大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's war site by Teresa Parsons and has been aded to the website on behalf of Frank and Wilfred Harris with their permission and they fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

Frank was 9 yrs old and Wilfred was 11 yrs old. The family owned a large 500 acre farm for livestock and vegetables for the London Market. It was managed by their Father. The farm had approximately 4 land girls who travelled to other local farms with the machines. Italian and German men also worked the farm. Thye also employed local ladies to pick peas and cut cabbages.
All farm workers recieved additional rations of cheese, sugar and butter during harvest time. This was handed out with the wages. Mother used to weigh out sugar rations to last the week. Wilfred tried to make his last the longest but Frank had a sweet tooth!
Thefarm recieved 39 high explosive bombs, one doodlebug, one hurricane, one German bomb and many incendary bombs. Many of these landed exceptionally close to buildings but they had no casulties except one German, who during Harvesting when lifting a 1g sheaf of straw up, threw a pitch fork at a mouse and caught his fellow German's hand!
One evening during a raid they heard the whistle of a bomb. The next afternoon the bomb was found semi-buried horizontally in the ground, duck egg blue, 500lbs and one metre long. They went into the hole to investigate, uncovered the bomb and took the tail fin home which was loose. On the way home, thier father phoned the authorities. The Army came and dug it out and blew it up behind a tree. It blew out all the windows in the farm house and other houses in New Barn Road!
One day a Hurricane that was hit by a German was attempting a false landing and it hit a trip wire meant to stop the German Gliders, tha plane landed wheels up and the English pilot climbed out and asked, "Where can I find a telephone to send a message home?"
The following day Wilfred and Alan Driscoli decided to look at the plane. When they arrived one man from the RAF regiment climbed into the cockpit. Alan stood by the fuslage, left edge of the wing and Wilfed stood on the front edge half way along the wing, there was a bank of four machine guns between them, the RAF guard accidentally fired the guns. The result was a hole blown out between them and they were both covered in dust. He had a second go but the noise was heard over the RAF system. Their father was out to lynch the guard and there was BIG trouble!

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