大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People War鈥檚 site by Annie Keane from the 大象传媒 on behalf of Charles Leonard and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

I was 8 when war broke out. The first months of the war in London were quiet until the docks got attacked. I witnessed quite a bit of bombing and from West London we could see the East End alight.

I was shipped off to Bedlinog in South Wales at the start of the Blitz, where I stayed with my Nan. I was in Wales for a couple of years, I was a lucky evacuee because I was staying with my family. But Swansea was bombed and we could see that from our valley.

I came back to London a week after D-Day, I was here during the flying bombs attack on June 13th 1944. The worst thing was the night attacks of the doodlebugs (V1s). We had a brick shelter in the yard and one of the things I feared the most was drowning if the water main that went into the side of the shelter was damaged.

When London was being attacked we used to hope for the next day to be bright, if it was a cloudless sky we鈥檇 know that the fighters would intercept the bombers on the way over.

One night our road got hit. I was lying on the top bunk in the shelter I could hear the bomb which sounded like a T-type ford coming through the sky, then the engine cut out and 12 seconds later it hit. The shelter shook. My dad had been in the house and ran in to the shelter just as the bomb fell. We could hear timbers and everything falling outside and when it got light we came outside. The windows in our house had gone and most of the doors. We walked through the house and opened the front door, the block of flats on the other side of the road was covered in dust and half of the road had disappeared. We lived in number 26, the houses from number16 onwards were ok.

The second bomb came a week later and hit Blythe Road nearby, after that my dad sent me back to Wales. He arranged to have me met in Caerphilly but there was no-one there to meet me. The lady who had looked after me on the journey took me to my aunty鈥檚 house.

I stayed there Wales until the flying bombs stopped, but as I came home the V2s started! By that time we were moved by the council to 139 Uxbridge Road. One Xmas a V2 fell round the corner. It felt like they were following us. Luckily we had an Anderson shelter and that鈥檚 where I rode the war out. You couldn鈥檛 hear a V2 until it hit the floor.

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