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The Spitfire — Wembley 1944

"Robin. Come in. You're going to get killed." That was my mother shouting at me as I was playing in the garden. I was 7 years old at the time but I remember it clearly.

"Come in. It's a doodlebug." These were the flying bombs, launched from northern France, which had just enough fuel to reach London. When the fuel was finished the bomb would drop. Houses were destroyed and many people killed. We knew the deep sound of these bombs as they flew. As long as the engine was going we were safe. When the engine stopped we knew the bomb was about to drop. We started to count; we had about 15 seconds before the explosion. Everybody would run indoors into safer places like under the stairs or under beds.

"Come in you stupid idiot," shouted my older brother Jim.

I knew that I should have gone in straight away, as I could hear that the fuel in the bomb was running out, and I could see the doodlebug not far away from our house. We saw many of these over a period of about 10 weeks as 8600 were launched from northern France — over 100 every day. But it was not the doodlebug that was catching my attention. It was the spitfire airplane flying alongside the doodlebug.

The pilot could see that the bomb was beginning to drop, so he carefully flew next to the doodlebug and allowed it to settle on his wing and he carried the bomb out to the countryside where he let it drop. Of course, I never knew what happened to the pilot but I would have like to thank him for his courage and bravery.

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