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Born as a
storm was gathering A few days after I was born, my father left the warmth of their apartment on that chilly, damp October day and made his way over to the United States Embassy at 24 Grosvenor Square, which wasn't far from the apartment my parents shared with my grandfather on Clarges Street. He had a mission of sorts. He was going to register my birth, as required by U.S. law (both he and my mother were U.S. citizens). As a result of his efforts that day, I was born with dual citizenship. I was both a British subject and a United States citizen and I have a letter from the U.S. Embassy and a British birth certificate to prove it. I think I probably maintained this dual status, at least in the eyes of the United Kingdom, until I joined the U.S. Air Force. However, let me digress and flash forward six years. In September of 1939, my father and mother took me on a late summer holiday to the seaside resort of Bournemouth, Sussex, on the southern coast of England. This wasn't terribly far from our new home in Wanstead. The English Channel water was not terribly cold and rough, but as I recall, the beach at Bournemouth was not very nice. The sand was of a fine grain and clean, but I remember there were huge piles of mussels that had been dragged up high on the beach and left in the sun to rot. I guess the English didn't like to eat mussels then, or maybe they were poisonous at that time of year. In any case, the smell was absolutely awful. I think this vacation is where I had my first recollections of the war, which had been declared by the British and French on Sept. 3, two days after Hitler invaded Poland. Even though I was one month short of my sixth birthday, I remember listening to and understanding all the grownups speculating about what was going to happen now that we were at war with Germany, again. I recall climbing up on the toilet seat in our hotel room "water closet" and looking out the window over the English Channel wondering if I would see a German submarine, or U-Boat (Unterseeboote). Of course, it is possible I also remember the occasion so well because that is where I first learned to tie my shoelaces. The rest of 1939 and the first part of 1940 was a time of relative quiet for us at home. This was the period called the "phony war." However, after Hitler invaded Denmark, Norway, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, it was obvious to the adults I could hear that this war was going to be quite different from The Great War (World War I), which was supposedly the "War to end all wars." My best friend at the time was a boy about my age who lived next door to us, Dick Gooch. Mrs. Gooch's parents, Dick's grandparents, lived in the small fishing village of Barmouth, on the northwest coast of Wales. Dick's parents, along with the thousands of other parents of children in London and elsewhere in southeast England, were being encouraged by the government to evacuate their children to areas farther away from the expected reach of the German bombers. Most people had to rely on the government to find places for the children to stay. Mr. and Mrs. Gooch offered to have me move with Dick to his grandparents' home in Barmouth. Of course, my mother and father gratefully accepted. Knowing that I would be staying with my best friend made the thought of leaving my parents a little more tolerable. I remember the morning Dick and I boarded the train to leave for Wales. Of course, I was crying at the thought of leaving my home and family for an unknown period of time. Dick's grandparents met us at the Barmouth train station. They were a nice, old, friendly couple that represented a part of British society I had never seen before. Dick's grandpa had calloused
hands from years of hard work. They lived in a stone house the front of which
was just the width of a narrow road from the shear face of a mountain. At least
it seemed like a mountain to me. Their home was only about a mile from the
beach. Dick and I shared a small bedroom in the back of the house. Not much room, but sufficient for two small boys. Of course, there was no television back in those times, so in the evenings, we mostly listened to the radio in the parlor, read and played games. I remember listening to the older people speak Welsh and in the evenings sometimes we could pick-up radio broadcasts from Ireland where nothing but Gaelic was spoken. Dick's grandpa loved to listen to those programs. I had no idea until that time that anyone in Britain spoke anything but English. Dick's grandpa loved to drink tea while he listened to the radio. He would pour the hot tea from his cup into the saucer and blow on it until it was cool enough to drink, then he would sip it from the saucer. I remember, many years later, reading that George Washington used this custom as an analogy to explain the reasoning behind the American bi-cameral legislature; pouring the hot legislation from the House of Representatives (the cup) into the Senate (the saucer) to allow it to cool down before modification and passage. RDF system gave RAF needed edge Because of the threat of German bombs in 1940, Arthur Roberts was sent from London to stay with a friend's grandparents in the small fishing village of Barmouth on the northwest coast of Wales. During the summer days, we would often go down to the sand and pebble beach and play in the ocean. When it was too cool to go in the water, we would go to the