大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Danny and Joel, pupils from Teversham Primary School on behalf of Dennis Pasco and has been added to the site with his permission. Dennis fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

When World War 2 started I was aged 2. My first memory is of the air raid siren warning us of an air raid and all the family running down the garden into the Anderson shelter. One night there was a loud explosion. Next morning we saw that one house across the road had been demolished. My own house was hit by 2 incendiary bombs. My father, an air raid warden, put both bombs into a bucket of sand which stopped the bombs exploding. On one occasion, at night, my father showed my brother and me some German bombers that had been caught in a search light beam. In 1944, when I was aged 7, I recall watching thousands of British and American soldiers moving along the road towards the south coast. They were assembling for the invasion of France. At this time the Germans started bombing south east England with V1s. One day, whilst coming home from school, I passed where one of the V1s had landed on a shop on the High Street. About 20 people were killed and many more injured. You would normally hear the V1s coming. However, after the V1s the Germans launched the V2s, which travelled so fast we could not hear them coming. The explosions as it hit its target were our first awareness. There was no defence against the V2, whereas guns and fighters could shoot down the V1. My last memory was the great big street party after the war ended.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.