My Experiences of the Second World War as a Boy.

I remember the beginning of the war I was aged five, the first air raid siren frightened me but I soon got used to hearing it. When the warning sounded mum and dad crammed my sister, my baby brother and I into the cupboard under the stairs, no room for them so they took shelter under the kitchen table that being the second safest place to be if a bomb hit our cottage. Luckily this never happened because looking back that old farm cottage would have tumbled down on us if the wind blew.
One day we found that an American regiment had moved into the old fort in our village and another into Seaton barracks at Crownhill.. Now that was really some thing to us children the American accent was a fascination to us, from that day we never went short of chewing gum or candy. Whenever we saw a Yank (pardon the expression) the cry from us was; “GOT ANY GUM CHUM”, and nine times out of ten we had a pack or two given to us to share. Even children’s sweets were rationed if there were not enough coupons in the ration book you had to go without. The shortage of clothing meant that if you took the patches off my trousers I would have none to wear.
The most exciting thing to happen in the village during the war was when a German bomb aimer desperately in need of a stronger monocle placed a single bomb in the middle of a field.
My dear father was exempt from call up due to the fact that he worked on a farm at the time. He was a member of the home guard I can still remember playing with the stengun that they issued him with, no dad’s army broom handles for him.
War or peace it was the understood thing that we visited granny, my mum’s mother every Friday afternoon until the early evening. On one of these visits there was an air raid and we had to take shelter in my gran’s Anderson shelter. That evening a solitary incendiary bomb hit the house it came in through the roof and landed in a tin bath, now that was a lucky break. My two uncles Tom and Jim carried the bath with the bomb still burning down the stairs and into the garden. My Uncle Tom had very severe burns to his arms while doing so. We all spent the night in the shelter after that.
When Plymouth was blitzed I remember my father waking me up to see the red glow in the sky caused by the burning city, it would have been a beautiful sight if it was not so tragic.
Of course nothing was serious to a boy of my age, the next day most of the children were out picking up pieces of shrapnel from the bombs and shells, quite an exciting time for us.
I distinctly remember the Christmas that year, the American soldiers arranged a party for the children of the village and surrounding area. There were all sorts of goodies, fancy cakes, jelly and custard, all things that mum couldn’t buy in the shops even if she could afford them.
Tragically most of those soldiers lost their lives fighting to liberate France. Even now I can picture those soldiers coming out of the fort for an evening out usually in the local pubs they mixed with the local people extremely well.
The most exciting time was victory over Germany night. The landlord of the public house (aptly named the (“Victory Inn”) invited the whole village into his establishment to celebrate, yes children as well as adults and we partied all night and everything was on the house.
There was obviously a lot more that I could tell if this seventy-year-old brain of mine could lose a few cobwebs.

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