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Front Row Seat
War as seen by a School Boy in Kent

The Beginning.
War had been declared in the Fall of 1939, I was Eight. At the time I was living in the county of Kent in England in a town called Sittingbourne. On holiday with my parents in Margate I remember that we came home a couple of days early as Germany had just invaded Poland. Then a few days later we all sat in the front room to listen to the ‘Murphy' wireless to hear Mr Chamberlain's speech telling us England was at war.
At first things did not change much, we did have Ration Books, Identity Cards, Gas Masks and Black Out. In the Blackout, the street lights were switched off and all windows had to have drapes that cut off the light. In my home our front room had black drapes on the large front window and the small side window. I clearly remember my Dad and Grandfather boarding it up, so from out side you could not see any light at night.

That first Christmas there were still some kids toys in the shops but after they were all sold there were no more for years, so you had to hang on to what you had and look after them.

Soon a lot of children, mainly from cities like London and other big towns were evacuated to safer places, to the further north and others even further. Some officials decided that being in a country setting with no targets, we did not have to leave, they thought it was safe there. It did not turn out to be so safe later on but you got a front row seat. The Mums and Dads did not quite see it the same way but we kids thought it was great to see what was going on.

Difficulties.
There was no Petrol for civilian cars and the bus service was cut back to save petrol and it started to become difficult to get around. If you wanted to go anywhere you walked or rode a bicycle. Bicycles were not toys anymore, my Dad even had one to ride to work. At night they had to have a head light and a red rear light.
Milk was in short supply to homes but to make sure children got their share there was an extra ration at school. We had to drink milk during the ‘morning break', each student got one bottle. These bottles were special school ones made of glass about a 1/3 of a pint or 190 ml. We drank straight out of the bottle, no straws and if you were lucky you might get two if there any left over.
All the street signs were taken down, making it very difficult for strangers and that was the point of it. Now if someone you did not know asked you the way you were supposed not to tell them but to tell the Police instead. All this was an attempt to confuse enemy agents. I don't know if it worked but it certainly confused a lot of perfectly innocent people.
We saw no Oranges or Bananas when I was a child. However there were lots of other locally grown fruit such as Apples, Pears and Cherries. In the South were these fruits were available we were issued an extra sugar ration so our Mothers could make Jam to be used for the rest of the year. Commercial Jam was also available but it had artificial sweeteners in it. There is a story about commercial jam, especially Strawberry jam. According to the story it was made from turnips with artificial flavour and sweetener and to make it look more realistic specially prepared sawdust was added for the seeds. I tried some and it tasted terrible, not like real strawberries at all.

A New type of War.
My Mum and Dad used to visit an Aunt and Uncle about 12 Km away and on the way we passed some tall structures like Electricity towers that had been built in a field. They were all fenced off with barbed wire and guarded, this was even before the War started. There were all sorts of stories about them, some said they were death ray machines and my Uncle with great authority said they could halt cars by stopping the spark plugs working because he knew a man who's car had stopped near there. None of this was true of course, they were really the first Radar Aerials to detect aeroplanes. Many years later I found out that there lots of these towers around the southern coast and they did work and proved to be very useful. The Germans quickly guessed what they were for and attacked some of them but in spite of their size they were difficult targets.

My uncle Harry was elderly and did not seem to do much for the War effort, this was deliberate. Earlier he had been a Radio Amateur "Ham" and his War effort was to help monitor German Spy Transmissions, this of course was to be kept secret. Later on he even helped send fake messages, pretending to be a Spy after the real Spy had been captured. He had to go out at night to meet his "contacts" to get instructions and pass on signals he'd received. To avoid suspicion at night he used to dress as an Air Raid Warden and sometimes as a Policeman, he also had some other uniforms hidden in a closet, he showed them to me once, but I had to keep it secret.
Another thing he had hidden was a brand new AR88 communications receiver loaned to him by the government, as his own ham equipment wasn't good enough they said. Again "don't tell anyone," he warned me

Unusual Methods.
After the Germans invaded France, Holland and Belgium as well as Norway and Denmark. Expecting the invasion any day, the Works Departments of towns, now mainly staffed by elderly men, had to cast concrete blocks, hundreds of them. This blocks were conical, about one metre ( 3 ft ) tall and about half a metre diameter at the base. In the centre was a hole about four centimeters diameter ( 1+ in ) all the way through, when they were finished they were stored in groups alongside the roads and even on paths. Unfortunately this blocks were a bit of a menace at night, as people fell over them in the "Black Out" and got hurt, so they had to paint at least the outside ones white, which helped. With all this concrete they were too heavy to lift and that's where the hole came in, a broom handle was to be put in the hole and they then could then be rolled along, it wasn't easy but it could be done. The purpose of these things was to delay the enemy if they invaded, they were to be rolled out and put all over the roads and so prevent trucks and maybe even tanks from driving along them. True the blocks could be moved out of the way by the enemy troops but it would take time and the men doing it would be exposed to being shot at by the ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard. The whole idea was to cause as much delay as possible, lines of trucks held up would also provide a good target from the air. These blocks stayed around for years after War and if the town could find a use they did, for example at the end of a highway or unfinished road. I fell over one at night in the fifties taking a short cut over an unfinished bridge, the white paint had long ago washed off.

