Dodging

My father "evacuated" the family consisting of my mother sister,brother-in-law,myself and my Dad to Danbury just after the beginning of the war around September 1939.

It was during the Battle of Britain that this story begins. My pal,(Don Thompson),and I after a dog-fight overhead went looking for empty shell cases discarded by the planes above either German or our own.To find a .5mm shell case was a bonus and quite rare.

This day we waited for the all -clear which was our wont, we waited a good half an hour,no all-clear.This was not necessarilly unusual it had happened before but like all young lads we were impatient.The day was fine and sunny although there was a good deal of cloud.Anyway after a further ten minutes or so we decided to chance it.We searched along the edge of the Little Baddow Road not having much luck, we expected to find an amount of .3mm shell cases but not this day.

Deep in our thoughts searching when all of a sudden from out the clouds dived two Junker 88`s their engines sreaming and roaring diving down dut dut dut went their machine guns ,the nearest air-raod shelter was about 200yards awawy and we went for it helter skelter, I`d never beaten Don over a sprint distance,I did this day when we made it to the shelter he was running up my back!

We got into the sheler feeling quite elated having in our minds beaten the Germans but it turned they were not gunning us but some greenhouses some 300yards away. We did`nt stop to ask.

In the shelter were mothers of servicemen, wives with children Mr Joyce The air raid warden and others, the felings were frightening, had those planes crashed either pilot would have been lynched by them and ourselves included.

A few years later, after the war, we kicked around at football in the village playing field.Nearby at Bicnacre village they had a prisoner of war camp,it started off with the Dorsets then the HLI followed by Itallion POWs and at this time germans.On this day one of the inmates played with us in goal. He was only fifteen years old and one of the nicest of fellows you could meet, tipically German blond hair blue eyes and named Franz. We had not been playing for long when one of our own soldiers joined us, he had recently been repatriated from a German POW comp,he`d had a rough time. When he realised it was a German POW playing with us he went for him thumping him in the chest, the rest of us jumped on him pulling him off rescuing the German from him including myself and Don who a few years before were prepared to be in a lynching mob.

Time heals all old wounds.

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