Doodlebugs in Hayes 1944

From 1940 air raids became part of everytday life in Hayes, Middlesex.

Despite having important manufacturing plants like Fairy Aviation, ICI filling shells, EMI developing radar, we did not have many conventional air raids, we believed this was due to our near neighbors, the Polish airmen at Northolt Airfield. Official child evacuation stopped, much to our relief, three miles away at Southall, Middlesex.

As an eleven year old attending lessons at Grange Park Junior School, Hayes, on the afternoon of 7th July 1944 whilst in the classroom we heard a loud explosion which from experience we knew was a couple of miles away. After which, the air raid warning sounded and we all went into the surface shelter which was a converted cloaktoom with breeze blocks blocking the windows and scaffolding giving additional support to the ceiling. As children we sat on wooden benches below the pegs which carried out gasmasks and below wire frames which in peacetime held our plimsols.

With pilotless flying bombs known as V1s it was common for the warning to sound after the event and the all clear not to be given until the last batch of V1s had cleared the area. We weren't allowed home until this occured, although after 16:00 parents could collect theirs and neighbor's children. This happened in my case, and my agitated mother said the doodlebug had hit the EMI formally known as the 'HMV' or 'Gram', as before the war it manufactured radios. Now, it was war work on radar sets etc. As we left the school we met a neighbor who said "it's alright, it's missed the main factory and landed at the back on some huts", not knowing this was the sales and service department, exactly where my father worked.

My father had heard the Red Alert given from the factory roof but thought he'd finish his cigarette before going to shelter A to take cover. During this period, the doodlebug landed between shelters A and B and the explosion caused the concrete roof to collapse onto its occupants. When at about 18:00, my dust-covered father cycled home unhurt, except for loss of hearing I was sent out to play, but still remember hearing my father telling my mother about the top portion of a girl in a pink jumper; face and legs covered in rubble, and that he estimated that twenty-three people had been killed, and many injured. Their memorila in Cherry Tree Lane Cemetery, Harlington indicates thirty-four killed, and eighteen injured.

A few months later, on a saturday lunchtime our terrier dog started howling in the back garden. I went out to see, and saw a doodlebug with it's engine still running approaching. I called out to my parents and brothers and we had all dived into the Anderson shelter by the time the engine had cut. It fell on houses two hundred yards away in Hurstfield Cresent and Wrays Way. Many in my class lived in this area; three died immediately, three later, twenty-two were seriously injured, and there were fourty-five minor injuries. Once again, we lost roof tiles, windows, and plaster board ceilings (the original plaster and lathe went much earlier and were replaced with plaster board which could be refastened)

On the 21st October 1944 the first of our two V2s fell about 500yds away at Gledwoof Drive. Luckily, the ground was very soft so the rocket went deep, and less surface damage was experienced. Although as kids collecting shrapnel, it looked terrible, with mud everywhere, we were lucky and the other rocket that fell in the evening of the 7th December in a park at Hayes End, so once again, we escaped a major incident.

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