WW2 When I was Five.

Chapter one

WW2- when I was five.

I was born in July 1934, in the district of Sheldon in B’ham, just less than a mile from the perimeter fence of Elmdon airfield, now B’ham international of course.
So, at the age of five in 1939, I new I was about to start school. A place where all the older kid’s went, some liked it, some didn’t like it. I wasn’t going to like it.

Now I can’t remember just what day or month it was but I suppose it would be after the summer break, August/September time. I don’t think they had six weeks off then did they but about there anyway.
The dreaded morning arrived and I was dutifully prepared, holes in short trousers patched, again, and off I went with Mom to Stanville Rd. school. Not far, half to three quarters of a mile, just past the church. Mom found her way to Miss Spencer’s classroom. She seemed very nice and smiley and they found me a seat and mom left. In less than 30seconds I was alongside mom holding her hand. Back I was taken to Miss Spencer. “It’s OK Mrs Bartlett” she said, “I’ll just turn the key, he’ll be alright”. And off went mom. I’m very busy surveying other means of exit. All the windows on my left were those centre bar swivel type where the bottom half goes out and the top swings in. Well being summer-time they were all open and I was seated about third row away. Mom had just come into view going down the drive to walk home. I was out of my seat across to the windows, foot on a chair, a desk and through like a flash. In 30seconds I was alongside mom, happy as larry.

Well they won in the end and I started school. But not for long or it didn’t seem long, only a few weeks I’m sure. When all of a sudden the walk to and from, four times a day, eight for Mom, came to an end. There was nobody more elated than me, but the mom’s were going ballistic. (There’s a word we didn’t hear back then). War, of course had just been declared. Not that it bothered me much . But, guess what. The school was closed down, and nobody new for how long. I shouted yippee but of course I didn’t know any better then. (You can probably tell from the grammar in this story).The grown-ups were very concerned and very busy. Dad was helping his mate Fred Taylor to put in a Anderson shelter, then Fred helped dad with ours. Next door had a brick one built, in that special ’English bond’, which is really strong. All the wives had to put up black-out material to the windows.

The school was turned into a Red Cross station and ARP centre because, they said, it was convenient to the airfield which of course was filling up fast with airplanes of various types. The largest of which were Sterling bombers, and sometimes a Lancaster. I think large numbers of casualties were expected because half the playground was taken up with a temporary corrugated iron structure to house lots of army Red Cross vehicles and others.
So school ended no sooner than it began for me. I was one very happy little lad. War I didn’t understand; school was something I didn’t want to know about so now it was one long play-time. Fantastic.

Now I can’t remember how long that situation went on for but the moms were having a war of their own with the powers that be because all the kids were home playing havoc. Anyway the situation dragged on and on for a long time. I thoroughly enjoyed my little self, the freedom of pre-school days was bliss to me. And thinking about it now, I don’t think the moms were complaining so much about us getting no education, it was more about us being under their feet 24hrs a day. I wonder now if they thought; ’when this is all over the Teacher’s will have to do a lot of catching up to fill our heads with the knowledge lost’. That was never going to happen of course. Nobody ever made me sit down and do any school work at home, whereas, next door, the Judge family of four kids ; the eldest girl Enid had to learn to sing, Barbara the piano, Norman the violin and Lesley the flute. Plus normal type of school stuff, the three “Rs” etc. They were not allowed out to play like most of the other kids but I do remember at times when I knocked a door to see if so and so could play, his Mom would say no, he’s doing school work. At odd times I had nobody to play with at all. I soon learnt that by shouting from by their front gate, “when are you coming out Dave“, or “have you finished yet Dave” or words to that effect. They soon appeared.

I can’t remember just when the bombs started dropping round us but sleeping or trying to, in the air-raid shelter was a regular occurrence. We would spend most of the next day collecting shrapnel and putting it in
the old blue sugar bags to take to the Police station for some money. I’m not sure but I think it was two bob a bag, (2 shillings) I may be wrong. We found lots of incendiary bombs too. Apparently, (the Dad’s
decided) when these type of bomb’s landed in soft ground they didn’t explode. So dad and his mate, Fred (Fred being an engineer at the Spitfire factory in Castle Bromwich) would dismantle the bombs and extract the powder to make a really smelly firework. What a pong!. I remember we found three different types over the period we were bombed. There was great confusion and concentration in Fred’s workshop when we turned up with a different one, us kid’s were sent outside while the head-scratching went on. And I know Fred’s wife and my mom used to worry while they messed about in the workshop. Fortunately there were never any accident’s.

