Bonzer Words!: Eighty Days Of Doodlebugs
...WW2 was at its height. We had moved into our new house after being bombed out of our previous home. I hated it, as it was so much smaller and four of us had to share a bedroom. My bed was placed under a long window and became the 'box seat' for all of us to watch the nightly air raid 'shows'. How could we have known, tonight would be so different!...
Violet Apted recalls the night when she saw a flying bomb - a Doodlebug.
Violet writes for Bonzer! magazine. Please visit www.bonzer.org.au
Chills of horror, wearing hob-nailed boots, ran up and down my spine when I saw my first 'Doodlebug.' It was the night science fiction became a reality to the children of UK. My brother Bert, sisters Jean, Mary and I were sitting on my bed watching the usual scenario of searchlights seeking out the enemy planes, the tracer bullets and explosions of the ack-ack shells lighting up the sky.
WW2 was at its height. We had moved into our new house after being bombed out of our previous home. I hated it, as it was so much smaller and four of us had to share a bedroom. My bed was placed under a long window and became the 'box seat' for all of us to watch the nightly air raid 'shows'. How could we have known, tonight would be so different!
I cannot remember who spotted the first one, but there it was, a long cigar shaped object with stubby wings held in the glow of the searchlight beam. Flames were spewing out of the back of it. Then there was another and another. We were scared and called out for Mum to come and see. (Children believe mums know everything of course.) For the first and only time during the war years I saw fear in my mother's eyes. It was obvious to us all that there could be no pilot in that 'thing' threatening us.
Suddenly the jets of flame coming from the Doodlebugs cut off! They plummeted to the ground and exploded. Mum rushed us all downstairs and out into the Anderson air raid shelter in the back garden. That was the first and only time we used the shelter, but this was an 'unknown' danger and Mum wanted to be sure what it was, so made sure we were safe. “Flying bombs' someone called them. I never did find out who called them Doodlebugs, but their official name was V1 bombs. The newspapers next day were full of 'Hitler's secret weapon,' Unmanned pre-set bombs. Even the searchlight crews that night had no idea what they were up against. I bet they were as scared as we were, well at least for a little while. Later we were told the first 'flying bomb' had landed the previous day, but it was thought to have been an enemy plane in flames and only later discovered there was no pilot.
The south-east of Kent became known as 'Bomb Alley' during the next eighty days of V1 and then V2 (rocket) attacks. Every one of them aimed at London. In all, 2.400 doodlebugs fell on the County of Kent, two hundred more than on London. The County of Sussex wasn't far behind that total. Every one was shot down and that saved London from complete destruction. The papers that week—and I quote—said, “THE PEOPLE OF KENT AND SUSSEX WERE GLORIOUS.” Unquote.
The county newspaper The Kent Messenger issue of September 15th, 1944 published a map of Kent featuring a dot for every doodlebug that exploded in the area. A large number were depicted as having been brought down in the sea. I still have a copy of the map.
I can't help wondering, though, as I sit with my memories. With man landing on the moon and rockets to Mars commonplace today, what would it take to frighten our children, as much as we were, when the eighty days of the Doodlebugs came to Kent?
© Violet Apted
