Getting Away from the Bombs!

I was four when war broke out. I had two older brothers — Michael who was eleven and David who was seven. We were Londoners and my mother decided that the family should move to Wales to get away from the bombs. We rented a house at Betws-y-Coed.

My father was working in London and used to return home at weekends.

One Friday evening, in 1940, Michael had gone to the station to meet my father from the train. My mother and I walked to the end of the street, and started up the road to meet Michael and Dad. Suddenly, we heard the low throb of an engine. It wasn’t the usual sound of a passing aeroplane, and I instinctively clutched my mother’s hand more tightly. Below the summit of the mountain, a dark shape emerged. It headed towards us in an arc, and puffs of black smoke trailed in its wake. We looked up, with our hands over our ears as the aeroplane roared over our heads like a monstrous wounded bird. I saw huge black crosses under each wing and I grabbed my Mother’s arm.

“It’s a German” I screamed.

Even then, we couldn’t believe our eyes, and stood motionless, mouths open, like two idiots.

“It’s a bomber, it’s been hit and it must be looking for somewhere to dump its bombs”. My Mother sounded almost calm in her disbelief.

In that instant the ‘plane disappeared from view, and after a pause, we heard an enormous explosion and then silence.

We stood mesmerized.

A small boy ran up the road and shouted hysterically.

“The station’s hit! The station’s hit!”

I’ll now tell the story from Michael’s view point.

As he stood waiting for the train to come in, he saw the wounded plane approaching and summed up the situation immediately. He saw a porter near by.

‘Duck’ he yelled, and threw himself on the ground as the plane roared overhead and the bomb doors opened.

The porter just stared open mouthed as the bombs fell from the sky. There was a huge explosion as they dropped harmlessly into the field next to the station where a man dug a hole to plant potatoes. He was unharmed, but somewhat surprised at the larger than expected hole!

Of course we didn’t know what had happened and spent some tense moments until Michael and my father appeared.

There is an addendum to this story. Recently, Michael met someone who was able to produce a written report of the incident in 1940. I have the report, giving the names of the various pilots involved. Apparantly the plane, which was a Dornier, had been attacked and set on fire by Spitfires.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.