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Preparations for War

I was only 5 years old when the war started — my brother Michael was 2 years older than me and my sister Geraldine was only a baby. We lived in a small terraced council house only about half a mile from Croydon airport, which had been taken over by the RAF and was therefore a prime target for German bombs. I suppose we were lucky in that my father was in what was called a Reserved Occupation (maintaining essential services,) and wasn’t called up to fight. However, working in the gas-works during an enemy bombing raid was no sinecure - it was another prime target! My mother, having three small children to look after, was also exempt from being forced to work in a factory or in the Land Army. They decided early on that the family would survive or die together and we children would not be evacuated to a safer part of the country.

I remember my mother crying when the announcement came over the radio that war had been declared. My parents taped over every window in the house with a big cross using something like parcel tape, so that if a window was blown in by an explosion, the glass wouldn’t fly across the room and cause injuries. They also making big shutters (using black cloth on a light wood framework,) to fit in every window in the house so that light wouldn’t escape at night. It was a crime to show any light at night that enemy aircraft might use for navigation and a regular cry from the Air Raid Wardens was ‘Put that light out! Incidentally these wardens were men nominated by the government to assist the civilian population where necessary. There was probably one in each street and they were normally fit, retired and responsible people who took their work very seriously - whether it was dumping a bucketful of sand over an incendiary bomb to put the fire out, or telling you off for not carrying a gas mask!

Air—raid precautions

I don’t remember the air raid shelter being built - it suddenly appeared in the back garden. It was an extremely strong corrugated iron structure about 2 metres by 1.5 metres sunk about a metre down into the ground and, all the soil that had been excavated was piled up over the top and around the sides to deaden the effect of an explosion. It was called an Anderson Shelter and while it wouldn’t withstand a direct hit from a bomb you stood a good chance of surviving anything less. People living in houses that didn’t have a suitable garden had a Morrison shelter installed in a downstairs room. This was like a big steel table that you crouched underneath - at least it kept the debris that was your house from killing you. There was also a large brick shelter with a ferro-concrete roof built out next to the main road, where anybody not at home when the sirens sounded warning of a bombing raid could take shelter, and a large static water tank for fire fighting purposes.

Air raids and life in the air-raid shelter

I remember when the bombing started we children were all in bed when the sirens sounded. Mum and Dad rushed us out into the garden and into the air-raid shelter. I looked up and saw small, black, German dive bombers (Stuka’s) attacking the airport. They were so close that I could see the crosses on the wings and the bombs coming down from them. Dad was last down the steps into the shelter carrying baby Geraldine, and the blast from the exploding bombs blew him clean off his feet and down into the shelter. It was one of those occasions you never forget! Very soon after that he built a brick blast wall in front of the entrance, and it wasn’t long before he built bunks in the shelter. During the Battle of Britain we slept every night in the shelter - fortunately it was summer!

I can’t really remember much of the air-war - I suppose I was too young, but at some stage there were big searchlights and anti-aircraft guns in the nearby park and barrage balloons tethered within sight of our house. (They were like a small airship tethered with a steel cable and the idea was that if enemy aircraft tried to do a low level attack they would get their wings ripped off.) I remember seeing one that had broken its cable and a fighter plane was shooting it down. I do know that after a raid we kids used to go out and collect the jagged lumps of shrapnel lying around. A good piece would be about 2 inches long.

All metal railings around parks, buildings etc were cut down to help the war effort (to make Spitfires we were told). Unfortunately when they had finished cutting them down they found it was the wrong sort of metal!
There was a major threat of invasion by the Germans and all sign posts were taken down and town/village names obliterated to try and make them lose their way. When that threat diminished there came a new scare of gas attacks and everybody was issued with gas masks which you had to carry if you left the house. We had to practice putting them on and walking around in them. They were horrible - restricted vision, smelt rubbery, and difficult to breathe. They were in cardboard boxes and Mum made smart little cases with a long shoulder strap so when we walked to school we had a satchel on one shoulder and a gas mask on the other. (I’ve still got a gas mask in the loft as a souvenir).

Rationing

Everybody was encouraged to grow vegetables in their gardens - you were definitely frowned on if you had flower beds in your front garden, roses came out and cabbages went in. My father had two allotments during the war years and our family never went short of vegetables. Other rationing was very difficult. Meat, cheese, eggs, butter etc was very minimal, even clothing and sweets were rationed. Imported fruit was impossible to obtain - I don’t think I tasted a banana or orange until I was about 9 years old. Mum became a dab hand at making clothes and then altering them to fit the next child down. Petrol was impossible for anyone except doctors etc. That wasn’t as bad as it sounds because hardly anybody (certainly in our locality) owned a car. Neither my parents nor Doris’s parents ever owned a car or had a driving license. The wealthy few who did own cars had to get them off the road and jack them up and put blocks under the axles to help preserve the tyres. You travelled by cycle, bus or train or walked! Surprisingly the population was generally much healthier then than it is now. (Despite the fact that the vast majority of the population smoked - a non smoker then was a bit like a vegetarian now!)

Because of the shortage of petrol nearly all tradesmen used horse drawn vehicles - I distinctly remember the milkman, baker, greengrocer and coalman all using them and the horses standing patiently outside the house snuffling into their nosebags. Of course there weren’t any parked cars in those days. Horses came in different sizes depending on the work they had to do - a pony pulled the milk float but the chariot that delivered sacks of coal that weighed a hundredweight (112lbs) each was pulled by a pair of great big things with furry ankles. The horses were surprisingly intelligent - they knew which route to take and which houses they had to stop at. There were bitter protests when we kids were sent out with a bucket and small shovel to collect the great steaming turds that the horses defecated along their route and it didn’t help to be told that it was going to be spread around the garden among the vegetables we would be expected to eat!

Prisoner-of-War Camp

We had a prisoner-of-war camp near us full of Italian soldiers. They were a placid looking lot but we weren’t allowed to stand at the wire fence and stare at them - apparently that wasn’t a very nice thing for small boys to do. The camp was sited only a few yards from the boundary of Croydon airport presumably to deter the Germans from dropping any more bombs on it.

Further German Air-raids and the Doodle-bugs

By the time I was 9 or 10 years old, (1943/4,) we had Hitler’s V weapons. The V-1 was popularly known as a ‘doodle-bug’. It was a pilot less flying bomb with a measured amount of fuel that flew down a radio beam aimed at London. When it ran out of fuel it crashed and exploded. Of course, if the wind direction changed it missed its target! The plane had a very primitive jet engine, which made a distinctive throbbing noise. When that noise stopped you ran for shelter and started counting, because at the count of four there would be an almighty explosion somewhere close by. The RAF used to try and shoot down the V-1‘s while they were over the sea, but once the V-1’s got over land, all the RAF could do was get a wingtip under the wing of the bomb and nudge them so that they turned back to where they came from - very accurate flying required! The other weapon was the V-2 which was a rocket filled with explosives. These were blasted up into the stratosphere, where they ran out of fuel and plunged back to earth at about 2,000mph where they exploded. It was even less accurate than the V-1 but it was absolutely terrifying. There was no possible warning or defence. (Incidentally the German scientists who developed those
rockets were rounded up by the Americans after the war, made honorary American citizens, and they designed the rockets that took the first men to the moon.)

A lot of houses were destroyed by these V weapons and we kids used to prowl around the bombed-out remains (after fires had been put out and bodies removed of course ) not looking for loot particularly but more doing something slightly dangerous that you knew was not allowed. ‘Boys will be boys’ as they say. Strangely I can’t remember ever seeing sites being cleared or houses re-built. It obviously happened but I’ve no idea when.

JOHN HERLIHY

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