I've done the Blitz as well

BLITZ!

July 10, 1940 is generally considered to mark the opening of the Battle of Britain.

The German Air Force began bombing coastal towns in southeast England to soften them up for operation "Sea Lion," which was the proposed invasion of Britain.

They soon realized that the Royal Air Force was stronger than they had first thought, and so, in early August, the Luftwaffe turned from the seaports to concentrate on our fighter airfields—with considerable success. Many bases in the southeast and in the London area were rendered almost non-operational, and British air supremacy was in jeopardy.

On August 15, a major action in the Battle of Britain took place. All 22 squadrons of the RAF were engaged, many twice and some three timers. It was a disaster for the German Air Force, which lost some 106 aircraft and their crews, while British losses were only 34 fighters with some of their pilots parachuting to safety.

In September, the Luftwaffe turned to bombing London, which—being the world's largest city at that time—required very little accuracy to hit. This gave RAF Fighter Command the respite it desperately needed to repair its runways and to make its bases fully operational. After sporadic raids on the city during August, the Battle of London was now to be fought.

From September 7 to November 3, an average of 200 German bombers attacked London every night. These raids were accompanied by daylight attacks by small groups or even single planes, and air raid sirens sounded at intervals throughout the entire 24 hours for that period.

On September 15, the Luftwaffe made its greatest concentrated effort on London. Every British fighter was used before the battle was finished; at the end of the action, German losses were reported as 183 aircraft, with the RAF losing 40.

This, then, was where we children found ourselves in the middle of October of 1940. Nightly air raids were now accepted as normal, although the earth-shuddering noise of exploding bombs and our own anti-aircraft gunfire took a bit of getting used to. The great majority of Londoners went about their business as usual, with a marked disdain for the Luftwaffe's efforts. Our group of 11- and 12-year-olds were no exception.

Areas of destroyed or damaged houses and other buildings were being added to each night; among the early casualties were two neighborhood schools, mine being one if them.

I left home early one morning as I always did, and met some of my friends for the walk to school as usual. We were animatedly discussing the previous night's air raid as we turned the corner into the street where our school dominated the surrounding (terrace) terraced houses.

"Blimey," Alan said quietly.

We looked at him and then in the direction of his pointing finger.

A large part of our school building was piled in the playground; the street was covered with rubble, and grey dust blanketed everything.

"No school today," observed David.

"No school for quite a while, I'd say," said Arthur, putting into words what most of us were slowly beginning to think.

"Let's tell the others!" Doreen yelled over her shoulder, breaking into a dead run as she started back the way we had come. We needed no urging, and for the next twenty minutes we dashed about joyously telling every school-bound child the good news.

Finally, several hundred noisy children crowded the street, and with great confusion, tried to locate their teachers that they might assemble by class. This was finally accomplished, and we slowly quieted down at our teachers' insistence.

The headmaster carefully climbed a pile of wrecked building parts so we could all see him, and told us to go home.

"Your parents will be notified when we are able to find a suitable place to hold classes, " he said. "Behave yourselves—and good luck." A great cheer arose from hundreds of throats and we stampeded from what was left of our school, rejoicing in our new-found freedom.

Thus a large number of children (fond) found themselves at loose ends, and many of us gravitated to a quite extensive nearby park each day. It was common to see a hundred or more children yelling, running, and playing, with no indication that they had been frightened out of their wits just a few hours before.

A few of us had known each other for several years, either being in the same school class or living in the same neighborhood. Although we played with children who were outside the group, it seemed that we preferred each other's company. It was almost as though we were more brothers and sisters than just good friends. We all contributed something, and we all seemed to take from each other that which was necessary for our development as individuals. My small group of close friends would singly make their way to the park every morning, and the first arrivals would hang around the swings in the playground area until the group was complete. Only then would we consider how we were going to occupy our time that day.

