大象传媒

In July 1944 I was 5陆 years old and living at 110 Carlton Road Erith Kent. At that time Erith was an Urban District Council and part of Kent, although now part of the London Borough of Bexley.

I quote in part from the Air Raid Precaution (ARP) records of the time.

Raid on 13th July 1944 1720 hours

鈥淎 flying bomb crashed and exploded on land adjoining 65 Carlton Road which was demolished. No 63 is to be demolished, No 94 鈥� 118 Carlton Road (evens) to be evacuated. No 2, 4 & 6 Collingdale to be evacuated鈥�.鈥�

Behind this bare statement is my personal experience. Even at that age I suffered from migraine attacks and was asleep on the settee in the front downstairs lounge, then just called the front room. My father, mother and two elder brothers were having tea in the back dinning room. Although we had an Anderson Shelter in the garden, at that stage of the war, like many people, we did not take cover unless there was an immediate threat.

Apparently a V1 flying bomb, colloquially known as a Doodle Bug, had caught in the balloon barrage which protected the approaches to South East London. This ripped the tail off the V! which plummeted down, crashing and exploding in a ditch some 50 yards opposite the front of our house. On hearing the V1 engine cut out the rest of my family fortuitously went to the back door, to see what was happening. On my fathers instruction all except my mother dived to the floor in the hallway as the V1 exploded.

The explosion blew in the front door of our house, the front walls and windows as well as those of many other adjacent properties. The dividing wall between our front lounge and dining room was also demolished with all of our furniture and personal belongings. My mother, just before the explosion had opened the door to the lounge to try and reach me and was seriously injured by flying glass and debris. My father and brothers also suffered minor injuries from the same cause. I however was completely uninjured and did not even wake up although covered in rubble etc. The story in our family is that the impact of the initial blast had blown the lounge door off the hinges so that it fell across the two arms of the settee totally protecting me from harm. My first recollection of this event was waking up in my mother鈥檚 arms at the end of back garden and asking 鈥渨hat鈥檚 happened mum.鈥�

Although sadly one passer by was killed in this incident, the family at No 65 were fortunately at the Cinema and thus escaped certain death.

Several weeks later when our mother had partially recovered, our house still being uninhabitable, we were evacuated to Whiston, near Liverpool 鈥� but that鈥檚 another story.

Colin Dunham
24/09/2005

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