´óÏó´«Ã½

I was brought up in a northern industrial town and I was an only child. My father had been an officer in the RFC and a pilot in WW1. He was quite anxious to join up again and hoped to be re-commissioned into the RAF. He appreciated that he was too old to fly, but there was always an admin role. He was told that he was too old for service so instead he was put in charge of Civil Defence for our area of the town. He continued with his day job.

I was still at school during the war. The two events that I have written about happened some time in 1941/42. There were many more, some amusing, some frightening, some sad. This story and the other I have submitted, The Crash, were the most dramatic.

THE PARACHUTE MINE
Whenever there was an air-raid, my father had to turn out. In fact we were telephoned with a series of warning from the central civil defence control. ‘Yellow’ meant raiders possibly heading our way; ‘purple’ was for raiders definitely coming our way, so get out on duty. ‘Red’, raiders right here, was often too late. It was also the signal for the sirens to be sounded.

Of course the three of us were awake at ‘yellow’ and father was into his battle dress quickly. If ‘purple’ followed, he was away, leaving mother and me to scramble into our clothes and head down into the air-raid shelter constructed in the cellar. When the warning sounded, one or two neighbours often joined us. I didn’t get up on ‘yellow’ this particular night. Many times it was followed by ‘green’, that was ‘all-clear’, as radar plotted the raiders now heading away from us. This time ‘purple’ was phoned through, as father called for me to get up. He went to the front door to leave, whilst mother was behind him. As he stepped outside there was an almighty flash and bang. The lone raider had come in low over the airfield and dropped a parachute mine. These things exploded before reaching the ground, so causing maximum damage as their blast carried much further.

Blast is said to be curious. Its patterns vary greatly with any bomb, so it can kill at some distance from the source yet miss people much nearer. As I was almost blown out of bed and dashed downstairs, father was shouting for me. He had come back inside the front door, but mother, having caught the blast, was lifted the full length of the hall. She was lying in a heap, shaking and literally speechless. ‘Get your mother into the shelter’ said Dad, ‘she can’t talk. I’ve got to go, there’ll be casualties.’
Off he went. I tried to pick Mother up, and luckily she was able to move. Somehow I got her down the cellar steps into the shelter and onto a deckchair. But she made no sound.

With the explosion rocking all our houses, the neighbours were too scared to make it to our shelter, so mother and I were there alone. Phones rang, sirens wailed, but I stayed put looking in horror at mother, who sat there pointing to her mouth, trying to tell me the obvious, that she couldn’t speak. Eventually father came dashing back. There were casualties he said, but the mine had exploded the other side of the airfield, destroying houses and killing quite a few. However, it wasn’t his patch. He got me to go up to the kitchen and make some coffee for mother. She drank it, but still there was no sound from her. In fact, it was about four hours before she at last made some croaking noises. The all-clear sounded so I got her upstairs, and finally dad returned from duty and put mum to bed. By next morning she could speak normally and, as you did in those days, we all just got on with our normal daily tasks.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.