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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of John Richard Aldridge and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

When War broke out in September 1939 I was a 16 year old attending the Sixth Form at Bungay Grammar School. Some first memories of school are having air raid shelters provided and carrying out air raid drill in using shelters. We also had some forms evacuated to the school from Palmers School at Grays Essex.

My home was at Pulham St. Mary which had been an airship base and still had one of the old airships hangers there, but the airfield was now a bomb store. In July 1940 some bombs were dropped near the airfield and we village boys cycled to the site and collected shrapnel buried in tree trunks. The first German aircraft to be seen were on a thundery afternoon when a Junkers JU88 flew over my house, low enough to see the black crosses on it's wings. It dropped bombs which hit the old hanger airship.

I left School in July 1940 and whilst waiting to take up my first job I witnessed the shooting down of a German Dornier 17 bomber - the only aircraft to be shot down over Norfolk in the Battle of Britain period (this was August). I remember seeing the bombs dropping like a string of sausages as the aircraft circled the old airfield. 3 Hurricanes from RAF Coltishall came from behind, shot it down and it crashed in the next village of Starston. My Father took me in his car towards where the smoke was arising from the crashed aircraft - there were people on bikes, in cars and even pony and traps heading the same way.

After starting work in the City Engineer's Costing Department in September 1940, I was in lodgings in Sandringham Road in Norwich and witnessed several air raids on the city, culminating in the Baedeker raids in April 1942. At that time I had volunteered for aircraft duty with the RAF and was awaiting my call up for flying training. As with all employees at the City Hall, each department had to be placed on a rota for fire watching. In my case our post was in the City Hall Tower, level with the roof. We were provided with buckets of sand and stirrup pumps to combat any incendiaries that might fall on the roof. In April 1942 the first raid was on the 7th and I was at my lodgings in Sandringham Road. We had no domestic air raid shelter or a nearby street shelter so we spent this raid in the cupboard under the stairs. Several bombs were dropped nearby although we suffered no damage.

I was on firewatch rota at City Hall on April 29th when we suffered a second raid. I well remember when the air raid siren sounded and we said amongst ourselves "I expect they are attacking Cambridge tonight" (as raids had been taking place on various historic and cathedral cities). We came out on to the roof and the flares were coming down - we knew we were in for it again!

One bomb dropped in St. Giles opposite City Hall. One of the properties was Lacey and Gardiner's chemist shop and I remember their stationery and prescription forms showering down on our roof.
We saw one aircraft coming across and someone said "our fighters are up tonight". Then a stick of bombs dropped across Orford Place and Rampant Horse Street and we knew it was not one of our fighters. One other memory is that Caley's Chocolate factory stood out on the skyline and we saw a few twinkling lights near the roof. Within minutes it turned into a burning inferno, fed by the chocolate and sugar production.

Of course the trauma was still present the next morning when we left for our homes - would they still be there? I had a big diversion to get back to Sandringham Road off Earlham Road as the top of St. Giles was completely blocked. A lot of people went out of the City and stayed in the country the next night. My late Wife's Father took the family in his car out to Dunstan to stay in overnight.

I was due to report to the RAF in July, but one incident before that was when firewatching after barrage balloons had been stationed in Norwich. There was a thunderstorm and after every lightening strike a balloon caught fire and came down in flames - 3 or 4 must have struck that night.

After joining the RAF I did my flying training both here and in Canada, subsequently flying on 33 operations as a bomb aimer with 49 Squadron Bomber Command. Operations over Oslo Fjord in Norway to Royan in France and from Gdynia in Poland to Munich in Bavaria. Also attacks on the viaducts on the German canals, oil installations at Hamburg, the Leipzig area and near Stettin in the Baltic in addition to area attacks on Munich, Dresden, Karlsruhe and Kaiserslauten.

I was lucky, as so many were not, and completed my 33 operations in April 1945 with some tricky incidents - crashing in Yorkshire with 2 bombs on board and coming home on 2 engines. When completing my operational tour, I was posted as a Radar Navigation Instructor to help crews that were destined to carry on the war against Japan – "Okinawa Boys" as we called them.

Then in May 1945 came VE Day and the War ended for me.

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