大象传媒

My earliest recollection of WW2 was in 1941.At that time I was approximately 6 1/2 years old. I lived, with my family, in a 3-bedroom semi detached house, which backed onto the main railway line, which ran from Liverpool Street Station, London to the East Coast.
Our family comprised my mother, Emily, my sisters,Renee (11years) and Barbara (9years) and my younger brother, David (3 years). My father, also named Roland, was one of the first servicemen to be called up on the outbreak of war in September 1939.

On the other side of the main railway line was the large Plessey aircraft factory. During the Blitz of 1940/1 the railway line and the factory were prime targets of the German bombers. Our house, therefore, was in the direct line of fire.

To add to the problem the Plessey factory was defended by a battery of ack-ack guns.

During the frequent air raids my mother and sisters had to shepherd myself and brother David from our beds, down the garden and into the Anderson shelter, which had been installed early in the war.

The shelter was built into the earth and had a steel door with a sandbagged outer wall and offered reasonable protection against most things, apart from a direct hit.

However, when the bombs began to fall and the ack-ack guns hit back at the attacking airplanes the inside of our tiny shelter was lit up like day. The noise was indescribable.

Some time after the aircraft had departed 鈥� the 鈥渁ll clear鈥� siren would signal that the raid was over. Our guns would fall silent and tired parents and children could settle down to get some sleep in cold, uncomfortable, bunk beds.

In the morning we would emerge from our shelter and take stock of the damage. My abiding memory of this time is of broken glass. After each raid virtually every window in our neighbourhood was blown out The road outside our houses were literally a river of glass.

The very few men and women assigned to clearing this mess up were desperately overworked. But the spirit of the times greatly helped in this difficult situation. Everyone pulled together to help those in trouble. The bomb damaged shops quickly displayed 鈥淏usiness as Usual鈥� signs and people got on with their normal lives as quickly as possible.

Broken windows would be covered with temporary black oiled paper to keep the weather, and light, out. Weeks later, gangs of men would replace the smashed glass. Days later, Hitler鈥檚 airmen would return and the cycle of destruction and repair would start again.

After the Blitz life returned to a semblance of normality. Dad was still away at the War. Food rationing meant that we were perpetually hungry. In the war I vowed that when it was over I would never eat corned beef or dried egg ever again. 58 years later I鈥檓 ashamed to say that I have kept that vow.

As the war continued the air attacks on Great Britain largely fizzled out. The Germans made the huge mistake of attacking Russia who had been their Allies at the beginning of the war. This meant that Hitler was fighting on two major fronts. Worse still, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, Germany had declared war on the U.S.A.

Because of the mounting pressure Hitler gave orders for the upgrading of research and development of 鈥渢error weapons鈥�. The comparative peace we now enjoyed was about to be rudely shattered. In five years of continuous war the people of Great Britain had suffered many hardships. The worst was just about to begin.

Just as the Allies began their D-Day attack on Normandy on the 6th June 1944 reports began to circulate of strange, small, aircraft with rocket motors crossing our coastline. It became clear that they were pilot less. Once inland their rocket motors would cut out and they would plunge to the ground and explode.

The Blitz had returned with a vengeance. Just when we all thought the war was nearly at an end it flared up in a horrifying way. Day and night these V1鈥檚 or 鈥渇lying bombs鈥� rained down over the South East of England. Hundreds of houses were destroyed. Thousands of people were killed and injured.

New tactics had to be devised to find ways of destroying this new threat. When this had been achieved and some measure of success reached an even worse form of attack began.

The V2 was a missile against which there was no defence. As our armies surged forward into France and up to the borders of Germany it seemed as if our enemy was going to snatch victory from our grasp.

Whole blocks of houses would disappear in a sudden and blinding flash of explosion as 1 ton of warhead detonated. There was no warning. Death could strike at any time- in the middle of the night- or in broad daylight. The V2 soared into space, descending beyond the speed of sound. No aircraft, or ack- ack gun could intercept it.

After many weeks of terror and the deaths of thousands of civilians the last threat was finally overcome. Our bombers dropping 鈥淭allboy鈥� bombs on the rocket sites all over occupied Europe achieved this.

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