A Spitfire Pilot Remembers: Chapter Six - A German Tin Hat In London
At some hour in the middle of the night the phone rang and, sleepily, Dad stretched out his hand to answer it. Unfortunately, he picked up the water jug and poured the contents over himself.
John M Davis summons humour from the grim days of German bombing raids on London.
It was autumn of 1940. Night air raids over London were already an accepted part of life. Mother and Father were sad, but very busy. Their three sons were either away at school or waiting to be called into the RAF. The two of them barely seemed to fill the house. It was work by day and down to the air raid warden’s post by night. Food was getting short, and the strain of limited sleep was beginning to show.
One evening the three of us were together. Eventually to bed with a call to the post, “Ring me if there is a Red Alert and we’ll come down the road.”
At some hour in the middle of the night the phone rang and, sleepily, Dad stretched out his hand to answer it. Unfortunately, he picked up the water jug and poured the contents over himself. The phone continued to ring, and finally Mum answered it, to be told, “Red Alert.”
“We’ll be down,” was her answer.
Dad’s comment was, “I cannot go down because I am in a lather of perspiration.” Eventually the perspiration/water jug problems were resolved, and the two departed with armbands, tin hats and gas masks.
Shortly afterwards the Dormier 217s and Henkel 111s arrived overhead, and incendiary bombs showered down. A number fell in the area, and I saw fires burning around them. Although officially not involved, I felt the need to help, grabbed a bucket of sand - and hesitated. The gunfire and bombs were so intense that I felt there would be wisdom in wearing a tin hat. But there was none.
Suddenly I recalled the old German tin hat trophy from the First World War, brought home by Dad. That would do. But where was it? I vaguely remember that it had ended up in the hall seat. At least that is where it had been when, as children, we had played soldiers. My youngest brother Victor had always been condemned to take the part of the German soldier, so I had not worn it.
Sure enough, the hall seat yielded its important find under a rug, and out I sallied with the small-sized tin hat sitting like a pimple on my large head.
A fire was blazing in a neighbour’s garden shed, and with the aid of a bucket of sand, I doused it using garden earth to complete the job. What next?
Smoke and flames could be seen at the rear of another house so I scaled a wall, holding a stirrup pump and bucket of water, both of which had been collected. With this gear I was rather cumbersome in movements and edged gingerly along the wall, which enabled me to climb onto a low flat roof. Still I could not reach the site of the flames.
The next foothold in the darkness looked like another ledge, a little lower and some three feet away. Could I make it with luggage and lack of free hands? Knees bend and jump. I leapt and made it, but there was a crash of glass. I had gone through the glass roof of a greenhouse.
There I was with my lower body through the glass and supporting myself with my arm on the frame, so that my upper body was supported above the glass roof by my hands. The bucket of water and stirrup pump had gone in the jump. “Damnation. You idiot,” I muttered.
Slowly I levered myself up and tried another step. No good. I had merely extended the area of broken glass and decided to lower myself towards the ground. At a certain point I let go, hoping I was near the ground. I landed on a table, or shelf, with a further sound of breakage. This time it was flowerpots.
I found myself in a locked greenhouse, and still not within range of the fire. I threw my weight against the door. The lock snapped at the first attempt, and I was out into the night air.
At last the blaze was clearly visible through the kitchen window of the house at the rear. How to get at it? A stone through the window made a hole large enough to insert my hand and release the catch, open the window and climb in. With the aid of a bucket, water and some towels, the fire was doused. The job was over. No fires in sight, and a blanket of silence hung over a dark night.
A slower return to the pavement without any climbing, and a weakness overcame my body. Suddenly I became aware that blood was dripping fast down my left leg, which was covered with a very torn trouser leg. They were new trousers too.
A policeman appeared. “Hello, hello. What’s a German helmet doing in London Streets?”
Fortunately he soon understood, and it only remained to bandage the leg while standing in a dark and now quiet street. A lady passing by roared with laughter at the trouserless man wearing a German tin hat in a London street. What a night!
