V2 at Chingford, also our Reunion with Erma, and Psyche.

5th February 1945, the war in Europe was coming to an end, it was a Sunday night in Chingford, all was as normal as it could be for wartime. Fortunately Father was at work doing his bit for the war effort, Mother, my brother, and i, were sleeping in a morrison shelter. Shortly after midnight a V2 rocket hit next door, devastating the area, several houses were completely flattened, several people lost there lives, some were never found.
It took a while for the emergency services to find us under the rubble, with the help of search and rescue dogs, Erma and Psyche, under the guidance of Mrs Margaret Griffin, there handler. Irma indicated that she was getting the sent of someone. Digging, and clearing the area, after about 20 minutes work, silence was called for, they could hear a baby (me) crying, after more digging and tunneling, a way was made in and voice contact was made with our mother.
An answer could be got from her periodically during the time (about two hours) it took to reach our shelter, only five minutes before the shelter corner was cleared she ceased to reply, on getting a hole large enough to look in, my brother, and i were found wrapped in an eiderdown, and both brought out alive and unhurt, unfortunately our mother had now lost consciousness, and on the doctor getting to her, found her to be dead from asphyiation. We all would have lost our lives had it not been for Irma, and Psyche.

Moving on to 1950, that year dad took us to "Cruft's dog show" at Earls Court for a reunion with our saviours, Erma, and Psyche, and Margaret Griffin, we had our photos taken with the dogs, and they were in the newspapers the next day, later that week we went to a place near Reading for another meeting, and more photos were taken.

Tailpiece:
Throughout the war a total of 233 people were located by the Erma and Psyche team, Irma was awarded the animal's Victoria Cross, the Dickin Medal in January 1945.

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