大象传媒

We'd heard about them, but never believed we'd actually see them -- the terrible doodblebugs. But we did! They came over our home on the Oak Road Estate in Tunbridge Wells in Kent. The sound was distinctive -- like a car running with its exhaust broken. They came one by one -- but we thought they wre great fun! I would have been five or six at the time.

Word went around that once, over High Brooms (a district to the north of Tunbridge Wells) a doodlebug started to descend, and then the pilot of a plane TIPPED the wing of it, to divert it so that it landed elsewhere.

I particularly remember one adventure, back in about 1942. A German plane was shot down, the pilot bailed out. One of my older brothers found a glove in the woods in the Oak Road area -- and you know what happened next? The police were swarming all over the house, questioning him! The police were very thorough -- but I have a theory about this. They may have been having to justify their jobs, as they prevented them from being sent into the Forces!

Life must have been terrible for parents. Looking back, I suppose we were all lucky just to get through. Everything was effected. I remember my elderly aunt died, up in Manchester -- and it took my father three or four days to get a permit simply to travel to her funeral.

THESE MEMORIES WERE ADDED TO THE SITE BY JOHN YOUNG OF 大象传媒 SOUTH EAST TODAY ON BEHALF OF ALAN OAKLEY, WITH HIS PERMISSION. MR OAKLEY UNDERSTANDS THE SITE'S TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

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