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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Jenny Christian of the 2nd Air Division Memorial Library on behalf of Dorothy Hart and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

This took place in Metfield, Suffolk in about 1940. As a small child, I tended the local village school. I was a chatterbox and apparently still am. It was the custom to sing ‘grace’ before the lunch break and at the end of the school day. If a child had been particularly good, they were allowed to leave before singing grace and therefore have at least two minutes head start over their classmates. On this particular day for the one and only time, I was rewarded in this way. My Dad kept the village shop and post office at the end of the street. Feeling very pleased with myself, I was running home along the street when I heard a German aircraft coming fast and low over the airfield to my left. All the children recognized the noise of various aircraft engines; we heard enough of them at the time. There was nowhere to hide so I ran faster. I could see my Dad standing in the shop doorway watching in horror unable to help me. To this day I can still hear the clatter of the guns, the thumping sound of the engine and visualize the pilot. He was wearing a closefitting brown helmet and leaning forward. The plane really was that low. The bullets missed me. I had run fast enough to be at right angles to the plane. But several bullets went through the front doors of a row of cottages. It’s strange but I do not remember being scared just concerned for my Dad. He looked so worried. I felt then and still feel the small English child won a victory that day. But I still wonder why the pilot felt it necessary to machine a sleepy village street.

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