local cinema and watch old movies. I remember watching movies of the famous English comic Arthur Askey and lots of Charlie Chan mystery movies, one right after the other. We would also take long hikes in the mountains behind the village. Like all wartime children, we enjoyed playing soldier, marching in single file up and down the winding paths. We occasionally traveled to nearby towns by train. These were old steam engine trains that had been used to carry slate from the quarries of the area and they belched black smoke and soot as they chugged along up the mountain passes. Dick and I loved to stick our heads out the window of our passenger car and smell the smoke. As summer changed to autumn, I caught a cold. The only reason I mention this is because of the unusually way, at least to me, Dick's grandparents treated my malady. First, I was given a tablespoon of castor oil with an orange juice chaser. What a horrible taste that was. It was many years later before I could drink orange juice without remembering the taste of the castor oil. Then I was put to bed with Vicks Vapo Rub smeared all over my face and a hot goose grease poultice on my chest. My problems in Wales didn't really start until it was time for us to go to school. I feel quite sure the teachers were speaking English, but it seemed I did not understand much of anything that was being taught. My troubles in school may have been the reason my parents ask that I be sent back home to Wanstead in September 1940, even though the Germans were just starting to switch their bombing raids from the RAF bases and aircraft factories to the large cities, including London proper. The British had somewhat of an advantage over the Germans, even though the RAF had fewer airplanes, because of an invention called Radio Direction Finding (RDF). This system, however, was only effective over flat terrain or water, so all the RDF towers were built along the coast of the English Channel or the southern part of the North Sea. The RDF system could detect the German planes as soon as they lifted off the ground in France or Belgium and relay their numbers and direction to the headquarters of RAF Eleven Group, at Uxbridge, which had air defensive responsibility for all of the southeastern part of the country. With the RDF warning, they would have several minutes to alert fighter squadrons at the various satellite fields around southeastern England. When the German pilots first saw the RAF fighters, they were usually approaching from above, in battle formation. This was something they did not want to see. Later, when the RDF system was refined and perfected it was called radar and, of course, is still in extensive use today all around the world. Even with the advantage of
RDF, the Germans were taking a terrible toll on RAF Fighter Command. By the end
of August 1940, RAF pilots had time for only two weeks training in their
Hurricane or Spitfire aircraft before missions. As a result, the average life
expectancy of an RAF fighter pilot was only seven days, once he entered
combat.
Bombs
fell on England I remember Dad telling me that
on Sept. 7, 1940, the day Hitler launched his massive air attack against the
London docks at Woolwich, he could read a newspaper outdoors at night from the
light of the flames of the burning docks 15 miles away. That was thought to be
the day Hitler planned to launch Operation Sea Lion, the sea invasion of
Britain. There was a high tide and clear weather, but the Luftwaffe still did
not have air superiority and without it a seaborne invasion was doomed to fail.
I have recollections of the turmoil my Mom and Dad experienced after this sinking, as they prepared me for my journey. Finally, the day to leave arrived. I remember being in the foyer of our house in Wanstead, suitcases all packed and ready, when the telephone rang. It was the British Admiralty calling, my father said. The voyage, on which hundreds of other children and I were scheduled to sail to America, had been canceled. A German submarine had torpedoed the last ship that had tried to cross the Atlantic with children, the SS City of Benares, and of the 406 people on board, 248 were lost, including 77 of the 90 children evacuees.. So, as fate would have it, I spent the next five years of my life living in a war zone. My first recollection of being frightened by the war came one evening well after the blitz of London began. I remember Mom and I were alone. The sirens had sounded their warning. We could hear the drone of the engines as the German planes passed overhead. The anti-aircraft guns were especially close and very loud. As much of a din as the guns were making, though, we could still hear the whistle of the bombs as they fell. I could sense the fear in my mother from the look in her eyes and the way she was acting. She wrapped her arms around me as we huddled under the dining room table. With each explosion, there was a flash of light so bright I could see it even through the heavy blackout curtains covering their windows. My mother's knuckles were white. As each bomb struck the ground, it seemed the whole house shuddered. The dining room windows were blown in and the glass tore through the curtains and flew like daggers across the room, but the blackout curtains and the tabletop provided a shield. The bombardment seemed to go on for hours, but it probably was just minutes. I think it was shortly after this that Dad started making arrangements to have an air raid shelter built.
