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Ben Sacks
Wembley (Brent)

A YOUNG PERSON’S WAR

I was 10 years old when the war started, living in Willesden, and I was an evacuee. At the time I was a pupil at St. Andrews School in Willesden High Road. I remember Friday 1st September 1939 as if it were yesterday. We had been told to report to school early that morning. All that we were allowed to take with us was a small rucksack and a small suitcase containing a change of clothes and underwear, pyjamas, handkerchiefs, toilet items (flannel, soap, toothbrush and towel) and a sandwich lunch. Also, of course, our gas-mask in its little brown cardboard box with a string handle. A luggage label was tied to our jackets, showing our name and which school we belonged to.

When we were all assembled I remember two big red double decker London buses arriving at the school. We all climbed aboard, together with our teachers, who were coming with us, and parents who were coming to see us off.

The buses took us to Willesden Junction Station where we disembarked and went down on to the platform where a train was waiting. We were told to say goodbye to our parents. Many of the mums were in tears, not knowing when or whether they would see their children again. We got into the train carriages. It was all a bit scary as we had no idea where we were going or when we would get there.

Some while later, the train arrived at Northampton a town some miles north of London (just a short drive up the M1 today). We all got out of the train and again were taken by bus to a school called The Bective in a district of Northampton called Kingsthorpe. We went into the school hall and assembled in groups according to our schools and classes. We were given a drink and told to eat our lunch.

After lunch, local people who had agreed to take in and billet (accommodate) evacuees came to the school and took us to their homes. I remember going with a very nice lady called Mrs. Butlin who lived at 35 Ruskin Road, Kingsthorpe. She and her husband originally came from Yorkshire and for Sunday lunch she made the lightest, most delicious Yorkshire pudding that I have ever tasted, so it was not all bad!

I only stayed in Northampton for about three or four months as it was the time of what was later called the “phoney war”, when there were no air-raids and nothing much was happening on the home front.

On my return to London, I went to Dudden Hill School, one of the few in the Borough, still open at the time.

Later in 1940, the Blitz proper began and there was a second evacuation. This time I was sent to a little mining village called Pontycymer, in South Wales; a lasting memory was that of a dead sheep in the village pond. It was a great culture shock for a townie like me and I was very unhappy there. I wrote a postcard to my parents pleading with them to take me back home. They sent me the fare money and I was able to return home to London.

All through the blitz we lived in a house in Mount Pleasant Road, Brondesbury. I was told that I had to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs as this was considered to be the strongest part of the house. I had a mattress on the floor and it was really quite cosy and comfortable. Life in London at that time was very uncertain and dangerous and at 11 years old it was like living a great adventure.

I clearly remember two outstanding incidents during the blitz. One was one night when there was an incendiary (fire bomb) raid on the area where we lived. Incendiary bombs were quite small really; they were about 30/40cm. Long: and about 8/10cm. In diameter. They were coloured silver with a drab green tail fin. They were filled with a phosphorous compound and immediately burst into flames on impact,

Three of these bombs came through the roof of our house. One failed to explode, one landed in the bath, which was kept filled with water, and fizzled out very quickly, but the third landed in the middle of my parents’ bedroom and burst into flames. In those days we always kept two buckets of water, a bucket of sand, a stirrup pump and a shovel with a very long handle on the upstairs landing against such an eventuality.

Quick as a flash, my brother who was 17 at the time, grabbed the long handled shovel, ran into the bedroom, scooped up the burning incendiary bomb and pushed it straight through the bedroom window and into the front garden. Fortunately it did not do a lot of damage and the house was saved. When the incendiary bomb that had failed to explode was examined it was discovered that the detonator was filled with sand, instead of high explosive. Someone deep inside occupied Europe had done a good job of sabotage, right under the Nazis’ noses!

On another occasion, during an air raid in the winter of 1940, a german bomber dropped a stick of six 500lb. high explosive bombs across part of Willesden. One of these landed and exploded in our back garden, about 5 or 6 metres from the back of the house. I was in my little cubby-hole under the stairs at the time and it was the loudest bang that I’ve ever heard. Fortunately we had a separate garage just a little to one side and behind the house. This took most of the blast but all the windows on the back of the house were blown in, tiles were blown off the roof and the whole house shook as if an express train had passed through it. Fortunately no one was hurt, but it is a moment I shall never forget and one of the scariest of my whole life.

