War Stories III by Oliver L. North Read Free Book Online Page A

Luftwaffe commenced regular night raids—which meant that we were getting bombed twenty-four hours a day. During that period there was one particularly heavy night raid when we were all in the Anderson Shelter. It was the early hours of the morning—pitch-black night. There was a tremendous racket with all the anti-aircraft guns firing, but terribly ineffective. But the fact they were making a lot of noise made us feel better.
    I could hear the droning of the German aircraft going overhead and the continuous screams of bombs, making sort of a whistling, rushing noise. And then, when they got very close, a tremendous whistling roar. There was this one load of bombs, four of them, that hit very close—and I could hear each bomb scream and then the explosion as each the bomb hit the ground.
    Immediately after the first explosion I heard the second bomb—and another huge explosion, this one bigger. Then the Anderson Shelter
rocked when a third bomb went off. It felt like the Anderson Shelter was actually at sea. Finally there was a loud thump, but no explosion. And we sat there.
    The raid went on and on and eventually petered out. Dawn came and we ventured out of the shelter to see what was going on—the shelter was just behind our house. In front of our house there was a large hole in the ground. A bomb had gone into this hole but hadn’t gone off. It was just sitting there. The civil defense people were roaring about trying to clear the area. My father grabbed our family and said, “Get some bedding; we’re off to Number 12 up the road.”
    When I had a look at the street—a typical suburban 1930s street with the houses joined together in townhouse style—there were places where the three previous bombs had carved great holes in the street. There were two or three houses missing. We were still clutching the bedding and walking up the street. And now the daylight raids had just started. Sirens went off again. And we could see a big German formation coming over the top of us.
    We were about five houses away, when there was this enormous explosion. And it felt like the oxygen had been sucked out of the atmosphere. I whipped around in time to see the front of our house fall. The initial reaction was they must be bombing us again. But then I realized that that the bomb that had landed in front of our house had just gone off—it obviously had a delay fuse. It blew the front of our house away.
    The RAF fighter pilots during the Battle of Britain were our heroes. When I was a boy, they were knights in shining armor. One of my heroes was Douglas Barter, the “legless ace.” Though he lost both legs, he still served as a fighter leader throughout the Battle of Britain.
    All of this influenced my desire to become a Royal Air Force officer. I joined the Cadet Force as a schoolboy—the equivalent of the American Civil Air Patrol—and as soon as I turned eighteen, I joined the RAF and made a career of flying fighters for my country. I guess there were many of us who were patriots in those days.

    Prevailing in the Battle of Britain and the Blitz that followed required not only dedication and patriotism, but a highly sophisticated air defense network. The RAF “chain home” radars were connected to a system of ground observers and air raid wardens who fed information into an integrated warning and control center headquartered at Uxbridge, just west of London.
    The British also organized a remarkably effective civil defense structure to mitigate the effects of the German bombings. The fire brigades, rescue squads, medical personnel, air raid wardens, and explosive ordnance disposal units deployed in Britain’s cities often made the difference between living and dying for those on the ground.
    Nineteen-year-old Charles Leah wanted to enlist in the army—but with his three older brothers already in the military, his mother pleaded, “I’ve given up three sons .