Many people in our neighborhood
and throughout southern England who had back yards had air raid shelters buried
in their gardens. The Writer, a Vacaville
resident, was a child in England during world War II. This is a selection from
his memoirs. - Editor There were eight big steel hooks buried in the walls, four on each side, that were suitable for hanging hammocks. This arraignment allowed for two sets of two hammocks each to be hung bunk style across the garage and there still was sufficient room for three or four other people to recline somewhat in canvas deck chairs. We had made an access way in the back garden fence that separated the Gooch's back garden from ours. This way Mr. and Mrs. Gooch, their son and my best friend, Dick, and his sister, Lucy, could come straight across the back gardens from the rear entrance of their house to our shelter. Old Mrs. Macintosh, who lived alone across the street, was welcome to come over at any time, and she did when the bombing was especially bad. So now we felt as secure as it was possible to feel. Even if we were not as safe as those Londoners who spent their nights in one of the underground train tubes, we certainly had the roomiest air raid shelter in our neighborhood, and at least four of us could get some sleep, if the noise outside wasn't too loud. Supposedly ended by the 'Battle of Britain,' the "blitz" (short for the German word blitzkrieg) was really just beginning. I remember how we had to plan so that we could finish our evening meal, take baths and dress comfortably for the night. Dick and I would get dressed in our "Siren Suits" (named after a lounging outfit Winston Churchill had had made and wore often) and climb into our hammocks in the shelter. All this had to be done before the air raid sirens started their ominous wail. We got pretty good at our scheduling because it seemed the German bombers were as regular as clockwork. They would arrive overhead at almost exactly the same time each evening. The constant, punctual pounding by the Luftwaffe was Reichmarschal Hermann Goering's way of trying to break the spirit of the Londoners, since he couldn't seem to defeat the RAF in the air. I remember how we had to plan
so that we could finish our evening meal, take baths and dress comfortably for
the night. Dick and I would get dressed in our "Siren Suits" (named after a
lounging outfit Winston Churchill had had made and wore often) and climb into
our hammocks in the shelter. At first, Dick and I acted as if this was some sort of game. We were making noises, giggling and laughing after we climbed into our hammocks. However, after a few nights, we realized how tired we would be in the morning, if we didn't settle down and try to sleep. After a few weeks, not even the low voices of our parents woke us up. It usually took something as loud as "Bing" to rouse us from our slumber. I'll explain about "Bing" a little later. Shortly after the sirens
stopped, we could faintly hear the anti-aircraft guns begin to rumble off in
the distance to the east. Gradually the sound of the guns grew closer and soon
we could hear the rhythmic throb of the German planes' engines as they flew
overhead. After dark, if we peeked outside the shelter, we could see the
searchlights sweeping the sky and hear the firing of the anti-aircraft guns
increasing in intensity if the searchlights picked up an enemy bomber in their
beams. The firing of the anti-aircraft guns would become so loud that they sounded like they were just around the corner of the street, and in some cases they were. This was because some of the guns were mounted on the back of flatbed lorries (trucks) or on trailers that could be towed from spot to spot as needed. One such gun, that seemed to be in our neighborhood quite frequently, had a very loud and distinct metallic sound when it fired. For that reason, we called this gun "Bing.' Occasionally, when the anti-aircraft fire was so intense that it appeared the bombers did not want to go any farther toward their designated targets in London proper, the Germans would jettison their bombs and turn back toward their European bases. Of course, that meant that we were often right underneath their jettison points. Several bombs fell on houses in our neighborhood, but fortunately, none fell on ours. Our shelter was strong enough to withstand the weight of our house falling on it, but it would not have survived a direct hit from a bomb. One of the undesirable side effects of all this intense anti-aircraft fire was that all these shells being shot up into the sky had eventually to comply with the laws of gravity. After they exploded, some thousands of feet in the air, there was a tremendous shower of shell fragments. Even inside the shelter, we could hear the sharp pieces of jagged steel hitting the roof of our house like rain. Art Roberts of Vacaville was a
child in England during World War II, This is an excerpt from his memoirs. -
Editor Shrapnel a collectible to a child I would go out into our back
garden the morning after an air raid and dig up the sharp pieces of shrapnel
embedded in the grass. Some of it was still warm. I could usually tell if the
shrapnel was from a shell or a bomb. However, considering all the anti-aircraft
artillery that was used, very little of it came from bombs. I think I still
have a tin box full of the stuff somewhere up in the attic. Bomb explosions can have some
very odd results. I once saw an old brick wall standing intact after a bomb had
exploded just a few hundred feet away and blown all the old lime mortar from
