Re: Doodbug
Alan Mills (millsad@prl.research.philips.com)
Fri, 25 Apr 1997 08:43:27 +0000
I was only a child during the war years (born in 1937) but I do remember
one V1 "Doodlebug" experience. We lived west of London (near Wembley).
One Sunday we heard the sound of the rocket engine coming. We knew, as
Kees has said, that the time to be froghtened was when the engine
stopped. The noise stopped just over our house; the explosion came soon
after when the flying bomb hit the laboratories of the Glaxo drug
company nearby. I don't think anybody was hurt with that bomb (it was a
Sunday) and it hit some power lines on the way down so that damage to
buildings was small. They were very frightening things though. I don't
personally remember any V2 experiences although I know that at least one
landed in Chiswick in West London.
As far as shelters - we had a brick shelter in the street outside our
house. Looking back, I don't think we would have been safer in that
shelter than in the house. In practice when the air raid warnings were
sounded, my mother used to hide with me in a cupboard under the stairs.
I remember one lunchtime the warning sounded just as I was walking home
from school. The teacher called me back but I took to my heels and ran
the half mile to my home. The shelter in the street had its uses though
- we chalked a cricket wicket on the wall and used it in our games.
After the war when it was knocked down, my father helped himself to some
of the bricks to make a coal bunker.
--
Alan Mills (millsad@prl.research.philips.com)
Philips Research Laboratories, Redhill, Surrey, RH1 5HA, UK.
tel: +44 (0) 1293 815410, fax: +44 (0) 1293 815500