大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Sian and Yukinori, pupils from Teversham Primary School on behalf of Fred Ellis and has been added to the site with his permission. He fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I was sixteen and I lived in London. I was there in London during the Blitz. During that Blitz there was a bomb dropped which landed three houses away in the school yard of Harood Road School, but the bomb didn鈥檛 explode so we were very lucky.

I used to work in an office near the city of London, Guildhall. When travelling to work I used to see the damage. I then changed my job and went to work in a munitions factory which made instruments for aircrafts. At this time I joined the contingent of local defence volunteers (L.D.V.) which then became known as the Home Guard. When I became the age of eighteen, I joined the R.A.F to be trained as a pilot. I was sent to Southern Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe) for training as a pilot. In September 1943 I finished my training at Elementary Flying Training School (E.F.T.S.) and Secondary Flying Training School (S.F.T.S.) and received my pilot鈥檚 brevet. I then went to an Operational Training Unit (O.T.U.) to fly Spitfires. I was then posted to an operational squadron supporting bomber aircraft flying to target Italy. Later squadron operations changed to attacking German ground transports.

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