大象传媒

Like most kids who lived in London in the early forties the nightly Luftwaffe bombing raids were something we learned to live with. We had an Anderson shelter in the back garden but we never bothered with it. It was always full of water anyway. Occasionally I popped up the road to sleep with a mate who had the luxury of an indoor Morrison shelter, much more civilised.
When the air-raid warnings sounded we usually shot up to our front room to view events. We never felt the danger, what kid did?. After all it was other folk who got killed or injured wasn't it? Never us!
On one particular night three Heinkel 111's in line ahead and several miles apart flew in an arc across our house. Each was bracketed by searchlights and peppered with ack-ack, the shell bursts being little puffs of smoke.
The first bomber escaped the lights and shells and disappeared once more into the darknes to the north.
The second bomber was not so lucky. He was hit and burst into flames but continued on following the first Heinkel into the darkness. A minute or so later a huge orange fireball lit up the sky. Evidently the stricken plane had exploded. The rumour later was that night fighters had finished the job.
To this day I swear the third bomber in the arc "turned the wick up", for to my young eyes he appeared to fairly rocket across the illuminated sky to the relative safety of the darkness.
I recall that when the bomber blew up I had a sense of sadness and wondered what had been the fate of the crew. At a time like that there were no "them and us".