大象传媒

When the 2nd World War started I was 11 years old. Lots of Dads' went off to be soldiers, but my Dad didn't go because he had bad legs. We lived in London and most people with a garden had an 'Anderson Shelter', which was a little house made of steel, buried in the garden with steps to get down into it, and beds inside it.
When the bombers first started to attack, they came in the daytime and it was exciting for us boys watching the air battles, but when they started to bomb at night it was different and we had to sleep in the shelter.
My Dad was an AIR-RAID WARDEN. This meant that he had a uniform and had to stay in the streets when 'air raids' started, to help people who were hurt or trapped in bombed houses, or help put out fires.
One night we were in the 'shelter' and bombs were coming down, suddenly my Dad rushed into the garden, he was blowing a whistle and hurried to our garden shed and got an axe! As he went past the shelter he shouted "GET DOWN, THE GERMANS ARE COMING!!" When we looked up we could see parachutes in the search lights. We were told later that the parachutes had bombs on them, called 'mines', but my dad didn't know that and he went to fight German solders WITH AN AXE!! I was so proud of my dad with his steel helmet falling off, blowing a whistle and going to fight German soldiers, WITH AN AXE!!
During the 'Battle of Britain' when bombers were coming over and OUR fighter planes had to defend us, it was a nice sunny day, so my friends and I went swimming in the Canal near a place called 'The Lea Enfield Arms Factory'. A big raid started (I think it was the day in September 1940) when the most bombers came over and our Spitfires and Hurricanes shot down 192 German planes?? We were in the water swimming, and suddenly a German bomber came flying along the Canal VERY LOW and we thought he was shooting at us because bullets were plopping into the water, but the bullets were from a SPITFIRE WHICH WAS CHASING A BOMBER, and as the Spitfire Pilot went past - he waved to us - we all cheered!!
At the end of 1940 my Dad had to go to the factory at Coventry, so we moved to a house at Nuneaton. Our house was a big house with a cellar and when the Air Raids started, my brother, who was one year younger than me, would go with me into the cellar. My Mother would take my baby brother to a very large shelter in the park behind our house and my Dad would go out on his Air Raid Warden Duty.
A big raid started on Nuneaton and as the bombers got nearer, we got worried and decided to leave the cellar and go after my Mother. Just as we were running through the passage at the side of the house, a very big bomb hit the road outside, it made a hole as wide as the road and MADE OUR HOUSE ALL COLLAPSE. We had to climb over all the clay round the edge. I will always remember the smell and the smoke, and the fact that the clay was warm. When we got round to the shelter in the park, my Dad was just coming out. He told my brother to go and join Mum and said I should come with him.
The bombers had just dropped INCENDIARY bombs on the railway embankment. These are little Fire bombs about 20 inches long, that set fire to buildings, but we knew that they were also markers for the explosives.
In the park next to the Air Raid shelter, were some large greenhouses with plants for the park, my Dad had noticed some large flower-pots, so we got as many as we could carry and my Dad ran along the Railway putting the flower-pots on to the incendiary bombs and I had to run back and get more pots, until all the bombs were put out --- When the bombers came back, they dropped more bombs, BUT MISSED THE RAILWAY!!!

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