Submitted by Sally Saunders, Madeley & District u3a
As a small child and living in North London I can remember seeing the red glow in the sky the night during the Blitz when the Germans bombed the London docks. Also watching a dog fight between German and British fighters, about 5 in all, high up In the clear blue late afternoon sky. My father worked in the War Office all through the Blitz and most of the war and came home late each night. We had an Anderson shelter and I remember waiting for him in the entrance to the shelter. I particularly remember seeing him in his uniform one night walking across the lawn in the moonlight. We lived a mile or so from the LNER Kings Cross to Edinburgh rail line so experienced quite a bit of bombing although they never actually hit the line.
Submitted by Maureen Watts, Selsey u3a
I was born in Hythe Kent in May 1940 and my main memory was hearing planes in the night and blackout curtains. We were not far from the sea and on one day a German fighter plane came down the road firing before disappearing over the hill, A neighbour was walking towards our house and threw herself into our hedge. There was a Canadian battery in the hill behind the house which started up if they saw a buzz bomb heading in. My mother was terrified that they might shoot one down and it crashed on the houses. For many years after the war, I would wake up if the sound of a plane could be heard overhead and did not settle until it had passed.
Submitted by Brian Hoepelman, Sidmouth u3a
I did live in London during the war And one night we had taken cover as there was a air raid. We heard a
terrific banging from our back garden to find that a Doodlebug casing had come down and was reading
on our back door. I was not there very long as someone came and collected it.
Submitted by Kate Cummings, Soar Valley u3a
My very first memory is of being woken from sleep by my mother. She had roused my sister and I, and
from the bedroom window we saw the horizon a vivid red. It was Coventry, burning.