大象传媒

War story

Len Howard told this story..

These things happened to me in a period of about three months during 1940-42 when I was ten or eleven.

My friend Dennis and I used to go either to Walthamstow Library or the Swimming Pool on Saturday mornings. This particular day the siren went off as we were on our way so we darted into an alleyway by Burtons the Tailors for safety. The next thing I remember was being surrounded by rubble and dust and someone saying; 鈥淛ust stay still, we鈥檒l get you out from under there in a minute.鈥� What had happened was that a bomb had gone off at the bank over the road and the blast had severely damaged the floor of the pool room above Burtons sending the snooker tables crashing through and one had landed over us. When they finally got us out the nurses checked us out but we were unhurt. That was Lucky Escape Number One.

Shortly afterwards we were bombed out from Palmerston Road. The house was uninhabitable but we were lucky not to have been hurt by the large piece of shrapnel which shot through the walls, the settee where I was sleeping into the wall above my mum鈥檚 bed. That was Lucky Escape Number Two. We all had to find somewhere else to live. Grandad, who鈥檇 already been bombed out of his own home, went to his son鈥檚 and we went to my aunt鈥檚 in Byron Road.

We鈥檇 not been there long when the siren woke us up as it often did. We did have an Anderson shelter in the garden but we couldn鈥檛 use it because it often filled up with water. We looked out of the window at St Luke鈥檚 Church across the road. A land mine was swinging from its parachute which was hooked on the facia at the front of the building. The army evacuated everyone from the area, and eventually defused it and we were allowed to go back home. Lucky Escape Number Three.

Another memory I have is of a girl I went to school with of about my age who was not so lucky. At that time, before the V bombs, the Germans used to drop oil bombs followed by incendiary bombs to ignite the oil. This girl was walking on Palmerston Road when she was showered by the oil from a bomb and this was ignited by the incendiary causing such an intense fire that her outline was burnt onto the brick wall behind her. She survived, badly scarred, but her outline could be seen for several years afterwards.

Civilian
Walthamstow E 17

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