invasion scare

An Invasion Scare.

In early October 1940 a German bomb fell quite close to where I lived in Coventry, demolishing the front of the house but leaving part of the rear still standing. The upper part mostly disappeared. After two nights of sleeping rough in the remains of an Anderson shelter I went to live with some friends about nine miles from where I worked.
Shortly afterwards a landmine devastated the area and the firm where I worked (about two miles away) prudently decided to move all the office staff to a large country house outside Coventry. I had to cycle to the city centre then catch a bus in the opposite direction to the new office site. After settling in the firm asked for volunteer fire watchers, later to be trained as fire crew. They provided a temporary hut on a veranda with four bunks and an electric fire. Part of the responsibility was to keep the boiler stoked up to provide office heating. Preference would be given to those employees who had been bombed out.
I volunteered with alacrity and duly moved in. Although the accommodation was Spartan there would be no more cycling to work. Also when on duty we were paid one shilling an hour.
It was our habit to sit playing cards when we reported for duty and go to the local pub when we weren't. At this time we were expecting an invasion as barges were being built across the Channel. Our only contact with the outside world was by phone which was switched through to the commissionaire's flat. He had also been bombed out and the firm had provided him with basic accommodation so he was really on duty all the time..
One Sunday evening he came down to us looking as white as a sheet. "They're here" he said. He had received a message to say that parachutes had been seen coming down about five miles away and that we should be on our guard. What this was supposed to mean was anybody's guess. Joe (the commissionaire) had other ideas. Going to a door under some stairs he produced a key and unlocking the door pulled out a box of .303 ammunition and two army rifles.
"Can we have two volunteers to search the grounds?" he asked. As there were only two of us who had actually fired a rifle(in the Home Guard) there was no doubt as to who the volunteers would be. The other man, Tom Clayton had fallen down some steps a few days before and had suffered concussion. He was still behaving somewhat strangely so when we went out I made sure he was in front of me all the time. Nothing moved outside except us and we very quickly did our tour and returned thankfully unharmed.
I can remember thinking afterwards how stupid it all was. Two inexperienced civilians with World War 1 rifles and twenty five rounds looking for German parachutists armed to the teeth and fully trained in the art of killing. It was straight out of a boys' adventure magazine.
We heard later that the parachutes belonged to a German air crew who baled out after being hit by anti aircraft fire (a rare occurrence). They had all surrendered without trouble.

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