大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War Site by Katie Holyoak, for Three Counties Action, on behalf of Brian Gurney, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

When I was eleven I was back in my local junior school where there were no shelters but sandbags had been heaped up all along the corridors to make a safe area to go to if there was a raid. The procedure was that if the sirens sounded, lessons continued and one of the senior boys from my class would go to the top of the stairs, look out of the window to see if a large black ball was raised on a nearby building. This meant that a raid was imminent, and he would run down the stairs shouting 鈥渢he ball鈥檚 up鈥� and we would all go and sit in the corridor until the all clear was sounded.
I kept a large map on the wall at home pinning flags in to indicate where the British and German forces were, and by the end of 1940 the Germans had captured and occupied all of Belgium, Holland, Denmark and France. Britain was on it鈥檚 own. The last of our soldiers were evacuated from Dunkirk in France and every boat and ship that was available was sent time and again to pick them up from the beaches. My dad had a job to do in Portsmouth at that time and we saw these poor bedraggled and sometimes injured soldiers struggling onto the shore.
After the fall of Europe in mid 1940 there were great fears that Britain would be invaded, but the Germans wanted to be sure that they could first secure supremacy in the air and weaken our Air Force (the R A F), so they increased the intensity of their bombing raids both day and night. At times 1000 enemy aircraft attacked in one day but they were always met by our fighter planes mostly Hurricanes and Spitfires, single engine propeller driven, having just one pilot as crew. We saw a number of these 鈥渄ogfights鈥� where our fighters were attacking the German planes and trying to shoot them down. This period was called 鈥淭he Battle of Britain鈥� and, as we were short of pilots they had to keep taking their aircraft up time and time again; very tiring and stressful. Many lost their lives but they held out and probably prevented a German invasion. This is what gave rise to Winston Churchill鈥檚 famous lines 鈥淣ever, in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few.鈥�

It was important to keep up morale at this time and one inspiration was to encourage people to think of victory. This was supported by a 鈥淰 for victory鈥� campaign and 鈥淰鈥� signs were daubed all over the place especially in occupied (by the Germans) Europe to the annoyance of the Germans. The letter V in morse code is dot, dot, dot, dash and this rhythm which was frequently played and tapped throughout Europe is the opening part of Beethoven鈥檚 5th symphony.

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