The Battle of Britain.
Now from France the German Air Force could easily fly over England, first attacking British airfields and Radar stations, later they started bombing London and other cities. This was called the Battle of Britain. The Royal Air Force sent fighters to stop them and lots of planes were shot down on both sides. With this battle going on, they kept the schools closed we thought that was a good idea. Living in Kent. we were on one of the direct routes to London and everything was flying over us and while the people who had said we were not a target were right, it was quite dangerous to go out side and watch. When the battles were right overhead, used bullets and parts of aeroplanes would fall out of the sky and could severely injure or even kill you. We spent a lot of time in Air Raid Shelters particularly at night when Anti Aircraft guns would start firing at the planes, as they used search lights to see the enemy. As you could imagine there were Air Raid warnings, given by a wailing siren, quite often. They tried to avoid sounding a warning until the last moment, waiting till the planes were very close, otherwise nobody would get any work done.

On one occasion I went shopping on a bicycle for my mother between raids, the All Clear had sounded. That was not the case however for a bomb landed very close to the shop I had just entered. Quickly completed my purchases after picking myself off the floor and I made my way home through the debris back home to my frantic mother. She had heard the explosion and seen the smoke, all in the direction I had just gone.

Once my friend and I went to see a German bomber called a Heinkel 111, that had crashed on an RAF airfield. We could not get very near to it but we did see that it was painted black so it had probably been bombing London. We also cycled to see crashed British planes, usually Hawker Hurricanes in our area. Another thing we used to do was to go out and collect Shrapnel, that's the jagged pieces of steel from exploding anti aircraft shells, then we'd compare our finds to see who had the biggest piece. No wonder they could do a lot of damage to whatever they hit, holes in house roofs and smashed windows.

D Day is coming.
Later in the War a prohibited zone about 10 miles wide along the coast was declared. We could not leave and people outside could not come in. The buses could not cross this line and trains could not go to London anymore. They did not want anyone to talk about was going on along the coast, they were preparing for D-Day.

A friend and I were riding our bicycles one day on the outskirts of the town, practically in the country. We suddenly saw some soldiers arrive in a truck and start digging in a bank at the side of the road, we rode over to watch. Then they unloaded heavy oil drums and placed them in the holes they had just dug, they told us to not touch them as it was fuel for more trucks. In the next few days lots of trucks started to arrive, dozens of them. They parked in the streets usually taking all one side. Military Police appeared and were checking the identity of every one walking down Main Street, even children had to carry cards. Near my parents home was a wheat field, even some truck appeared there and an anti aircraft gun was set up and manned by some soldiers. Nearby was what had been in peace time, an Agriculture College, now was turned into a Military Hospital. Lots of ambulances arrived, they were parked all over the place, there seemed to be soldiers everywhere.

Then during June 5th all this military equipment started to move away. Later that night, planes started to fly over, just a few at first. We could not see them but as the night wore on more and more flew over, this went on all night. Some sounded like heavy bombers and they made a sound completely different from the German ones. What with all the planes and trucks driving down the road no one got any sleep that night, we were all excited anyway as it was obvious something big was happening. Next morning on the radio we heard that a landing in force had taken place on the coast of France, but there were not any details. Later in the day more details were given on what became known as D-day, June 6th. The following day the newspapers were full of it, with pictures and maps. The maps were probably not accurate but all this was good for moral. I used to cut out the maps and pictures each day and paste them in a scrap book. I often wondered what became of that book. I expect my mother got rid of it years later, a pity.

A New Threat
Flying Bombs or Buzz Bombs started about D-day and the first one I knew about was a loud explosion. We ran outside to see a big black cloud in the sky, it seems that it had been hit and exploded in the air. Later we saw another one flying along, on its way to London. They were small little aeroplanes driven by a type of pulse jet engine. They made quite a noise as the series of small explosions drove it along and a flame came out the tail pipe, so at night you could not only hear them but see them as well. After that they seemed to come over regularly and all the ones we saw were aimed at London but as before they were being shot down around us so you were never quite sure. We used to watch or listen to them at night and if they kept flying and no one was shooting, we felt safe. Apart from shooting at them Fighter Pilots developed a new method, they would fly along side and use their wing to tip the Bomb's wing and it would then crash. We saw a plane do that once and the Bomb crashed and exploded a few miles away, unfortunately it did quite a bit of damage to a train and the railway line.

The End.

Now We all waited expectantly for the War to end and we knew it was near. People in the town started to collect wood, old trees and anything that would burn, piling it in a nearby field. At last the end of the War was declared and that night they set fire to the largest Bonfire anyone could remember, every one stood around it and watched. People put the British Flag outside there house and I still have the one that was outside our house, it a bit faded and worn now.

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