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15 October 2014
WW2 - People's War

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London Bombings and Remembering Bobby

by brssouthglosproject

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Archive List > The Blitz

Contributed by听
brssouthglosproject
People in story:听
Charles and Bobby Luke, and family
Location of story:听
London, Taunton
Background to story:听
Civilian
Article ID:听
A6268584
Contributed on:听
21 October 2005

I was born during 1932, and was thirteen years old near the end of the war, when the VI鈥檚 were coming over to attack and demoralise the public. I was living in London in 1944 with my father, who only had one leg, my mother, my two sisters and my brother in a rented three storey Victorian house. I have a story about one single day in the life of a VI bomber (doodlebug) plane.

It started at 9am in the morning. We had been sleeping in a communal shelter, and came home for refreshments and a change of clothing. On this occasion we heard the sound of the V1, which was flying low and coming very fast in our direction. We intended to make a run for the shelter. We got as far as our front door when the rocket engine stopped above us. It was so low and noisy (15-20 feet high) it was rattling the windows. We realised we couldn鈥檛 get out of the door. In seven seconds the bomb dropped, we ran to the cellar door. It was the most tremendous explosion I had ever heard.

The front door was blown open and the knocker was now jammed 20 degrees from upright. My bicycle in the passage was missing, and we found it at the top of the flight of the stairs on the landing. The windows were blown in and missing. The force of the blast was such that the piano in the front room went through the concertina doors to the dining room and the knocked the crockery cabinet over against the wall. The ceiling on the third floor dropped onto the second floor.

Immediately afterwards we all went out onto the street. The road was entirely covered in a layer of bricks. Twenty yards to the left on the opposite side of the road there was an American jeep, which was totally filled with bricks. A man in the jeep was still alive, which was amazing. He was picking the bricks off himself. The saddest part was that a dear old lady was dead in front of the warden鈥檚 house.

The bomb had destroyed two shops on the high street. A London Bus was missing its roof and was leaning at an angle. The driver was missing. It was horrendous looking at that bus. There was a strong smell of gas. I was frightened to death.

We stayed in the house for sixteen days afterwards, and then we were given some money from the local council to move out of London to Taunton to stay in a farm house.

The same night/day there was a lot of bombing in London. The anti-aircraft guns were firing tracers (pom-poms) they used to have strips of shells, six at a time. They were going behind the VI. They switched their tactics and opened up and tracers were in front and the VI flew into it. There was a tremendous explosion and the colours were blue, yellow and orange like a ball in the sky.

After that my memories are mundane until we moved out of London. My younger sister, aged fifteen, had no fear of bombing at all, which I can鈥檛 understand to this day.

At 5pm on the day of the incident, what I believe to be the Home Guard came along complete with steel helmet, rifle and bayonets. They remained in situ for the next day, in case of looting.

Story of my older Brother Bobby

One evening when he was seventeen years old, my older brother Bobby left home at seven to walk to the cinema accompanied by six of his friends. He was just about to go under the bridge at Putrey bridge road at the junction of Oathill road. There was a large brick wall to the left of him as he was about to go under the bridge. Suddenly a bomb dropped in the road fifteen feet away. Six of the people were killed including my brother. The seventh person survived but sustained an injury to his leg below his knee and lost that part of his leg.

My father had given Bobby a cigarette case for his birthday, which was inside his left hand-side jacket pocket. This was given back to my father afterwards. It had a large jagged hole the size of a fifty pence piece. A terrible waste of life. I found it in 1951 in my mother鈥檚 drawer.

When she heard the blast, my mother knew Bobby was dead because she said, 鈥淭hat鈥檚 Bobby鈥. A hole in the brick wall was blown in the shape of a V. Later they rebuilt the wall in the shape of a V. I revisited it thirty years later and showed my wife. We saw it as a memorial to my brother.

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