with the ground. Above, several white parachutes showed up clearly against the blue sky as they floated down slowly and gracefully, each supporting a small black figure below it. They drifted down quietly between the on-going dog-fights and cross-fire. We hoped that they would live, either to fight again on the morrow, or to spend the rest of the war as prisoners.
Looking back on these events makes me wonder how we could have cheered at the downing of a pilot and his aircraft as it fell into the sea. Yet, when one sums up the alternative, it seemed a natural reaction. Had the Messerschmitt not been destroyed, it would have continued on its way to London, protecting the enemy, dropping bombs on the city. So many more people would have died and others would have been injured or rendered homeless. When we were fighting against tremendous odds to preserve our freedom, there was no alternative. As it was, on that day London received a heavy concentration of bombs, and the RAF fighting force was nearing the end of its ability to fight back.
It was at that critical time when our air defences were almost exhausted that the Nazis suddenly changed their tactics. Night bombing began and our days became relatively quiet. But we at Pett paid for it by seldom enjoying an uninterrupted night's sleep. From July 10th. to the end of September, the German Luftwaffe lost 1,400 aircraft over Britain. By October 12th, the German invasion plans were shelved but that was something we did not know for many years afterwards. In the middle of October, my mother and I were pressured by the local police to vacate our home due to the possibility of invasion. We left for St. Albans to stay on a temporary basis with a friend of my mother's. Six weeks later, when the invasion had not materialized, we returned to Pett to take our chance with all the rest of the coastal residents, and to continue our lives where we had left off.
I had enjoyed a year as a full-time student at the Hastings School of Art & Architecture, but now I took my work there only one day a week for criticism. The other four days were filled creatively at home - at least that was the theory. The School had been condemned as an unsafe building in the event of an air raid, so the number of students was kept to a minimum at any one time. It was just another typical day when I took the bus to Hastings and made my way to the school with my portfolio under my arm. I walked past the doors of the Public Library on the main floor, and went up the wide stone stairs to the School of Art situated above it. As I climbed up the steps, I guessed that the staircase would probably be the only part of the structure to survive in the event of a hit, or a near-hit, by an enemy raider. It was an old building and contained a kiln for firing ceramics and several heavy printing presses on the upper floors. As usual, there would be very few people at the school today, for we represented one-fifth of the registered students, each attending, as we did, only once a week. Some of the boys from the architectural and art departments had already joined the armed services, so our numbers grew smaller. In general, it promised to be a rather dull and uninspiring day.
After the first class of the morning, with my creativity flagging, I joined two friends and we left to visit our favorite coffee shop. Our spirits revived immediately as we stepped out from the badly lit classroom into the sunlight, and breathed the fresh sea air - for the intersection on our right was only two minutes walk from the sea front. As we began strolling along the short road ahead, the tall buildings on either side restricted our vision to a narrow strip of sky above, until we reached the wide main shopping street of the town. We chatted with each other cheerfully, catching up on the week’s news. Suddenly, something diverted our attention. We glanced up and saw the silhouette of a Ju-88 dive-bomber coming straight at us. It was only a short distance away and just above the rooftops. A moment later, everything was being sprayed with cannon shells; the noise deafening in the confined space of our narrow street. Having just passed the local baker’s shop, the only shop on the street, we turned back hastily towards it and, one after the other, dashed through the door, and did not stop running until we had reached the far wall of the bakery. The girl behind the counter looked surprised at our sudden entry, for it had taken her a few seconds longer to realize what was happening outside. She was then, I think, quite glad to have our company. We waited until the shooting had stopped, and the sound of the aircraft engines had faded away. It was only then that the air raid siren began to wail. After the warning undulations had stopped and all was quiet, we thanked the shop assistant for temporary refuge. Then, cautiously, we went to the door, peered through the window and ventured outside once more. A moment later, we heard the noise of the returning raider. It had flown out to sea and back again, and was once more completing a circuit as it lined up for a repeat performance. We all turned round and ran like hares back to the bake shop, and burst through the door just as the shells began to ricochet off the walls of the buildings on either side of us. Breathlessly, we apologized profusely for our second uninvited entry, but we need not have bothered. The noise outside drowned out our voices, and she could not hear a word until the bomber had flown past us, up the main street and was on its way out to sea again.
This time, we waited longer until we were fairly sure that the Junkers would not return. All at once, we burst into a four-way discussion, in which we made some personal comments about the German Luftwaffe and what we thought of it! It was now, when all was quiet again, that my friends and I felt very embarrassed at having, more or less, taken over the bake shop. We each bought a cake that we did not particularly want and thanked the girl again for her hospitality. As we came out again into the street, we threw our caution to the winds as we noticed small pieces of knarled metal scattered on the ground around us. We ran all over the place, picking up souvenirs, scooping the still-warm silvery shrapnel into our hands. It was time for the next class, so, minus our coffee and with a cake in one hand and a fistful of shrapnel in the other, we turned in the direction of the Art School.
Over fifty years later, I showed the early part of this manuscript to Tony, one of the sons of the Watson family who lived next door, but higher up the hill. I asked if he had any comments or additions to make - he made just two. Referring to the German raider that used to fly regularly at low level up our valley, he said, “From our garden, we could look down on the German aircraft - we could even see the pilot in the cockpit.” The other observation, I quote from his letter of April 16, 1996, “I do remember I was at Pett at the time of the Dunkirk evacuation and remember that the miracle was in the calm sea. It was rarely like a mill pond and then only for a short while, but for three days there was scarcely a ripple so that even a rowing boat could cross to France and back. Those who knew the Channel could not believe it could be so calm for so long and thought it must be the hand of God.”
By now, I had become increasingly disenamoured with being a sitting duck, feeling useless and helpless beneath the unpredictable activity from the skies and of the threat from invasion. I wanted to be able to do something useful and decided to “join up”.
JOINING UP
During World War I, my father designed aeroplane wings for the Handley Page Aircraft Company. My uncle, who lived next door to us, had been an Observer in the Royal Flying Corps, the predecessor of the RAF, in the First World War and now continued the tradition as an aircraft spotter in the Royal Observer Corps. I had no difficulty in choosing the Service I wished to join - it had to be the RAF.
In early November, a few weeks after the episode of the twelve unexploded bombs that landed in our garden, I volunteered to join the Women's Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Christmas and New Year came and went, and I received no acknowledgement of my application. January and February passed and the early garden flowers began to bloom, reminding us of Spring. I wondered if my application had been thrown into someone's waste paper basket or had been lost in transit. Maybe there was no need for more women in the RAF just now, or was it just a matter of the Civil Service taking its time? It could be that the Air Ministry was snowed under with applicants.
I thought about re-applying if nothing happened within the next month, but the problem was solved for me. Early in March 1941, four months after I had volunteered for the WAAF, I received a short, curt note from the Air Ministry. I was ordered to report to the Brighton Recruiting Centre three days later. My luggage allowance was to be no more than an overnight bag as all my needs would be supplied on arrival – where, they did not indicate.
For the next two days, I worked at turning my untidy room from a makeshift studio into a recognizable bedroom again. After saying my Goodbyes and packing the few personal belongings I was allowed, I boarded the