大象传媒

The weekend the war broke out I remember an ARP Warden knocking our door becauase a slither of light was showing at at front window. The light was turned off immediately and my father made an additional "Black Out" using a car rug pinned to an extended 5 feet folding rule. This rule is still with my younger brother, born in 1944 and still carries the hole marks left from the pins holding the car rug to the rule.

I should point out my father was born in June 1890 and was too old for forces service, he served in the first world war. My father was a gang foreman on what was the Post Office Engineers, his gang were all excluded forces services for about 6 months, after this they too were called up and my father was left augmenting defence requirements in conjunction with Royal Corps of Signals Soldiers. Because we were brought back quickly from evacuation we spent the war in Hastings (more of this later...)

My memories of going out with my father on these jobs is quite vivid:-
At one time the task was to remove all metal work associated with phones on polls along the road between Winchelsea and Rye as this was interfering with Guns Radar along this stretch of road. These guns were bringing down Doodle Bugs and preventing the Flying Bombs from reaching London. I remember 40 soldiers under an Officer and two NCO's doing the work under my father's direction. The task involved removing all wires, steps etc. The service was maintained by using underground cable.
My memories include picking up very hot shcapnel after a Flying Bomb had gone over, the hot metal was either parts of Gun Shells after exploding or Flying Bombs being brought down.
When these terror bombs went over, very regularly, I used to get under my fathers lorry with him.
Obviously my father built up quite a relationship with the soldiers he directed and the hundreds of soldiers camped along the road and manning well over 400 heavy guns in the fields along this road.

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