ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝

June 1944 - probably the 16th. It was a sunny day and everyone was cheerful. The D-Day Invasion of Normandy (part of France) had gone well and our Allied troops were pushing the Germans back in France and Italy. We had seen it all on the PathĂŠ News at The Savoy Cinema, our local. The Grown-ups seemed to think the war would soon be over.

At our house (Brooks), 18 The Green, East Acton, Jasmine (5) was playing on the back doorstep with one of older sister (15) Beryl’s old hard baby dolls. Mum (40) and I (Brian, almost 10) were in the back garden. I was practising ‘dog-fighting’ (as it was called) with a toy Spitfire and a piece of wood, as the Jerry ‘plane. The Jerry got shot down every time, of course! Mum was sitting on a chair by the kitchen window, doing some darning, or knitting. The weather was lovely.

I heard an aircraft and looked for it in case it was a Spitfire. There wasn’t an air raid on so he must be friendly, probably heading for Northolt. The engine sound came from beyond the Middleton’s house (No. 17) and sounded wrong, like an old juddery motorbike. Mum was standing up, looking now, “It sounds as if he’s in trouble” she said. Then, there he was, quite small, just appearing from beyond Mrs. Hatswell’s roof (No. 16). I pointed:”I think he’s on fire!” you could just see a flame coming out of the back. “I hope the poor pilot gets down safely,” Mum said as the ‘plane disappeared behind the roofs of the houses on The Bye. The sound died away in the distance.

The next day we learned that the pilot didn’t get down safely — because there was no pilot, it was a robot ‘plane. We had seen one of the first V1’s, Hitler’s Vengeance Weapon Number One, a rocket powered ‘flying bomb’. Grown-ups always gave funny names to frightening things so they called them ‘Doodlebugs’, because they ‘doodled’ about the sky and ‘Buzz-bombs’ because of the buzzing noise they made. The war wasn’t ‘nearly over’, for us on the ‘ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ Front’, it was back on.

From those first few ‘Doodlebugs’ the Germans sent wave after wave, day and night. They must have had hundreds ready. The grown-ups were scared, not only because they were a huge bomb and did a lot of damage, but because there was no crew. At least a bomber’s crew risked being killed or captured, which was fair. But they found these empty rocket planes really creepy, like something science fiction by H.G. Wells.

Mum’s sister Aunty Glad (Ames) and Adrienne were with us in the shelter most times now. There would be the AA guns firing, and then you would hear the ‘Doodlebug’, the juddery engine getting slowly louder and louder and louder then - stop. The grown-ups would huddle and screw up their faces and hug us, holding their breath. They knew that when the engine stopped it went into a steep dive. After a painfully long silence, really only seconds, you heard the deep rattling ‘cruumpumpp’ of high explosive. And everyone let out that breath, smiling at us in relief, although nearly in tears.

A bit of gabbled talk and nervous jokes then faded away as the unmistakable sound of another ’Doodlebug’ was heard getting louder and louder and louder. The grown-ups looked grey as the blood drained from their faces and the whole thing happened again. This was when my toy Spitfire got kicked under the bench and lost.

I think it was Aunty Glad who came up with an idea to keep us kids occupied, or was it to distract the grown-ups? When there was a thunderstorm we used to count the seconds from the lightening ‘flash’ to the ‘clap’ of thunder, and this was supposed to tell you how many miles away the lightening was. Now, when the ‘Doodlebug’ engine cut-out, we counted until we heard the explosion. “Oh, six miles away, that’s good!” someone would say, laughing. I knew there was also relief mixed with guilt when the ‘Doodlebug’ chugged-chugged on and faded away in the distance. “Not us, this time!” Mum would say quietly.

This attack seemed to last for months. Two V1s hit East Acton Lane so they probably came from the same site in France. Just a few seconds more flight would have brought them down very close to us. Our lives now depended on settings made by a German Army engineer somewhere in France— a fraction either way could make all the difference to us. We heard from Aunty Glad that one had hit John Sanders shop and the shops and hotel opposite in Ealing, and also factories near her in Park Royal. ‘Doodlebugs’ all came the same way from France, it was called ‘Buzz-Bomb Alley’.

My sister Jasmine and Cousin Adrienne were now at John Perryn School and getting to know the school’s air raid shelter.

One night it was very quiet, no AA guns firing, nothing. Although we didn’t know until much later, most of the guns had been moved to the coast overnight, gambling on a quiet period. Now, although we still had air raids and heard ‘Doodlebugs’, most were being stopped before they reached London. The RAF was pounding the V1 sites and railway lines, we were told on the ĂŰŃż´ŤĂ˝ news on the wireless, so it was just a matter of time.

Just as it seemed that the grown-ups could relax again there was a gas main explosion in Chiswick, just a few miles away from us, although we didn’t hear about it for a day or two. What we also didn’t hear was that there had been another ‘gas main’ explosion at the same time near Epping. Weeks later it was announced that we were under attack by huge rockets. This was the V2, Hitler’s Vengeance Weapon Number Two, a rocket that went up to a great height, then fell so fast that you couldn’t see it coming. There was no warning, the first they knew about it was the huge explosion.

We were still getting air raids for ‘Doodlebugs’ but they were fewer and fewer, although some were still getting through. (The last one to hit London was at Greenford, not far away.) Our Anderson shelter was getting smaller as I got bigger, but it was still a safe, secure place. Then the raids stopped. The grown-ups were thinking, had Hitler got some other secret weapons ready to send over us?

V1 EXHIBITION
We went on one more visit to an exhibition (in the bombed John Lewis store) at Oxford Street, West End, London. This one had a lot about the V Weapons. There was a V1 cut in half and laying down. It was full of sparkly cotton wool stuff which stung when you touched it, an RAF man on the stand said it was called Spun Glass Fibres. Fibres spun from glass sounded very strange. There were balls inside, bigger than a football, wrapped round and round with wire. The V1 we had seen from our garden last year looked quite small, seeing one close up, and ‘photos of dozens of them flying in, showed just how much danger we had been in.
Then: Adolf Hitler was dead, he had committed suicide. The news that the evil monster was finally dead was a great relief to everyone. The war against Germany really was almost over after nearly six years, and we had used our shelter for the very last time.

Revised extracts from ‘A Sheltered Childhood ~ Wartime Family Memories of an East Acton Child’

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