I remember ‘gas kasks’ being issued to everybody too. I had one in a cardboard box with a string loop on it. And mom found me a little brother under the ‘goosgog’ bushes in 41so he had to have the funny egg-shaped container they issued for babies. But dad got a special one in a nice khaki coloured bag. A nice shaped mask with a pipe to a filter box which stayed in the bag. It saved his life too, just read this: He took the mask out of the bag and hung it on a coat-hanger in the hall. He slit the stitches of the centre partition to make more room. Held it up to show Mom and said “how’s that for a grub-bag”. And that’s how I remember most of them being used. During a raid one night Dad was on his way home from Powell’s Bakery in Hay Mills. He never sheltered, always came home on his bike. On approaching Brays Rd along the Coventry Rd he was knocked off his bike. Totally surprised, didn’t know what had caused it. He got himself sorted, cussing no doubt, and found a big chunk of shrapnel stuck with it’s jagged edges in his grub bag (gas mask bag). It was stuck fast so he left it in and finished the ride home to Common Lane. When Mom saw it she knew he’d been really lucky. The cuts and bruises from the fall were minor but the bruise on his back a few days later was really bad. We kept that piece of shrapnel for years but neither my brother nor I know where it is now. But that gas mask bag certainly saved a lot of damage if not his life. You still see them in use today and I’m sure people think they are sandwich bags.

One morning on emerging from the shelter there was big clods of oily black earth all over the place. All the houses were splattered with it too. Everybody was puzzled and the general consensus was that it must have been the loud bang which shuck everything during the raid. But there was no obvious sign of any blast in our area. So the puzzling went on and the clean-up started. Us kid’s heard the grown-up’s suggestions about it ‘must have come from ‘over that way’ since it was the front of our house’s that were splattered and the backs of those across the road. Good thinking Batman. Us kid’s put two and two together (a figure of speech, not that we new what two and two were). And we new exactly where the bomb must have landed. We set off to investigate down across the ‘front-fields’ as we called them, since the front of our house’s faced that way. First the Blackberry field down the side of Mr. Olding’s the Greengrocer, and onto the boggy field which was covered in clump’s of thin reed’s like knitting needles. Reed-Buntings nested in them. We new we were getting closer to the blast area, great clods of black gooey earth was everywhere. This we knew to be from the boggy field. Some men were approaching the same point as us from the houses on the end of Horrel Road, other’s from ‘our school’, army men and ARP were close too. We were shouted at to stay away, which we did of course being good little boy‘s but with strategy, three paces forward and two back until eventually we got to the edge of the crater too.

It was said that it must have been an ‘oil-bomb’, I don’t know how true that is but it certainly looked like oil mixed in with the earth. The crater, now filling with water, was also black and oily. We also found some big pieces of bent and jagged metal scattered around Sheldon. Months later another piece would show up and in our area it would be brought to Fred for inspection. It was pieces of the bomb Fred decided.