between the bricks. The wall could have been pushed over with one hand. In the beginning, the Germans felt confident enough to conduct their bombing raids primarily by daylight. Their planes would fly in perfect formation, high enough to avoid the hundreds of barrage balloons around London. The balloons were tethered on thick steel cables that would cut the wings off any aircraft that tried to fly below them. As it was, the German planes would all drop their bombs from altitude at the same time and then wheel around, still in formation, and head back to their bases. However, as their losses grew, the Luftwaffe used the cover of darkness more and more. We would occasionally sit
outside in the back garden and watch the "dogfights," aerial battles between
the Messerschmitt Bf-109s and later the Focke-Wulf FW-190s that were flying
high cover for the German bombers, and the British Supermarine Spitfires and
Hawker Hurricanes from 11 Group out of RAF Uxbridge and its dozens of auxiliary
fields. Art Roberts of Vacaville lived
in London as a child during World War II. This is a selection from his
memoirs.-Editor I remember thinking at the time that it was a very thoughtful act for a man who had almost lost his life trying to protect us. On sunny days after school, I would ride my bicycle to the airdrome at Fairlop. I would lie down under a hedge and watch the Spitfires take off and land. I remember once seeing a Spitfire land, the pilot climb out, run across the tarmac with his parachute pack bouncing up and down behind him, climb into another Spitfire that was warming up and almost immediately advance the throttle and take off again. He couldn't have been on the ground for more than one or two minutes. The ground crews then hurried off to get the Spitfire he had just landed fueled-up, reloaded with ammunition and ready to fly. I assume this sort of effort contributed to the fact that, during the "Battle of Britain" there were some 900 RAF Fighter Command pilots killed. The heroic efforts of these pilots and their ground support crews led Prime Minister Winston Churchill to say in one of his most memorable speeches before the House of Commons, "Never before in the field of human conflict, was so much owed by so many to so few.' Speaking of Winston Churchill, I had the opportunity to see him fairly close-up. Since he was the Member of Parliament for our district, the Borough of Wanstead and Woodford, he would occasionally drive out from his Westminster residence at 10 Downing St., dressed in his usual dark three-piece suit, bow tie and black felt Derby hat, to view the bomb damage in our neighborhood. As I remember, he was usually smoking one of his famous Cuban cigars. His visits were even more frequent after the Germans started using parachute mines, naval mines dropped by parachute from bombers flying at about 5,000 feet. It was encouraging to see someone of such high stature as Churchill take the time to come and see how the ordinary people were faring. I am thankful that I got to see him on more than one of those occasions Expatriates tuned to U.S. war reports
He would then explain in great detail what he had seen of the devastation in and around the city. Then, invariably, he would end with "Good night and good luck." Another American broadcaster that we listened to frequently before Ed Murrow was Raymond Graham Swing of the Mutual Broadcasting System. Of course, wireless radio was the only nonprint medium we had to gain news about what was going on. We had a very good radio, I guess, by the standards of the time. It was in a big polished wooden cabinet about 4 feet high and had all kinds of knobs on the front and big vacuum tubes inside. At night, we could pick up
broadcasts from all around the world. We would listen to Lord Ha Ha and his
ridiculously biased pro-Nazi news reporting from Berlin. At times, if we really
worked on trying to fine-tune the shortwave, we could pick up inter-plane
communications from the Germans. I remember it was always a thrill to catch an
excited German voice calling out "Achtung... Achtung... Shpitfire." Then
sometimes, if the airman held the mike button open, we could hear the sound of
machine gun. Occasionally, afterwards, there were unintelligible utterances
which we took to be profanity. My parents were reminded of James Cagney portraying George M. Cohan and singing his World War I song, "Over There' 'the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming." It seemed even the neighbors smiled at us more often. Of course, things didn't change right away. It would be several months before we started to see American uniformed soldiers in London. Mom wanted to do whatever she could to help, so she became a Red Cross volunteer at one of the United Service Organization (USO) canteens in London. When the American or Canadian GIs needed help with their stripes and chevrons, Mom would sew them on their tunics and blouses for them. In return, they gave her their old emblems for her to bring home to me. Of course, I was thrilled. Several of these momentos ended-up being prominently displayed on my siren suit. Even though America was now in the war, things were not going well for the Allies. German Field Marshall Eric (The Desert Fox) Rommel's Afrika Korps was pushing the British and Australian Eighth Army eastward back along the northern coast of Africa, well into Egypt toward Cairo. The British had made some daring commando landings at seaports in Norway, with limited tactical success. But their strategic impact on Hitler's defensive posture was enormous. He became convinced that Norway was going to be the way the Allies tried to regain a foothold in Europe. As a result, the Germans moved 350.000 troops from the Eastern Front and Africa to Norway. |