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I was in the RAF, not a flier but one of those thousands of men and women who kept the 'planes flying or able to do their jobs. I was a member of a wireless/observer post, six men, a tent and a lorry. We did, in the field, the same job as the (later Royal) Observer Corps. Three ground observers and three wireless oerators, we were deployed often in quite remote spots; our job was to plot (mainly) enemy aircraft movements. We went to Normandy but were hardly ever used because of the low level of enemy activity - but then came the doodlebugs. Deprived of their launch sites in northern France the Germans used bases in Holland to attack probably the most vulnerable of targets, the port of Antwerp through which was passing almost all the supplies needed by British and Canadian forces. We, along with Radar units, were deployed to advise the gunners when to expect their V1 targets.
We were just outside the Dutch town of Deurne, parked beside a couple of hay stacks. We had been told that there was no enemy air activity so there was no need to cover ourselves with camouflage netting.
Oh dear! Whereas almost all Allied vehicles on the continent carried white stars as identification the RAF decided that we should have big RAF roundels on the sides of our waggons. Fine if there were no German planes about but on this day there was one, an Me262, the new German jet. I'm sure the pilot must have rubbed his hands in glee when he spotted not just a target but one with the aiming point so clearly showing!
He was diving towards us when a shell froim a nearby light anti-aircraft gun exploded just in front of his nose almost a second before his bomb was released. It caused the pilot to deviate just enough for us to see his bomb descending, oh so slowly we thought, not towards us but off to one side. It landed a couple of hundred yards away. We were saved but it fell in the garden of a Dutch farmhouse where a small child was playing.
Naturally we were thankful for our own escape but that gratitude was mitigated by the knowledge that a poor innocent young child had paid the price for that escape.

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