Another vivid memory, although don’t ask what day or year it was but it did happen in broad daylight. I was upstairs with Mom in the back bedroom, helping with bed-making I think, probably on the scrounge for something. I heard the roar of a heavy bomber and looked out of the window. I spotted it straight away, he was very low slightly left over the Coventry Road between the Trolly-bus terminus and the Wheatsheaf cross-roads, I estimated. I said to Mom, “look Mom he’s off to bomb the Germans,” she came round the bed to join me at the window. I purposely hadn’t said what the bomber was, like I normally did, because I didn’t recognise it at all. I was watching and thrashing through my brain as to what it was, but no, I couldn’t think. I said to Mom “he’s just took off from Elmdon” and in those few seconds from first sighting; not recognising it: getting Mom round the bed, he’d turned left over the Wheatsheaf, away from us, his left wing seeming almost to touch the tree-tops, and started to head up Load Lane towards Solihull. And then, wallop, a flash of brilliant light in a complete half-circle as me and Mom were thrown straight off our feet back across the bed. The whole house shuck and I thought immediately, the windows hadn’t broke. We scrambled off the bed and Mom shouts for me to get away from the window where I am now looking to see what happened. There was no sign of the plane but heavy smoke was filling the sky right up the Load Lane area. I got it then. The Rover works. That’s what he’d hit, it wasn’t one of ours it was a Jerry. No wonder I never recognised it. Well if all of that lasted sixty seconds that’s as much as it was. Of course then, the sirens sounded, most unusual in the day-time, so all the neighbours gathered outside anyway and discussed what had happened. There was certainly no sign of any air-raid , no planes, nothing. We were all puzzled and within a few minutes the all-clear went. So we had something else to talk about and find out about, which didn’t take long on the proverbial grape-vine. Apparently the plane had got lost from a raid elsewhere and found himself in the Midlands. He had one bomb left and recognised the Rover works and left them
with it. The plane was brought down in Wiltshire, (Dad, in the home guard found out). I also found out
much later in life from ex-pilots and crew I met in the Fire Service, that it was a known fact if you got lost
flying a heavy the only way home was hedge-hopping. The Ack-ack gunners never stood a chance of getting a shot at you.

And, another night in the shelter, our own this time, Fred and family were in their own too. The shelters were dry for a change. Dad was outside again having a smoke, and Mom knew he’d met up with Fred for a chat, and she was complaining about him being outside as it seemed quite a busy night in the sky. That’s why Dad was out there of course, watching what was going on. Us kids never did get allowed out, mom was terrified. Anyway, all of a sudden, we heard dad land with a thud and a curse right outside the shelter door. It wasn’t very wide just there because dad and me had made a concrete blast wall in front of the door about two feet away. Well at the same instant dad had dived into the entrance-way, machine gunfire and fighter planes were roaring overhead. We also ducked in the shelter but in seconds it was all over, silent again. Dad opened the door and, still in a heap said, “bloody hell Wynn that was close.” Well, you can imagine what mom said can’t you. Then he toddles off to see how Fred is. Mom just give her neck. (Brummy slang) So, what had gone on? Dad explained that he thought he was seeing a dog-fight between two fighter planes up over the Brays Road area towards the Swan at Yardley. Most unusual because Jerry fighters just didn’t get this far. He thought he could hear machine-gun fire and was sure he’d seen muzzle flashes but what the hell was it! While he pondered and peered into the night sky he sort of lost sight of them for a few seconds, but then all of a sudden he realised they were both coming straight down Common Lane across all the back gardens right from the Barracks on Barrows Lane towards him. He said he was just struck dumfounded, couldn’t believe it, till it dawned on him the muzzle flashes were real and it was really machine-gun fire loud and clear. That’s when he dived into the doorway and we heard them go overhead. Next morning was quite a laugh, everybody was having a titter. During Fred and dad’s chat in the night after he’d scrambled out of the doorway, Fred had said he didn’t realise what was happening until the sound of roaring engines mingled with machine-gun fire screamed overhead. He had been stood in the shelter looking out of the doorway, that’s towards the airfield, and he’d also heard a lot of breaking glass. This of course Fred soon discovered when he went down to the house to put the kettle on. (The dad’s were in the habit of deciding when they’d had enough of Jerries antics, and would announce it was time to put the kettle on. So the ‘all-clear’ would go). It worked every time. Here we are now all having a right giggle, at Fred’s expense, his greenhouse was smashed to smithereens, not a full pane left. We learned later that a plane was brought down by the airfield but I’m not sure, when I say ‘later’, if it was that incident being talked about or another plane. I do recall somebody saying something about it, but can’t remember going with dad or Fred to see it. That would have really stuck in my mind, so I’m a bit doubtful. I do remember Fred having a few bit’s of metal he was showing dad, mangled chunks of metal which could have been bullets, but I’m not sure if they were found around the greenhouse area. That’s what I’ve tended to believe all these years but it seems doubtful to me now that anything like that would be found. (Fred had a well-stocked workshop but I don’t recall a ‘metal detector).

End of Chapter one

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.