There was Alan, who was born on the same day as I. We were in the same class in school, and our grades in all subjects were almost always identical. We were both capable cricketers and aggressive, fairly skillful football (soccer) players, but it was in the hundred-yard dash that we really came head to head. Neither of us could consistently defeat the other, and the only sure thing on school sports day was that one of us would win and the other would be close behind. Alan was short and stocky, I was taller and thinner. Alan was very handsome, I was taller. Alan had a magnificent shock of curly blond hair, I was taller. Alan had a beautiful singing voice, I was taller.

Arthur had an enormous head, out of all proportion to his size. This large roundness, resting on narrow shoulders, was covered with short black hair; from the back he resembled a diminutive Grenadier guardsman wearing a bearskin. At twelve-and-a-half going on fifty, Arthur was the oldest of the group. Because he usually listened intently to his parents' conversations, and because his father was interested in everything under the sun, Arthur was easily the best informed of any of us. Peering through round, steel-rimmed spectacles like some strange owl, he would explain why the war was going to last a long time and why our side would eventually win. He possessed a terrific sense of humor and would entertain us for hours with strange and hilariously funny stories. Arthur always thought he was right—the exasperating thing being that he always was. Arthur was our intellectual, although he seldom received the respect from his peers that he deserved.

David was gullible and trusting. He believed everything anyone told him, no matter how far-fetched or bizarre. He was the one who at our urging, went into the local undertaker's establishment and innocently asked if they had any empty boxes to give away. Whenever we decided it would be great fun to knock on people's doors and then run away and hide, David did the knocking and running while the rest of us did the hiding. He also was the most bewildered by the nightly air raids, the destruction, and the smell of dust. David was the one of whom the boys were most protective and whom the girls wanted to mother.

Doreen was beautiful with straight blonde hair cut in the style of a medieval pageboy, skin without a blemish, and a pair of intense blue eyes that commanded attention. Heads turned for a second look whenever she passed, but she never appeared to notice for Doreen was a tomboy in every sense. When Alan and (me) I selected team members for a pickup game of soccer, Doreen would be picked between David and Arthur. She could run, jump, and field a cricket ball with any of us. She happened to be the one who "pubesced" earliest, and forsook our group first.

Jean, nicknamed "Duchess," was slender and tall, taller than any of us, and very elegant. She was not beautiful, but somehow it didn't matter because she was all class—always cool, calm, and every inch an 11-year-old lady. Her presence automatically cleaned up our vocabulary and brought out the best in us. Jean was very bright, and she and I spent many hours just sitting on the grass in the park talking of everything we had discovered in our short lives. Jean explained to me the difference between men and women, and described the "facts of life (which I didn't fully believe). Jean was also the recipient of my first hormonally-induced kiss.

Sarah was small and thin, with a tiny face surrounded by a mop of curly brown hair that always needed combing. Her painfully thin legs seemed inadequate to the task of keeping up with the rest of us—but she always did. Sarah was compassion: she ministered to those of us who fell and skinned knees and hands, she scrounged scraps of food, and she insisted we all do the same for the stray dogs and cats that haunted the bombed-out remains of their former homes. An injured bird received from Sarah the most loving nursing, and the most tears when it died. Never a harsh word was ever said to Sarah. Sarah was our little sister, loved and protected by all of us.

* * *



This morning I was late.

After a particularly noisy night during which our part of London had received a great deal of unwanted attention from the Luftwaffe, Mum was not feeling well. I had breakfasted with Dad, aroused my brother, and taken a cup of tea up to her.

"Would you go 'round the corner to shops for me, Jack?" she asked. "I don't really feel up to it this morning." Mother, along with all the other neighborhood mothers, went to the shops every morning both to purchase our rations and to see what could be scrounged, to supplement our rather meager food allotment.

"Alright, Mum."

She rummaged around in her capacious handbag, retrieving the family's ration books and a short grocery list.

"You just need to go to the grocer's and the butcher," she instructed as she gave me some money, "and see if Mr. Young has any liver."(which was considered not part of our meat ration).

Grabbing a well-used grocery bag, I ran all the way to the row of shops that served out local families. I quickly bought the few groceries on my mother's list, and joined the end of the line waiting patiently to be served by the butcher.

