Brave pilot tips a Buzz Bomb

An incident which brought the war close to our family occurred one afternoon as my brother and I were playing at home, waiting for our parents to get back from work. Mum, like all able-bodied women, had been called up to work and she was working in the factory area as a telephonist. We heard the sound of a buzz bomb, and when its engine stopped we rushed to the window, to see it fall among the factories. Getting on our bikes we raced to see whether our parents were safe. When we got to the area we saw that the bomb had hit a concrete shelter used by the factory workers, completely demolishing it. There was nothing to do but go home and wait. After some time Mum returned home, very upset and shaken, and told us what had happened. She had been running to the shelter when she saw the bomb over the factories. It was heading for the main building of the HMV (later EMI) Company when an RAF plane flew alongside and tipped the bomb with its wing. The manoeuvre saved many hundreds of people in the factory, but tragically resulted in the loss of more than sixty lives in the shelter.

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