A Child's War Read Online Free PDF

the road because of a severe rationing of petrol. And there were other dangers, as Charles Harris from Chingford remembers: ‘We used to go to the youth club in the evening. I was running there one night in the black-out and ran straight into another boy running the other way. He was shorter than me and his head hit me right between the eyes. Next day my eyes were closed right up.’ To try to improve matters the government urged people to wear something white at night, white lines were painted down the middle of roads for the first time, and white stripes were painted around roadside trees, street-lights, pillar-boxes, etc.
    On 10 May Germany launched the Blitzkrieg. On 21 June France sued for peace – in a mere six weeks Germany had over-run the whole of western Europe except Britain. But Britain expected an immediate German invasion. The Local Defence Volunteers had been formed a month earlier, on 14 May; soon to be renamed the Home Guard, or, more commonly, ‘Dad’s Army’. They were a volunteer force made up of men too old or lads too young for the services – at first the minimum age for joining was 15, later raised to 16. What the Home Guard lacked in expertise was often made up for in enthusiasm; as a Boy Scout, Michael Corrigan was involved in Home Guard and ARP exercises in Bristol:
    During one exercise, in which the local Home Guard were involved, the only tank in Bristol was supposed to be the enemy and the Home Guard were to defend one of the roads into the city and pretend to stop it. Well, the local Home Guard knew how to stop tanks, you put a large piece of wood between the tracks and the sprocket wheels, and the tracks snap. In their enthusiasm the Home Guards actually put this knowledge into practice and disabled the only tank which we had to defend Bristol. As you can imagine, with all this going on we ‘casualties’ were soon told to get off home before black-out.
    Britain prepared for invasion: signposts at crossroads and corners, railway station name-boards, etc., anything that could help the enemy know where they were, were hastily removed. Mike Bree from Penzance remembers:
    As well as perfectly ridiculous suggestions such as handing in any maps we had of Britain, any postcards or the like which might aid the enemy, and removing all road signs, station names, even the town names from pub landlords’ licensing boards, etc., we were told not to keep any personal diaries or records. It was suggested that any cameras or films be handed over to be used by HM forces. This was no joke for, in no time at all, it was almost a case of being arrested as a spy should one be seen anywhere strategic with a camera, which could result in its confiscation; also, it was impossible, very soon, to get films for cameras.
    Sylvie Stevenson: ‘You never saw a motorbike. One day I saw a man on his motorbike with a leather hat and coat on – I ran home as fast as I could – I thought the Germans had invaded.’
    Leaflets were distributed telling people what to do in the event of an invasion. Road-blocks were set up, concrete gun emplacements called pill-boxes were built at crossroads and in other important positions, and along the south and east coasts where the invasion was expected the beaches were planted with mines and defended by barbed wire and more pill-boxes.
    Carol Smith from Dunstable recalls: ‘As a teenager in wartime I had a reasonable time. The most annoying restriction was not being able to go to the coast because of bunkers and barbed wire on the beaches. However, we had the Girl Guides and the Girls’s Club.’
    During July and August German air attacks on Britain focused on the south and east during the day, and the manufacturing towns at night, but London was left alone. The next step came in August: because the German army could not invade while the RAF and the Royal Navy could sink their ships and troop transports in the Channel, the RAF had to be destroyed.
    Herman Goering, chief of the