大象传媒

In 1939, I was eight years old and living in Carshalton, less than 1陆 miles from the perimeter of Croydon Airport. It was common for aircraft to fly in low over the house, principally the air liners of Imperial Airways, but also those of other countries including Germany, whose planes carried the swastika on the tail. The outbreak of war effected an immediate change as Croydon became a fighter station.

When war broke out, there was apprehension that had been fuelled by Government leaflets, recollections of the Great War by those involved, stories from the Spanish civil war, and no doubt some vivid imaginations. Air raid shelters had been built in the playground at school and my parents had a concrete shelter built in the garden. Another significant change in life was the need to carry a gas mask. Initially these were carried in a cardboard box fitted with a piece of string. However, this was hardly practicable for schoolboys and we soon carried them in a cylindrical tin. Like so many of my generation, I was fascinated by aircraft and was soon studying books on aircraft recognition. Much to everybody鈥檚 surprise, for many months the air raids did not come and life went on with an air of normality, notwithstanding that many had been called up and there was a proliferation of service uniforms. My aircraft recognition skills in fact seemed, of necessity. to be limited to Spitfires, Hurricanes and the Gloucestsr Gladiator biplanes. Tiger Moths and other training aircraft were frequently in evidence. Rationing had been introduced in January 1940, and there was a continual stream of bad news as Hitler increased his grip on Europe. The British Expeditionary Force had been evacuated from Dunkirk by a flotilla of little ships at the end of May. It seemed only a matter of time before the war would have a direct impact on the UK.

So far as we were concerned, that impact came on a fine sunny early evening on the 15th August 1940. We looked out of a window at the side of the house and the sky was black with a mass of wheeling aircraft and the crackle of machine guns. We were witnessing our first dog fight as the Germans attacked the aiorport at Croydon. My Father unceremoniously bundled us all into the air raid shelter. When the noise had subsided, we came out and neighbours became engrossed in conversation across their garden fences as they discussed this sudden affront to our way of life. Sometime later, the sirens sounded and we traipsed back into the shelter; shortly afterwards, the 鈥淎ll clear鈥� sounded and we came out with some scepticism of the competence of those charged with sounding the warnings.

From then on, the warm sunny days of August and September 1940 were a continuous series of daylight raids. The Spitfires and Hurricanes would roar up low over the housetops as they took off from Croydon, the sirens would sound, we would be driven into air raid shelters, either at school or at home, and we would listen to the cacophony of activity overhead. Bombs would whistle down and one would try and judge where they had landed. There was very little fear in evidence, rather a spirit of adventure. The 鈥淎ll clear鈥� would sound, we would emerge from our underground hideouts and life would carry on as normal. If the siren sounded just before the end of school at lunchtime or in the afternoon, we would 鈥渓eg it鈥� to avoid a long sojourn in the shelters. However, it was a battle of wits as the staff would do all in their power to stop us running and get us into the shelters.

Raids continued in daylight but took on a different format during inclement weather. When cloud cover was great, the bombers used to come over singly rather than in formation. Because of the lack of visibility, our own fighters could not get up to attack them and more reliance was placed in an anti-aircraft barrage. I vividly remember demonstrating my prowess at aircraft recognition as I came home from school during an air raid. The sky was very overcast but in a wispy gap in the cloud, I spotted a Heinkel He 111, one of the stalwarts of the German bombing force at the time. I called to a friend nearby, but with that, the aircraft dropped two bombs. Our acceleration as they whistled down was phenomenal and any interest in the type of aircraft was rapidly reduced to zero.

The daylight raids gradually reduced after 15th September 1940 although they continued until the end of October. However, the German Luftwaffe turned its attention to London in early September with massive raids on the Docks. The night sky was lit up with a red glow, which was clearly visible from our home some 12-15 miles from the fires. Although the target had changed from the airfields to London, the particular location of our home meant that we continued to be in the thick of the action. With a continuous drone of German aircraft and a cacophony of ack-ack gunfire, the raids used to start about 6pm and go on until breakfast time next morning. The only sensible option for the family was for all four of us to sleep all night in the small air raid shelter in the garden. One used to play cards and then bed down about 9.30pm, when we learnt to sleep through the raids.

