大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 War site by CSV Storygatherers Lucy Thomas and Pam Barnett of Callington U3A on behalf of Donald King. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Part 3
HOME AGAIN AND STILL THE BOMBS CAME

Just before June 1944, I was finally allowed back home to London. About that time, my youngest sister was born and it was also the time that the first of the doodlebugs, or buzz bombs, came over. This was the first occasion that I can remember being frightened during the war. Most of the time it was exciting because there were lots of things to see around you and as everybody used to go to the pictures a lot in those days, you could watch newsreels at the cinema through the smoke haze and see our great victories overseas, which wasn鈥檛 terrifying to a child. But these buzz bombs, these doodlebugs were a bit different. You could hear bombs coming down until they crumped. The ground might shake but then you knew you were all right. It was the silence when the engines cut out with these bombs that were the problem because you鈥檇 hear it coming louder and louder, then the engine would cut and there would be this period of silence when everyone would be staring at each other. Then there would be the crunch and if it was a little way away, there was a sort of relief that it wasn鈥檛 you and if it was really close then you got quite frightened. Of course you wouldn鈥檛 have known if it had been a direct hit so you wouldn鈥檛 have worried about it. I do remember my Aunt Hilda, who died only a couple of months ago, coming to my grandmother鈥檚 house in a frightened state. One of these bombs had chased her all the way down Munster Road before the engine cut and it had turned off sideways. She came rushing in crying that she鈥檇 really got chased by this thing. I couldn鈥檛 quite believe it had followed her down the road, but that was the impression it had created. There was a randomness about these doodlebugs that was, I think, the terrifying thing.

We did have one near miss in our house in Fulham which it was a frightening experience. There was the silence, there was the crump and this time it was a really big bang and all the ground shook and there was dust everywhere. We were in the shelter at the time, but my mum was convinced the house had been hit. When we opened the little door of the shelter all you could see was dust and smoke that had all been thrown up in the air by the blast and disturbance in the air. It had actually landed a street away and quite a few people were killed. We lost just about all our windows and there was damage to the house and bits of ceiling came down, but we were OK. At the time it was quite frightening.

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