蜜芽传媒

I was seven years old at the start of the Second World War and lived with my parents in Gloucester. I have two particular memories of the war. The first was while I was at junior school. The air raid siren sounded and the class filed out to our shelter. It was like a large Anderson shelter in the playground. (There was one for each class.) After a while we heard a plane. We knew that it was German from the sound which was distinctive and very different to the sound of English planes. In quick succession we heard the whistles of bombs falling and then exploding. Three were to my left and then one was to my right. The sound of the plane faded into the distance, then the 鈥淎ll clear鈥� sounded and we went back to our lessons. I have always been puzzled why there was a lone plane in daylight bombing Gloucester. We often had groups of bombers going overhead at night on their way to their targets in the midlands. They then came back in the early hours on their way home. Some 鈥� who I suppose failed to bomb their official target 鈥� dropped their bombs on Gloucester then. But a lone plane in daylight so far inland? And why Gloucester?

My second memory must have been about 1941. I was in the garden with my father when we heard a plane coming over low. There had not been any Air Raid warning and anyway it did not sound like a German plane 鈥� or any other type for that matter! We wondered if it was in trouble but there was no smoke. So we watched it come round and turn back toward where the Gloster Aircraft Company field was and, presumably, from where it had come. As it went out of sight my father said 鈥淚鈥檝e got it! I know what was different. It had no propellers!!鈥� Did I witness the first flight of the E40?

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