Bomb Alley To Hellfire Corner: Recollections of a childhood in Kent's "Bomb Alley" during WW2

By Ron Shears

Recollections of a childhood in Kent's "Bomb Alley" during WW2.

1940; WW2. The skies are full of British pilots battling foreign warplanes. In Kent's “Bomb Alley”, 5-year-old Ron Shears and his gang of “ragamuffin” friends laugh and play, oblivious as to the significance of the excitement in the skies. In this autobiographical account, Ron reminisces about the adventures and the horrors experienced during the era. Innocence and mischief abound, we'll join the boys as they search for war souvenirs; set off unexploded bullets; fashion DIY slingshots; play with fuses; get stuck exploring toppling house remains; chase one another in underground tunnels; crab fish amidst dangerous currents; race home-made carts (and buses!); sledge on washboards; get covered in dog poo daily and partake in the obligatory farting contests. Juxtaposed with the joyful memories are more sobering accounts of missing fathers; crashing pilots; impaled horses; villages blasted into craters; near-drowning incidents and insights into the lives of British pilots and the opposition.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ron Shears
• Release date: Apr 17, 2018
• ISBN: 9780987119346

Book preview

Contents

FOREWORD

HOME SWEET HOME

AIR RAIDS AND BLACKOUTS

HOW TO DETERMINE A GOOD FART

DOG FIGHTS

CAN HE SWIM?

OFFICIALLY ONE OF THE GANG

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT

DEVASTATION

COCKLES, WHELKS AND WINKLES

THE A TEAM

HAIR RAID

CAKES AND CATAPULTS

CRASH LANDINGS

IN THE SH*T

SPITS AND HURRICANES

A BATTLE OF BRITAIN PILOT'S DAY

THE GREATEST AIR BATTLE IN HISTORY

A DIFFERENT KIND OF LANDING

ARROWS, CONKERS AND PORCUPINES

OUR OWN DANGEROUS RIDES

AFTERWORD

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BOMB ALLEY TO HELLFIRE CORNER

Recollections of a childhood in Kent's Bomb Alley during WW2

by Ron Shears

BOMB ALLEY TO HELLFIRE CORNER

The author and editor have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from memories.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted, or distributed in any form or by any means without permission.

Copyright © 2018 Ron Shears

Published by Ron Shears

www.ronshears.com

ISBN-13: 978-0-9871193-4-6

Edited by Michelle Goode of www.writesofluid.com

Book cover design by Michelle Goode

Dedicated to my team: Pat, Mark, Jane and Tim

Foreword

Friday September 1st, 1939: Germany invades Poland. World War 2 begins.

On September 3rd, 1939, Neville Chamberlain broadcast to the nation that Britain was at war with Germany. That night on the BBC Home Service at 6 p.m. radio announcer Alvar Liddell explained in more detail what was going to happen. This announcer became so familiar that the British people looked forward to his distinctive voice and his faultless delivery of these historic events.

The German air force is to overcome the British air force with all means at its disposal, and as soon as possible, ordered Hitler; not the first to have fixed his gaze upon the White Cliffs of Dover and the green tranquil pastures beyond - but certainly one of the first by air.

On July 11th, 1940, the corpulent Luftwaffe C-in-C, Reichsmarschall Herman Wilhelm Goering, promised Adolf Hitler, The defence of Southern England will last four days and the Royal Air Force four weeks. We can guarantee invasion for the Fuhrer within a month. There were many others further down the pecking order eager for recognition, leaving the path open for the Invasion of England.

And so the stage was set: the players in place and their mounts selected. Air Chief Marshall Sir Hugh Dowding - the appointed director - was pulled back from retirement by the Air Ministry and asked to remain for an 'unspecified time.' His second in command was Air Chief Marshal Sir Keith Rodney Park, a New Zealand soldier. Unknown to Dowding and Park, their volunteer cast and the audience, it would be the finest production ever. There were no scripts or rehearsals, and the ending was unknown. Only one of two conclusions would emerge: either the Royal Air Force would hold the island fort and give Britain time to re-group, or the Luftwaffe would back up their Commanding Officers' promise.

This collection of memories concerns my friends and I from the age of 5-12 and what we and our families endured during World War 2. We nippers had a ball as oblivious children and are no doubt all the better for it, but I do hope today's children never have to go through such an experience. 

I was a nipper - just five years old - when The Battle of Britain began. We had the time of our lives playing outside, not realising what the wailing sirens really signified until years later. Now, as I recall those happy memories, the realities of the chaos that surrounded us and the dangers we evaded are a source of fascination. Home was Chatham, Kent, midway between London and Dover. It was aptly named 'Bomb Alley' on account of the first 4,585-lb. flying bomb exploding there in the early morning of June 13th, 1944. Bomb Alley was a sky-path from Dover to London. I remember dogfights and the nightly bombings as if they happened yesterday. Before the war finished, 1,388 V1 rockets had crashed all over Kent and a further 1000 plus, were shot onto the beaches along the 15-mile stretch of coast west of Dover to Lydd: thereafter named 'Hellfire Corner'.

