蜜芽传媒

Memories of a War Baby
Part Four
By John Giffen

HOME AT LAST

Arthur and I got home around May 1944. I don鈥檛 remember anything about that journey but it must have happened! 蜜芽传媒 again to see my mum and dad, Barbara, Olive and the cats 鈥� we always had two or three cats. Again I don鈥檛 remember any emotion, probably being too exhausted from the long journey, but it must have been a wonderful reunion. No doubt everyone said things like 鈥淗aven鈥檛 you grown?鈥� and 鈥淒on鈥檛 you look well 鈥� it must be all that country air鈥�.

The war entered a new phase. We saw convoys of army lorries, tanks, Bren gun carriers and DUKWs, (amphibious landing craft with wheels) driving south down the Brighton Road. This was part of the preparations for the D-Day landings which took place on 6th June 1944. Exactly one week later on 13th June, the first doodlebug to land on London hit Bethnal Green, killing six people and injuring nine others. That first day only 4 reached England. Two days later 200 landed. During that first week 22 landed on Croydon.

The V1 was a pilotless flying bomb shaped like a small stubby winged aeroplane and it flew faster than most of our fighter planes. It was powered by a revolutionary pulse jet engine that made a unique and easily identifiable sound, like a giant cat purring across the sky with a small fiery tail. It was programmed by a small propeller on the front to cut out the engine when it reached a certain distance. Then it dived almost vertically to the ground exploding its 2000lb of high explosives on impact. Unlike conventional bombs, which tended to penetrate the earth before exploding, these exploded on the surface causing tremendous blast damage all around. They were something new and terrifying to the long suffering Londoners. The doodlebugs did a lot of visible damage and probably a lot of damage to people鈥檚 morale as well. There seemed to be no way of stopping them. Air raid sirens were sounding continuously.

There is an unconfirmed story that the Government was very worried by the effect these bombs were having on the morale of the population of London and the 蜜芽传媒 Counties. They put out stories that they were overshooting London and landing north of the capital. When this filtered back to the Germans, via spies and by listening to our radio reports, it is said that they re-programmed them for a slightly shorter journey. This meant that they no longer landed on central London 鈥� but meant that more of them fell south of London! More doodlebugs fell on Croydon than any other borough in London. It lay in 鈥淒oodlebug Alley鈥� 鈥� in a direct line from where they were launched in the Pas de Calais in France, to central London.

You could hear when a doodlebug was coming overhead and would watch them with bated breath. If the purring sound suddenly stopped you took cover wherever you could. They would then dive steeply to the ground and explode. You could hear the explosion from about a mile away.

On Tuesday 18th July, my sister Barbara and I were having breakfast and we heard a doodlebug approaching. The engine cut out and before we had time to react and take shelter there was a terrific explosion nearby. Bits of plaster fell from the ceiling and it looked as if my sister had suddenly turned grey. It had landed between two rows of shops, opposite the Windsor Castle pub in Brighton Road, at the junction with Kingsdown Road, about a quarter of a mile away. It caused a lot of damage, killing six people including a schoolboy cycling past. Arthur was doing his newspaper delivery round up Sanderstead Hill. He heard the doodlebug cut out and the explosion. It seemed to be very close to home from where he was, so he dropped his papers and rushed home, to find we were all safe, although everything was covered in dust and plaster. At night Arthur and I slept under the table in the kitchen, about 12 inches (30cms) away from the paraffin store!

During August measures had been taken to combat the threat of doodlebugs. Over a single weekend they moved 1000 anti-aircraft guns and men to the south coast. The shells were fitted with proximity fuses which did not require a direct hit on the target. Fighter planes were stripped of as much weight as possible and were now able to fly fast enough to shoot them down. Another technique they developed was to fly alongside them and tip their wing under the doodlebugs wing to send it off course to crash into the countryside. Barrage balloons were moved south of London.

By the end of August six out of seven doodlebugs had been shot down or diverted to crash into open countryside. In September, British and Canadian troops from the D-Day landings reached the launch sites in the Pas de Calais and stopped the main assault on Britain by V1s. A few more were launched from other sites in Holland or from piloted aircraft. One of these fell on the St. Marie Hotel in Dale Road, Purley on 31st October. 17 people died and 31 were injured in that single hit, the biggest number of casualties from one bomb in Croydon. Over the five months from June 13th, 141 doodlebugs landed on Croydon, killing 215 and injuring 1996 people. 1400 dwellings were destroyed and 54,000 damaged.

Then the enemy started using their next 鈥榲engeance weapon鈥� 鈥� the V2. This was a massive 45 foot long rocket loaded with a ton of high explosives and launched from the Low Countries. It travelled 160 - 200 miles at a speed so fast that it had exploded before you knew it was coming. It travelled in a big arc from launch to target and arrived at 3500 mph (over seven times the speed of sound). Luckily they were unable to accurately target them and they also penetrated a long way before exploding, reducing their effectiveness. As they were launched further north, from the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland), most of them landed north and east of London, especially Essex which was hit 378 times out of the total of around 1000 launched. In fact Surrey was hit only eight times and Croydon four times. Nine people were killed in Croydon, 14 seriously injured and 200 houses damaged. The last V2 was launched on 27th March 1945