Then one night in October 1940, the routine changed. My Father went out of the shelter at about 9pm then suddenly dived back just as there was an almighty explosion. My Mother believed that our house had been hit as she claimed to have seen a bomb go past the shelter. As the plane disappeared, it was apparent that the house was still standing. In the meantime, it was established that a bomb had demolished two houses lees than 100 yards away. About an hour later, it was discovered that there was a crater with an unexploded bomb in the next garden about 10 yards from where we were sheltering, and even nearer our house. It was clearly the bomb seen to pass the shelter as it whistled past on the last few yards of its flight. If it had exploded, it is highly likely that this story would have now ended. However, it did not and was the start of a host of new adventures.

We had to evacuate immediately and as we were ready for bed, the first action was to get from the shelter to the house for some clothes. The air raid was still in full flow and the anti-aircraft barrage was unrelenting with the tinkling of shrapnel all around. The windows of the house had been blown in, the doors were off their hinges and plaster from the ceiling was all over the floor as we picked our way back into the lounge. There was no question of being able to switch a light on but as an insurance against such an event, we always laid our clothes out on the settee in the lounge before going to the shelter. We dressed quickly in the dark and covered our heads with folded blankets to provide some protection from shrapnel as we ran through the streets, making our way to a relative鈥檚 house to join them in their shelter. The night was pitch black but was repeatedly lit up by the flashes of gunfire. We had just settled down in their ground level shelter attached to the house, when there was a knock at the door. It was an ARP warden who announced that the bomb was bigger than originally thought (it turned out to be a 500lb bomb) and we would have to evacuate again.

Off we went once more, to walk a further half mile or so through the continuing raid, clutching our blankets on our heads as our sole possessions in life. The increasing numbers in the nomadic party took up residence in the air raid shelter in my grandmother鈥檚 garden. By now it was in the small hours of the morning but there was little chance of sleep. With the coming of daylight on Monday morning, the 鈥淎ll clear鈥� sounded. There seemed to be only two alternatives for the immediate future. Either the bomb would explode and our home would be no more 鈥� it was only a few feet from our house, or it would be dug out. Fortunately, the latter happened two weeks later but in the meantime, my brother and I had spent two weeks in a cottage in the country. The bomb was dug from its 23ft deep crater and joined the trophies in the front garden of the house used as headquarters by the Bomb Disposal Squad.

As winter approached the daylight raids eased up but the night raids continued relentlessly. Some shelter was constructed over a double bed in our lounge from wooden scaffold poles, planks and sheets of corrugated iron. With winter approaching, we were now able to sleep indoors. Although I slept through it, two large bombs exploded nearby at the beginning of January. My only recollection is of being earnestly woken up. Apparently, with all the windows blown out, doors off their hinges and the ceiling down in the room where I slept, all I could do was to enquire in a very dozy voice whether there had been a bomb. It just illustrates how we became acclimatised. With no evacuation necessary, next day I was able to help nail felt over the broken windows and make the house reasonably habitable. A few days later, I had just arrived home from school when there was an almighty explosion as an anti-aircraft shell came down and exploded as it hit the road just after I had passed the spot. I was soon out and up the road to find some shrapnel as a souvenir; it was still hot when I picked it up.

The blitz went on and people continued to go about their daily lives. Then on Saturday 10th May 1941, there was a particularly bad raid when once again there was damage to windows and ceilings at home. Damage in London was also extensive and the offices of the London County Council in Bloomsbury where my Father worked were among those demolished. Another curious event that night was the arrival of Rudolph Hess in Scotland by parachute.

Although we did not realise it at the time, that night really marked the end of the London Blitz. Attacks were more sporadic but two stick in my memory. In 1943, whilst at my first Scout camp under canvas at Abinger Hammer in Surrey, a lone German plane appeared and raked the camp with machine gun fire. Fortunately, no one was hurt but there was consternation among the authorities; they finally decided that we could carry on with the camp as planned.

In February 1944, there was a 鈥淟ittle Blitz鈥�. On one Sunday evening at about 9.30pm, bombs whistled down and seemed to fall uncomfortably close. In fact they had hit my school and destroyed the chemistry laboratories. We considered it a fortunate consequence that we continued our chemistry studies at the local girls鈥� school. After that, there was a lull until the flying bombs arrived in the summer. This is the subject of another Section.

In retrospect, the dominant memory is that people were determined not to be cowed by the German bombing nor by the privations of war.

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