大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Stoke-on-Trent Libraries on behalf of Denis Sullivan and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

What was different for us living in London was that the war seemed longer. Everyone had the Blitz and it was horrendous. By 1943 it had more or less finished, but in London we had the so called hit and run raids. These were night time raids by FW190 fighter bombers. They had just one bomb but people just couldn't rest. The Blitz had a routine; these came at any time giving you aboout 8 to 10 minutes to get into a shelter. This went on for some time and was a nuisance really. They eventually died down and we had a spell of peace, but then came the V1s, the Flying Bombs.
These usually came over during the day, but also at night. Being unmanned...I remember the first raid. It was a Saturday and we went downstairs and heard this noise. Most unusual - the first of these bombs. We didn't know anything about these until after a few days. They dropped vertically. You hoped the sound would go on a bit so it wouldn't drop on you. They were frightening but were picked up on the coast giving you about 10 minutes warning.
That subsided and we got the V2, a totally different concept that had no effect on people's day to day life. It was a rocket giving no warning. You just heard a 'crump' as it hit the ground. That was it. Too fast for any warning but in a way less terrifying than the V1. During all this time after the Blitz we just lived as normal in our houses in central London.
By the time the V2s came across in 1944 I was 14. I grew up quickly during the war. When the invasion took place we needed to take out the launch pads, but the army swept inland not necessarily with the rocket launch sites as a priority. But they were for us!
Central and West London were largely unscathed, but the East End, only up the road where the docks were, thousands were killed. It really suffered. I knew little about the East End even though it was so close.
The Masonic Temple in Queen Street in the centre of London was built of white concrete just before the was and must have been a landmark night and day. We sheltered in there for some months before going down the tube. The Temple was never hit or damaged. There was little damage to the buildings in the immediate vicinity.

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