocked.

5 V. WEAPONS.

It was towards the latter part of the war, after we had returned from our evacuation to Leicestershire that we heard these strange aircraft. We were used to the friendly bombers and fighter planes and were aware of the diesels used by the German bombers. There was no beat or rhythm sound, just a one-note noise. This was our introduction to the V1 (the flying bomb).
They were a small aircraft with short stubby wings. We were told that if you could hear the motor you were relatively OK because when the motor stopped the aircraft would glide until it lost its momentum, then crash. If you could see them coming and then the motor stopped, you were advised to seek underground shelter. When they did crash they would detonate on impact and the blast would go sideways. There was no guidance system. They were aimed in the general direction of London and flew until their fuel ran out. They were faster than our fighter planes.
There were attempts to shoot them down over the Channel or some pilots would dive from above them to increase their aircraft speed, come alongside of the flying bomb and then flip their wings and the bomb would end up in the seas. The fighters were our first line of defence; the second line was that of the Coastal guns; our third and final defence was the Barrage Balloons. These were large gas filled grey/metallic looking objects. Their object was to take up into the sky steel cables, to try and stop the German bombers from getting to London.
The advantage of the V1 was, that you could both see and hear them. On one occasion we were having our evening meal, Dad was with us, when we heard the motor stop just above our house, Dad suggested that we go to the attic room (that had a window) and watch. Directly behind our house about two miles away was Big Ben. We thought we would see its destruction as the bomb was heading straight for it, but to our horror the bomb flew around Big Ben and headed back straight for us. We ran down 5 flights of stairs, down the garden and were trying to get into our Anderson shelter when it crashed. Mum, who was not with us, on hearing us crying out, had opened the windows before making her way to the shelter. When Dad thought it was safe to come out, we noticed that the people who had not opened their windows had lost them, where ours were still intact.

After the V1 came the V2. We were not aware of them arriving. Houses or factories would suddenly be destroyed. It was first thought that some Delayed Action bombs had gone off or that bombs previously dropped had now gone off due to a faulty fuse. On further investigation it was discovered that the crater was too deep to have been created by an ordinary bomb. The news filtered through that the Germans had developed a new super weapon. This was in the form of a liquid fuelled rocket.
This weapon flew so high and so fast that when it landed it was too late to do anything about it. There was no way of avoiding it. It turned out to be a less destructive weapon than the V1.
With London being built on soft clay, the weapon came down that fast it buried itself in the clay before it could detonate; therefore all the blast went upwards instead of outwards, thus creating less damage. A V1 would cause widespread damage. A V2 would damage just 2-3 houses.

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