I soon settled down into a new routine. I went to the local primary school 鈥� Purley Oaks Infants School in Bynes Road and made a new lot of friends. I also fell in love for the first time. Her name was Joan Littledyke, but, like most girls of that age, she chose to ignore me. We got up to the usual things kids did. We walked ourselves to and from school, played football or cricket at playtime, swapped fag cards and comics, played marbles 鈥� and showed off our collections of shrapnel!. Shrapnel is the remains of a bomb or shell after it has exploded. We mainly found pieces lying around in the street after an air raid and it usually consisted of horribly twisted pieces of metal. Most were brass from the anti-aircraft shells. If you were very lucky, it was still warm from when it had exploded. The comics changed as I got older. Pre-school days I used to read Chick鈥檚 Own, Tiger Tim鈥檚 Weekly and Playbox but as I got older I read Radio Fun, Film Fun, Beano and Dandy. Later still it was Hotspur, Rover, Wizard and Adventure, then in the 1950鈥檚 Eagle, Lion, Superman and Captain Marvel. Whilst in primary school I also joined the school library and can still remember being very moved by The Little Wooden Horse.

The girl next door, Jennifer and I would be seen across the main Brighton Road by a parent and walk up Purley Road and down Sanderstead Road to the school. Although it was longer to walk, I think the reasoning was that there was less traffic that way. Also, we passed Jenny鈥檚 grandmother鈥檚 (or maybe it was her aunt鈥檚) house and would pop in for a brief visit when coming home from school. Since this could include a sweet or a biscuit, I didn鈥檛 mind the extra distance. Jennifer was a very animated girl who was obviously trying to follow in the footsteps of Shirley Temple, the child film star. She learned all the latest songs from the wireless and even taught me some of them. There were a number of comedy songs around then and we learned one together. We sang it at school and our teacher was so impressed by us that she told us to go next door to this very large lady teacher and sing it to her. Totally unabashed we stood in front of her class and sang the following. I can鈥檛 remember all of it but the chorus went something like this;

Every time you鈥檙e sick and tired of just the same old thing,
Open up your heart and start to sing,
Oh - Chicory chick, tra la, tra la,
Chackle a rollme inner bananicker,
Wallicker wallicker can鈥檛 you see?
Chicory chick it鈥檚 me!

Then there was a better known song with a popular chorus that we learned by listening to it so often on the 蜜芽传媒 Light Programme. It was learned phonetically;

Mairsy dotes and dozy dotes,
An liddlelam zea divy,
A kiddle eadivy doo,
Wooden yew.

It wasn鈥檛 until several years later that I found out the true words. It should have been;

Mares eat oats and does eat oats,
And little lambs eat ivy,
A kid鈥檒l eat ivy too,
Wouldn鈥檛 you?

There were, of course, many serious songs being played constantly during the war Some were unashamedly morale boosting like Gracie Fields鈥� Wish Me Luck, As You Wave Me Goodbye and the ultimate sentimental song, Vera Lynn鈥檚 There鈥檒l Be Bluebirds Over, The White Cliffs of Dover. Those words have always struck me as rather strange as we don鈥檛 have blue birds in this country. One of the greatest hits from that era was of course Bing Crosby鈥檚 rendition of White Christmas. He is still my favourite 鈥榗rooner鈥� with a beautifully modulated bass baritone voice. Songs seemed to have much deeper feelings then, than anything subsequently written and performed. But then, I鈥檓 biased. Who could forget the words of Bing singing Skylark? Composed by Hoagy Carmichael with words by Johnny Mercer. Part of it goes;

And in your lonely flight,
Haven鈥檛 you heard the music of the night?
Wonderful music,
Faint as a will o鈥� the wisp, crazy as a loon,
Sad as a gypsy serenading the moon.

The songs you learned as children stay with you forever and always take you back to the time that you first heard them. It may sound too nostalgic, but everyone who lived through the war will remember those swinging tunes like Glenn Miller鈥檚 In the Mood and Chattanooga Choo Choo, the sentimental ballads like A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square and We鈥檒l Meet Again; the silly songs like Flanagan and Allen鈥檚 Run Rabbit Run or Arthur Askey鈥檚 Buzz, Buzz, Busy Bee. Or the cheeky ones like George Formby鈥檚 The Ukelele Song and When I鈥檓 Cleaning Windows. It is true 鈥� they don鈥檛 write them like that anymore.

On 8th May 1945, it was announced that we had won the war in Europe. I don鈥檛 remember much about VE day, except that that evening they had a big bonfire on a piece of open ground (possibly a bombsite) opposite the Red Deer, next to our school. The only thing I do remember is that everybody was very happy and I hugged a belisha beacon, shaking it so much that the orange metal ball on top fell off and was used as a football.

There was a special concert that we all participated in at school after VJ Day. Victory in Japan really meant the end of the whole of World War 2. We sang patriotic songs; waved flags and all got presented with a medal to mark the very special occasion. We had survived the war.

漏 John Giffen 鈥� September 2005

Acknowledgements and thanks to;
My Father and Mother; my sisters Barbara and Olive and my brother Arthur
Croydon Advertiser
Courageous Croydon 鈥� Published by Croydon Advertiser Group of Newspapers
Croydon in the 1940s and 1950s 鈥� Published by Croydon Natural History & Scientific Society
The 1940s House 鈥� Written by Juliet Gardiner, published by Channel 4 Books, Macmillan
Flying Bomb 鈥� Written by Peter G. Cooksley, published by Robert Hale, London

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