大象传媒

The Germans had poles all over the island to prevent any landing craft, and they had wires across these poles with mines attached to them, and I remember my brothers would be working around these poles. Well, my elder brother was always very cautious, and he knew how to switch off the mine. He鈥檇 switch it off and he鈥檇 go right against the pole and do the work. But Len, he didn鈥檛 bother with that. He鈥檇 do exactly the same thing but he didn鈥檛 bother to switch them off. One day some of these poles were above, on the mount above Brooklands, and our neighbouring farmer had a horse. This horse was rubbing himself against the pole and the mine went off. A piece of shrapnel went through the window in the cellar (at Brooklands) where we had the washing machine and made a neat little bullet hole straight through, but we never found the piece of shrapnel, which was amazing!

The horse wasn鈥檛 hurt but he was covered in soil. It鈥檚 amazing really. If there had been landing craft at that level, they could have caused damage.

It was also the fun of the islanders as well, we鈥檇 do it to remove the poles and cut them up for firewood. Len was always taking some of their poles, especially when they were putting them up. We鈥檇 quickly saw them up so they didn鈥檛 look like a pole!
HIRZEL DOREY

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