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Anti-aircraft guns
These were usually Bofors guns, which fired
small shells, or larger 3.7 inch guns. Rarely were aircraft hit, but there
was a danger to people on the ground from their own bombardment, as pieces
of shrapnel fell back to earth. This was especially true for people out
firewatching or patrolling. Schoolboys loved to collect the bits, however.
One problem was timing the fuses so that the shells exploded at the right
height. Eventually 'predictors' were developed, which could be used to
calculate what timing to set on the fuse, but most people have told us that
anti-aircraft fire was more of a morale booster than an effective deterrent.
Batteries were set up in local parks, like Fox Hollies Park, and on the
Green as well, surrounded by sandbags.
This appeared in Carl Chinn's
Brummagem magazine in January 2008 as part of a fascinating story of
childhood in Acocks Green (this extract pp. 19-20):
Roy Reece
So what was so good about the war? Well for us kids it was very exciting! We
used to watch our fighter planes dogfighting with the German aircraft with
the vapour trails all over the sky. One morning going to school (Hartfield
Crescent) we walked through the gully from Shirley Road to Fox Hollies Road
and there in our playing field was a Messerschmitt fighter plane with its
nose buried in the field. What a prize! We were over it like a rash grabbing
every bit of loose stuff there was. I remember very clearly one lad walking
off with one of the plane's guns, complete with a belt of ammunition.
Looking back it seems quite funny. I think we were about eleven or twelve
years old. I believe the pilot got out safe and well and knocked on a door
in Fox Hollies Road and surrendered. I have no idea if he was shot down by
anti-aircraft guns or British fighters. This is the sort of thing that gave
us what today they call street cred. We collected bits and pieces from bombs
shells [to] ammunition in fact anything you could get our hands on. Most
lads had a sandbag where they kept their prized possessions and were very
quick to show them off. Fins from fire bombs were much sought after and the
larger pieces of shrapnel were to be admired. A story of my own: I was
walking down Gospel Farm Road when I came across a bomb lying on the edge of
the pavement. It was intact except the fin was a bit dented. I promptly
picked it up and took it home. I walked into the house and put it on the
kitchen table. It is amazing how fast a house can empty. I had no fear nor
did I see any danger but the adults in the house did not think my way. The
police were called. Somebody put the bomb in the back garden and covered it
with sand. It was a firebomb; we called them incendiary bombs in those days.
Two soldiers came and took it apart then gave it back to me with a not
overdue warning about the dangers of picking things up. I still had that
bomb in the shed when I joined the army in 1950. My mother disposed of it
and my sandbag full of shrapnel before I returned home.
Patricia Smith
We used to go over to the racetrack on York Road, because the Americans had
an ack-ack site there, and were billeted there. We kids went over there, and
they gave us gum.
Image of a Bofors
gun from the R.A.F. website
Poster about the 3.7 inch gun from the East Riding of Yorkshire website
Barrage balloons
These huge balloons were
designed to stop enemy bombers flying low and being able to bomb accurately.
They were called barrage balloons, and were floated up into the sky on strong
cables, which could bring down any aircraft. It was possible for the people on
the ground to control how high the balloon flew. Barrage balloons were put on
fields, sports ground, and open spaces on housing estates. Enemy aircraft tried
to shoot them down, and they also broke free sometimes and passed over people’s
houses. Here are some memories of barrage balloons.
Tom
Morris
I used to keep my car at number 110 (Westley Road)….she was a
widow. She'd got a bit of a verandah, and she was wakened this night, with
something rubbing and flapping, as she thought, oh, the door's come undone. "I
can't go to sleep in this", so she groped her way downstairs - you didn't put
lights on - she felt her way round, opened the back door, and groped into a
great big squashy sort of substance. She found it was a barrage balloon, and
they are absolutely enormous things, so she yelled for the air warden (Charlie
Trumper). She yelled for him, yelled blue murder. Charlie came out, took one
look at it, and fainted. They phoned up the A.R.P. people, and they came out and
gathered it up. It frightened the living daylights out of us, because the cable
of it came across our roofs, and it was like a train going across the roof of
our house. I said: "What could it be?". Got up and groped around. Tried the
bathroom, tried the lavatory...All the house was intact and we didn't know what
it was. It had broken clear, see. there it was, shaped like an elephant...They
used to have them on a long cable, about 10,000 feet up.
Oswald Ensor,
of Wynford Road, interviewed in 1977
We used to have a barrage balloon, at a very derelict house, Sunnydale or
Sunnymead...it's now a park for the children.
This balloon, as far as I can
recollect, was shot down three times during the war. The cable fell across our
roofs, and made a right mess of the tiles and so forth, and there were various
bits, secret bits put on this balloon for explosion and what not, and most of
the R.A.F. people spent most of the night chasing round trying to find where the
boxes had got to.
John Sharp,
of Pool Farm Road, interviewed in 1977
They were captive balloons - large things. they looked just like baby elephants
stuck up in the sky, and they were let off to a certain height, you see, and the
idea was to keep aircraft from flying low. Well, frequently they broke loose,
and one did break loose, and it was just floating - we could just see it in the
starlight,
Bill and I.
It was just floating
gently down over our garden. Of course the one thought straight away in our
minds was landmine, because they used to float mines down, you see, which
exploded (in the air when the probe underneath made contact,
ed.). And this thing
was just floating about nice and steady, after a plane had gone, just in the
right place at the right time. Well, we grabbed a spade each and waited for it!
God knows what we were going to do! That's what you do at the time, you know!
Anyway, the thing disappeared over the roof and took the roof off a house over
there...the cable dangling, you see...they were terrific things, and with the
wind behind them they were quite capable of ripping the roof off.
It must have been about
1941.
God knows what happened to it, I suppose it came to rest somewhere.
There are several mentions
of barrage balloons in Frank Taylor Lockwood's diary.
Image of barrage
balloons from the R.A.F. website
A painting by Dame Laura
Knight of women raising a barrage balloon (Imperial War Museum) Enter the
term LD 2750 in the Catalogue No. search box and click on Search.
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