大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by Maggie Smith from CSV Action Desk on behalf of Les Mann and has been added to the site with his permission. Les Mann fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

It was 1940 and I was 22 and in the Home Guard. I was working in the shadow factory, Longbridge. It was called a shadow factory because it was supposed to be camouflaged. One day around 4.00pm I was having lessons on a machine gun in the canteen when the sirens sounded.

It was a red alert which meant an immanent attack, right on top of us. I came out and crossed the road to Cofton Park where there was a shelter. Just as I was going in I saw a German plane drop a bomb and thought it had hit the factory. I later found out it had missed and hit the railway lines a few hundred yards away.

After the plane dropped the bomb a Spitfire came and chased him off, eventually the Spitfire shot him down somewhere over Bromsgrove. No-one died that day but lots of people were injured and when I arrived home I found my mom waiting at the gate to see if I was OK.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.