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In 1944 after spending many months of relative quiet as a member of the R.A.F. regiment, on the Bofors anti-aircraft guns on a Spitfire aerodrome at Perranporth in Cornwall,we received fresh orders. On Saturday 29th July 1944 our whole squadron travelled over night by train to Sheerness, on the Isle of Sheppey. In order to intercept and shoot down the flying bombs which were coming over from France in great numbers and destroying our towns and cities and killing many people in the London and southern areas. They at first were officially described as un-manned aircraft as they had wings like an aeorplane, but of course they were the first ever invented rockets. Everyone else called them flying bombs 'Doodle Bugs' V1's and other unmentionables. They however, were an awesome sight and sound with the fiery exhaust coming from its engine section above the bomb itself and sounding, - I thought, similar to an old two stroke motor cycle as it scuttle through the sky at about 400 mph, until the engine shut off and in a deathly silence it would dive down to earth and God help anything or anyone it landed on, or near to. There were literally hundreds of these V1's sent over from France, until they were eventually superseded by the much larger, silent in flight, V2 rockets.
We lived and slept when we could in tents, with the sea nearby which we used for our weekly bath. We shared our bread and jam sandwiches with the wasps and bees, in between manning the guns on and off, during the day and night. I remember, that the tents were not the ideal accommodation to return to when wet through with rain, in the 'black out' at night.
On Thursday 24th August 1944 we were called out to man the guns and to wait and engage any flying bombs coming into our area. Eventually one of them was coming directly towards us and as we opened fire the electricity from the generator to the gun, failed for some reason, and by the time we had reverted to 'manual control' it had passed overhead. I remember thinking, was it fate that took a hand on that day, because if we had hit it, it might very well have come down on top of us.
The result of my time, shooting at 'Doodle Bugs', was that I finished up with a perforated eardrum due to the noise from the gun. this signalled the end of my time as an anti-aircraft gunner.
However, I firmly belive that if Hitler had started with his rocket bombing earlier in the war - to which we had very little effective answer, we would surely have lost the war. It came to an end when our invading forces over-ran the launch sites in France.

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