大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Sarah Housden of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of Owen Smith-Jones and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was born in 1932, therefore when the war broke out I was seven years old. Weekends and school holidays I used to go with my father to take gravel from the pits at Costessey out to the airfields 鈥� we mainly went to Hardwick and Seething air bases. Father then got a job at Tibbenham airbase, where he used to do repairs on the runways and perimeter tracks. He used to drive his truck out from Norwich, with about eight workmen in the back. We had a portable, wooden cover on the back of the truck for their protection against the weather, which we then removed on arrival at the base. We used the truck for carting sand, gravel and cement around to repair the runways. We did a similar thing at Horsham St Faith鈥檚 airbase (now Norwich Airport). While my Father was at Tibbenham, James Stewart (the actor) was stationed there and my father saw him several times and said he was a tall, quiet man.

At times we saw the planes taking off on missions and sometimes we鈥檇 still be there when they arrived back. I found it really exciting to see them go off but didn鈥檛 realise the danger they were in. I would see them waving out of the aircraft windows as they travelled along the perimeter track. Some of the ground crew staff used to go to the end of the runway and wave them off.

Whilst my father was at Tibbenham he found a brand new 鈥渇lack jacket鈥� which the Americans had thrown on the dump and he brought it home. It could have been cleared out from the billet of a crew who had been shot down. It was made of metal strips about an inch wide, and covered in green material. There were quick-release studs at the top, and a red toggle at the front. When the airmen were in the aircraft and had to get out in a hurry they would just pull this toggle and the studs would undo so it would fall down to their feet and they could just step out of it.

Whilst at Horsham St Faith鈥檚 we would go to the mess hall kitchen and get a large urn of coffee which we would take around to the different gangs on the airfield. The cans of milk used for the coffee were opened with a butcher鈥檚 axe 鈥� puncturing two holes in the top of each can whilst the sugar was added by means of a large ladle 鈥� it was amazing.

One day whilst in the mess hall kitchen I saw a huge number of chickens waiting to be cooked. This American came along and grabbed a leg off one which had just been cooked saying 鈥淗ere y鈥檃re kid, have a leg鈥�. It was delicious and I will always remember it.

There was a facility where you could buy tokens to go into the mess hall to have lunch. It was there that I saw fruit juice for the first time. There was a very large, round, glass container and you could turn the tap and help yourself. They lived extremely well.

Father came home one day with a monkey which he had bought on the airbase. We called him 鈥淐heeko鈥�. He was about one foot tall and a vicious little devil. He would bite you if he got the chance 鈥� but he was frightened of my father. He would run up and down the washing line, and one day he pulled all the pegs out so my mother鈥檚 linen was dropping on the garden path. She said: 鈥淵ou can get rid of that monkey now,鈥� so my father took it to the pub one night and sold it to some other Americans. A few nights later they came into the pub with their hands bandaged where the monky had bitten them and eventually it escaped and got into a big house in Old Catton where it did a lot of damage 鈥� this was reported in the Evening News, but nobody came forward to claim him.

I recall being at Hardwick airbase on one occasion (taking some gravel there). We were driving down the perimeter track in father鈥檚 truck and there was this Liberator coming towards us with all four engines running. The pilot stopped the Liberator, put his arm out of the left hand cock pit window and signalled to us to pull over. My father signalled back for him to pull over as there was a big drop on our side of the perimeter track. The pilot then switched off his outer engine thus stopping the propeller which just missed the cab of the truck as it went past 鈥� it was that close.

I was amazed at the fantastic paintings on their planes. There was one at Tibbenham called 鈥淏unny鈥� which was a rabbit sitting on a bomb holding a machine gun. One day 鈥淏unny鈥� didn鈥檛 return from a mission: it had been diverted to another base because of engine trouble. Shortly after returning to Tibbenham it took off one day and just turned over and came straight down killing all on board. They didn鈥檛 stand a chance, poor lads.

I lived on the Aylsham Road in Norwich throughout the war, near the Windmill Public House. It seemed we were constantly having to spend nights in our air-raid shelter which was built in the garden. One night the Germans dropped a stick of incendiary bombs near us. One hit our house and it began to catch fire. My father extinguished the flames with water. Another fell on a haystack in a nearby field causing quite a blaze. Another night during a raid, the Germans dropped what we think was an aerial torpedo, which blew up a row of terrace houses and killed several people.

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