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Sometime during June 1944 a doodlebug flew over our house very low and it crashed four roads away. As soon as it crashed my brother and I dashed around the corner up to Carlton Road. When we got there which was only a few minutes after it had dropped, there was dust and smoke everywhere. Some debris was on fire but all we were looking for was parts of the bomb. People were appearing looking very dazed and I can remember a lady with a baby in her arms and I think they had blood on them.

When we looked there in front of us was a piece of fuselage. We both grabbed an end and it was still quite hot. Even so we took it. We were just going down the road to home when an ARP Warden arrived on the scene. He shouted at us to drop it but we just did a runner and as luck would have it, the shapnel was too heavy for us. What a find we would have been the envy of all our friends with a piece like this. Any way we had to drop it and we ran home — what a loss! This would have been our best yet!

When we got home our dad gave us a good hiding — he said that another one could have dropped perhaps killing us. But we never thought of things like that. We also had to help him clear up the mess indoors — the bomb had brought down some ceilings.

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