During the war I was an active member of the 27th Willesden Scout Group. As well as doing their best to carry on with their normal scouting activities, scouts performed many and varied tasks to help with the war effort. There are two in particular which I remember quite clearly. Firstly, after an air-raid, when the all-clear had been sounded on the sirens, we used to go round bomb damaged houses, that had been made safe, and help to salvage furniture and belongings of the poor people who had been bombed out. The furniture and belongings were loaded onto vans and trucks and taken to local schools (which were closed down at the time) and stored for people to come and collect them at a later date. In those days most people were very honest and helped each other as much as they could. There was no question of anyone looting or stealing someone else’s possessions.
Secondly, I remember going around to people’s houses, especially those who were elderly or disabled and helping to erect their Morrison Shelters for them. A Morrison Shelter (named after the then ��ѿ��ý Secretary Herbert Morrison) was like a rather large dining room table made out of steel girders and steel plates with detachable steel mesh sides. Each one was about two metres long by one and a half metres wide and stood about 85 cm. High. The corner uprights and base members were angled steel girders and the top comprised two steel plates side by side. These were very heavy and it took several of us to lift them into position. The whole assembly was bolted together with large nuts and bolts. The idea of these shelters was that they were designed to protect people if their house collapsed on top of them and they helped to save many lives.

When I reached the age of 15+, as a scout, I was allowed to become what was known as an ARP Messenger. I had to use my own bicycle but I was issued with a smart navy blue battledress uniform and greatcoat; a black steel helmet with a large white letter ‘M’ for messenger painted at the front and back and a special gas-mask which was stronger and more robust than those issued to ordinary civilians. This was contained in a special canvas holder with a shoulder strap instead of the usual cardboard box. I was of course very privileged to have these and I wore them all with pride. In those days there were no such things as mobile phones and the ARP Messenger Service had the job of operating if the telephones were put out of action by enemy bombing. Our task was to cycle as fast as we could and carry important messages between the control centres and the various ARP Wardens’ Posts that were situated at key points all over the borough. I was based at Central Control which was located in the basement of the old Willesden Town Hall in Dyne Road, Kilburn. We used to have to report there each night at dusk before the air-raids started and sleep there over night on steel bunk beds with hard mattresses and heavy grey blankets, although we rarely took our uniforms off.

There are three particular incidents that I clearly recall from this part of my wartime experiences. The first, was on one Sunday evening in the late summer of 1944. I was cycling from my home along Chevening Road, by Queens Park, to go on duty at the Town Hall. The air-raid warning had already sounded and I remember the sky was very heavily clouded over and a storm was brewing. Everyone was indoors and it was very quiet. Then I heard the unmistakeable sound (like a noisy motor-bike) that I immediately recognised. It was the engine of a V1 flying bomb and it was getting louder and louder as it came closer. Suddenly it stopped and I knew that the bomb was going to fall to earth. I threw myself off my bike and into the gutter, at the same time blowing my whistle to warn other people of the danger. A few seconds later the bomb landed in Hopefield Avenue just the other side of Queens Park. I remounted my bike and cycled as fast as I could go to report for duty to see if there was anything useful I could do.

The second was on one unforgettable night in March 1945 when a V2 rocket landed among a row of terraced houses in Aboyne Road, Neasden. It did a lot of damage and there were many casualties as there was no means of warning that these rockets were coming. By a freak trick of the blast, the whole of the fronts of a row of houses had been blown off without the contents inside being disturbed. It was just as if someone had opened up a row of giant dolls houses. Everyone thought that all of the houses had been evacuated, but suddenly a small light was seen moving in one of them. On investigation it was found to be an old lady dressed in a white nightcap and a long white nightgown, holding a candle and going upstairs to bed as if nothing had happened. Of course, she was soon gently removed from her premises by the rescue workers.

Less than three hours later another V2 rocket fell in the back gardens of five houses in Dartmouth Road, Cricklewood. Seventeen people were injured, but only three seriously. By this time, with the war drawing to a close, some of the ARP Services had been reduced and stood down. With two major incidents in the borough in a short space of time it became necessary for additional services to be called in from neighbouring boroughs to help. When the Dartmouth Road rocket fell vehicles and personnel had to be transferred from Aboyne Road to the Dartmouth Road incident. As these were people from outside of Willesden they did not know the way from one place to the other. I was told to get into the leading vehicle alongside the driver and show him the quickest route to take. I had not long turned 16 at the time and here was I responsible for directing an important convoy of rescue vehicles and ambulances halfway across Willesden in the dead of night.

The third and most horrendous incident that I can remember was on the night of 15 August 1944 when a V1 flying bomb fell on some big houses in Shoot-up-Hill near to Kilburn Underground Station. There were many casualties and dead and injured people had to be dug out of the wreckage. I was given the job of being a runner to “Mick Rogers”, the Head of Willesden’s Civil Defence Rescue Service, who was in charge of directing rescue operations (he later received a George Medal for his work). Thirteen people died that night and it was my first ever sight of dead bodies — something I shall never forget.

Eventually, on 8 May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end and I remember putting on my ARP uniform and travelling with some friends up to the West-End of London to join in the partying and dancing in Piccadilly Circus, down the Mall and eventually to Buckingham Palace where we saw the King and Queen and Winston Churchill come out onto the palace balcony.

So ended one young person’s war.

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