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I remember being evacuated from Maidstone towards the end of 1944. We were living in Wheeler Street when the Doodlebugs started coming over, some on their way to London, others dropping a lot closer to home.

When the Doodlebugs started I was evacuated by train to a small town in Wales called Penarth. Unlike most people I went with my mother, and we were billeted in a converted school with lots of other people rather than staying with a single Welsh family. We did everything together, those of us staying there, and one day I remember we all went to Cardiff to go shopping. We came back and someone had locked the door, and we didn’t have a key to get back in. Being one of the smallest they put me through a window to go round and open the door! We didn’t stay in Wales long, less than a month, it wasn’t compulsory and my mum didn’t like Wales that much!

When we came back to Maidstone I could watch the Doodlebugs flying by, most heading to London, though a few did fall in Maidstone. They weren’t that high up and looked like small black planes during the day. At night you could still see them as there was a huge trail of flame behind them. They had a distinctive sound that everyone learned, my mother described it as an old motorbike struggling to climb uphill. One minute you’d be hearing them, then suddenly the noise would stop, and two minutes later you’d hear the bang. They could take out a whole street. One day my mum sent me down to the shop, ration book in hand, and on my way back this Doodlebug came over followed by a fighter plane closing in on it, a Spitfire or a Hurricane. I heard his machineguns starting, it was very exciting. I remember hoping he was going to get it. I was also told that when the fighters were chasing the Doodlebugs and finally got them, they’d explode in this huge ball of fire which the fighter, following close behind, would fly straight through. The pilots would have their arms on the side of the cockpit because it was cramped, and they used to get burnt arms as they swept through the fireball. The fighter and Doodlebug I saw disappeared out of sight, but the sound of the machine guns was as distinctive as the sound of the bomb, and I still remember both to this day. As always I’d tell my mum about it when I got home, and as always she’d tell me off for standing around watching when I should have been getting safe indoors!

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton from Westree Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Raymond Allan Wright with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

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