"Where's your ma today, then?" Mr. Young inquired when it was finally my turn at the head of the line.

"She's ill in bed, Mr. Young," I answered, "and she said 'please do you have any liver?'" Mr. Young always set great store by politeness.

He wrapped up some liver and, with a smile, handed it to me. "Hold on a minute, " he instructed as he walked into the back room of his shop. Moments later he reappeared with a large bone festooned with shreds of meat, which he also wrapped up and handed to me.

"Have your dad make some soup with this," he said,
"and tell your ma to be up and about real (quick0-like.) quick-like." Several of the waiting women echoed his concern as I sped off home.

So, this morning, I was late.

Again I left my house on the run, turning the corner at the end of the street and taking a left into a cul-de-sac and through the pedestrian walkway at its end. The alley opened out into another street, across from which was a row of(bomber) bombed-out houses used (my)by many children as a marvelously exciting playground. I entered through the front window of one of the derelicts, running through the front room and the remains of the kitchen, and exiting by way of the gaping hole where the back door had used to be. Crossing the rubble-filled back garden, I approached a high wooden fence, pushed aside two planks, and entered the park as the two planks swung closed behind me.

I spotted my friends in their usual place by the swings, and ran to join them. "Sorry I'm later," I panted; "Mum's ill in bed and I had to go shopping."

Jean smiled. "It's alright, you're not the last."

I looked around. "Where's Sarah?"

"We don't know," Arthur said, "but there was a lot of noise up on the Hill last night." The "Hill" was Sarah's neighborhood.

"Let's go and see," suggested Alan, who hated inactivity as much as I did.

"Perhaps Arthur'd better stay here in case she shows up, " I thought out loud.

"I'm not bloody stayin'," and he sheepishly looked at Jean. "I'm coming with you lot."

" 'Course you are!" agreed Doreen, and we started to walk toward the park gate closest to the direction we wanted.

We made our way to the Hill, and as we came close we could see the barricades the Air Raid Precaution people had set up. Walking around the barriers, we soon were at the end of the street where Sarah lived. Their house, along with several others, was just an immense pile of rubble.

The ARP people and some firemen were searching for survivors, or bodies, in the still-smoking ruins.

"What do you kids want up here?" a fireman called to us, but without irritation.

"One of our friends lived here, " Jean replied, "and we're trying to find her." The fireman shrugged and returned to his work.

There was not much we could do, but we helped where we could, carrying away such pieces of brick, wood, and other building materials as we could manage. Occasionally one of the ARP wardens blew a whistle, and everyone stopped what they were doing and quietly listened for cries for help, tapping, or any indication that someone buried in the devastation was still alive.

Alan touched my arm. I looked at him and he inclined his head to the left, to where David was standing before some sort of notice board. We made our way to David's side. A damaged street door had been set up with messages affixed to it by nails retrieved from the splintered woodwork. "Bert and Elise Jenkins and children are all OK and staying with Aunt Jane in Enfield." "Samuel and Rachel Tollman are temporarily living in their shop in Wood Street."... and so on.

The others soon joined us, as, with tears streaming down his face, David pointed to an unofficial tally of those known to have been killed. There were fourteen or fifteen names on the list. Third from the bottom was Sarah's.

Quietly we turned away and retraced our steps to the park. And as we walked, we cried.



* * *



I stayed in touch with Alan for many years, until marriage and the pursuit of our livelihoods inevitably separated us.

Arthur's father landed a good job somewhere in the north of England and the family moved there around February of 1941 and as far as I knew was never heard from again—which I've been told sometimes happens to people who move to the north of England!

David's family decided that they had had enough excitement for their lifetimes; so in the spring of 1941 they moved into the country east of London. A little over three years later the whole family was killed by a doodle bug-- an errant V1.

Doreen was married at 18, and for several years produced children at an alarming rate, becoming quite matronly in the process.

I saw Jean from time to time, even after she had married a young man every bit as cool and elegant as she.

And Sarah—our Sarah—remains in my thoughts.