This is the drama that unfolded for my young friends and I during Britain's darkest hour - the writing of which is my way of saying THANK YOU to all who fought for us and kept us safe.

Home Sweet Home

'If you hear the air raid Siren lay in the gutter, get under a hedge or knock on someone's door,' mother would holler out to me as I left to walk to the Ordnance Street primary school some fifteen minutes' away.

Home was a three-storey terraced Georgian house which is sadly no longer: demolished not by the bombings in the war but by in the sixties to make room for more houses, all Hills Terrace, Dale End, the lower part of Dale Street and Saunders Street. By the time new houses went up there would have been at least double, maybe treble the number. Our place, 19 Hills Terrace, Chatham, was the only one with a wooden spiral staircase and a bathroom as well as an outside loo. It was joined to the house and had a slate roof. So one didn't get wet usually; just very cold during the winter months. To stop the overhead cast-iron cistern freezing and splitting, the customary paraffin lamp was left alight behind the toilet bowl. It also had another, very distinct benefit - the smooth, sanded wood seat was warm. Toilet paper was an Izal flat-pack, left on a well-placed wooden shelf. Bear in mind most items were rationed and in short supply, so being the last in to find there was no Izal meant we had to resort to plan B: the daily newspaper; The Daily Express, cut into nice six inch squares, each pierced with a butcher's S-shaped hook and hung on the door by a piece of string. Strange thing was, it was softer than the standard Izal which felt and looked like grease-proof paper. You don't want me to elaborate on that, I'm sure!

I lived there with Gran, Granddad (Mark Scott, a foreman in the Gun Wharf), Mum, Uncle Fred, Uncle Len and Aunt June from mums' side. Gran's first husband Frederick Pennson Wells, a Royal Marine Sergeant PTI, was killed in WW1 while part of the catastrophic 'Live Bait Squadron'. Fred and my Mum were Wells and Len and June were Scotts'. Then there was Dad - a Quantity Surveyor who worked for the Air Ministry in London - younger sister Pat, Smudger the bulldog, Timmer the cat, a collie, a tortoise, half a dozen rabbits plus my weekly increasing litter of white mice.

I managed to get to a grand number of twenty-four before Gran hollered at me to get rid of those mice. They did the job for me, escaping their temporary home, resulting in me becoming very unpopular with the neighbours. Next doors' cats began getting fatter. Trying to catch any survivors was risky: they were now in survival mode - ready to bite - and appeared to be adapting well.

Uncle Fred and Len were in the Royal Air Force, so they were away most of the time. Len was an armament fitter on Spitfires, Hurricanes and, when in North Africa, The US Airforce Mustang. Apart from loading ammunition, he reset the eight browning machine guns' cone of fire. This set the distance from the plane to where the bullets merged on an enemy opponent, usually one hundred yards. I discovered only a few years ago why the formidable Polish fighter pilots of 303 Squadron were so deadly; they closed on Luftwaffe planes at only fifty-yards - considered suicidal. These daring men were the highest scoring of the Hurricane squadrons during the Battle of Britain. They were stationed at RAF Northolt on August 2nd, 1940.

Len remembered when in Africa a USAF Mustang landed and taxied to where he worked out in the hot sun. The pilot had a woman on his lap in the cockpit - suitable name. He asked Len to reset his cone of fire, and rewarded him with a bottle of spirits. Trust the Americans. I believe Len was the youngest Flight Sergeant in the RAF.

Every day in London my father spent time organising materials to patch up damaged Airfields and a few days per week he stayed overnight in London. His night job was wading through London's sewers for bombs planted by German agents. He said the sewers were clean and rarely stunk. Presumably the Air Ministry did the laundry. Around 1941, he was posted to The Gambia in West Africa with several other officers. His commanding officer was Geoffrey Hanscomb; also a Quantity Surveyor. Sworn to secrecy, we had no idea what they were doing there but it was obviously something to do with the war. Possibly an airstrip, from where planes could give support to the formidable and brilliant German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, known as The Desert Fox. I met Geoffrey several times, a very likeable man with boundless energy. He became the largest quantity surveying firm in the world, and began The London Group of project consultants who took on commissioned work from around the world.

Uncle Fred was in charge of getting and training German Shepard dogs for security work for the three forces plus government departments. Once trained, these dogs feared nothing and attacking a suspect on orders was something to witness, as I had the pleasure, and Fred taught me a great deal that I've never forgotten. Breeders contacted him at his Gloucester station when a new litter was ready for him to see. He'd travel as far as Scotland to find suitably-tempered dogs, plus the breeders would know what he wanted and gave him first refusal. He came home one weekend, took off his backpack and gently lifted out a black German Shepard puppy about three-months old. In those days pups were never taken before three months old. Fred admitted he was the biggest German Shephard he had ever seen, and now he was ours. He was the most beautiful specimen I ever saw. Smiling, Fred said, This is Gale, fathered by Storm of Greenhillock in Scotland, a Crufts champion. Gale had a white diamond on his broad chest. I later watched Fred train him in the