大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer on behalf of Gwen Wilkinson and has been added to the site with her permission. Gwen Wilkinson fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

"During the war I worked as a telephone operator and before working at various ministries I was placed at New Cross, London. With the air raids sometimes lasting all day and all night with scarcely a break between it was difficult to get transport home, especially as we were close to the docks which were a target for the German aircraft, so we often resorted to staying overnight in the surface air raid shelter which was built in the Exchange yard. During lulls in the bombing overnight we voluntarily went back into the building to the third floor and assisted the night staff answering the flashing switchboard lights and they could be result of lines being blown up or people deperately neeing rescue squads or medical help. When the bombers were again approaching our area the Observer Corps who were stationed on thr oof of the building would inform ua dn we would return to the shelter till another lull.
One morning we emerged fromt he shelter int he yard and several soldiers were there. We asked what they were doing there to be told there was delayed bomb action in the area and the streets all round had been evacuated till the bomb was, hopefully, defused. The men that did that kind of work were highly trained and extremely brave, unfortunately often costing them their lives. We asked where the bomb was whereupon the officer pointed to the hold they had been digging to get to the bomb and it had tunnelled right under the shelter we had been in. Had it not been a delayed action bomb we would have been lown sky high already. A very sobering thought. The officer said 'You were right on top of it. We didint know anyone was in there let along 15 of you. Now please leave here as quickly and quitely as you can. Dont cause any vibration as the slightest movement could cause it to detonate'. It took nerves of steel to creep across the yard knowing it could explode at any time and one's instinct was to run very fast away from it, which we did the minute we were in a safer area outside. As it happened that night the main roads around had been blown up and so no public transport, and that day I went home on a horse drawn coal cart that luckily cam along. A few hours later we were back working as normal.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.