- Contributed by听
- Genevieve
- People in story:听
- Alvin Mansfield
- Location of story:听
- Hayes, Middlesex
- Background to story:听
- Civilian
- Article ID:听
- A5471967
- Contributed on:听
- 01 September 2005
Most of the shrapnel we collected was from British shells that were fired by anti-aircraft guns and then had fallen from the sky afterwards.
It had thick walls and it was quite shiny on the outside. The interior was sort of crystalline - like metal fatigue, this is where everything is just blown apart: very rough.
Occasionally we would get some from a 鈥榖omb鈥 鈥 that usually had a much thinner coating.
There were some that we were told were 鈥極il Bombs鈥. They were fire bombs that were filled with an inflammable liquid, and they had a very thing coating as they idea was that they wanted this to break and spread the oil as well. We found some of those, but not a lot. Mostly it was shells: shell fragments.
I don鈥檛 have any anymore. I expect we just threw it away when the war was over and it was no longer of interest.
It was a great game as well 鈥 swapping. 鈥淚鈥檇 like two small bits, so I鈥檒l give you that big bit鈥: A lot of fun.
See more of Alvin's stories:
- School Shifts
- Just imagine the headlines!
- Underground tunnels
- Keep going, keep going鈥
- The Evacuation Line
- An extra egg
- What an anti-climax!
- In retrospect I was very lucky
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