大象传媒

It was a Sunday lunchtime in the Summer of 1944. I know it was then, because the " Doodlebugs" started arriving in the middle of June that year.

I know it was a Sunday, because on that day of the week we had a set routine
whenever there was an air raid during lunchtime.

We had moved from Streatham [ SW2 ] in 1938. We now lived in a new delevopment in the leafy suburban town of Bromley in Kent. Over the back fence of our garden the fields of Kent stretched away into the distance with only the occassional building in sight.

I as twelve years old and it was here overlooking farmland that I was stationed on this particular Sunday. The air raid Siren had just been sounded and it was my turn to be on ' Watch' . My position was between the chicken run and the compost heap. There were no fairies at the bottom of our garden, only vegetables and poultry to help in the War Effort. !

My father had carefully studied the flight paths of the incoming V1 bombs and concluded that there were three routes by which they approached London. One route passed to the East of us, one to the West, but the central route seemed to pass right over our house!

The RAF, of course, did their best to shoot them down over the Kent countryside. The protective ring of barrage balloons also played their part by trapping the bombs in their cables. However, as we all know many bombs got through causing much devastation, destruction and great loss of lives all over London and elsewhere.

My father had rigged up a cable which ran to our dining room, where it connected to a loud electric bell. At my station in the garden there was a push button by which I could summon the family if danger was approaching.

So there , at the tender age of twelve, I would stand, binoculars in hand, scanning the horizon for any hostile looking doodlebugs. I felt like one of Nelson's midshipmen up in the crow's nest of The Victory.

On this particular day there was quite a lot of activity. I counted several intruders on both the Eastern and Western routes . Then my binoculars spotted one heading straight towards number 47 Broadoaks Way. My home!!

I pushed the bell button vigorously several times, dropped the cable and made a dash for the underground air raid shelter which the family had constructed near the cabbage patch.

The distinctive sound of the doodlebug was getting louder and louder. By now my father, mother, brother and sister were halfway down the garden path. I stood in the doorway as they piled in one by one.

The noise was deafening. I looked up. There it was several hundred feet above the house. At that moment the engines cut out and there was a moment of eerie silence. The weapon's nose turned down steeply and began to fall. We all squashed together in our shelter and started to count " One --Two ---Three --------- An enormous earth shattering explosion rent the air. That was the closest we had been to a direct hit ! Later we learned that it had landed in a nearby street demolishing a house killing all it's occupants.

Not long after that the "All Clear" sounded and we were able to return to the remains of our Sunday Lunch.

One never forgets experiences like this . It was estimated that this bomb was one of almost three thousand that got through the protective cordon and caused great devastation and tragic loss of life.

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