The Blitz, 1941, by Edith Kembel

From MemoryArchive

Who: Edith Kembel
What: WW2 Blitz on London
When: 1941
Where: London

I will never forget the terrifying sounds of the Air-Raid sirens on the first day of the Blitz. We were all in school in South London, 1941. I was 12 years old, but we weren't evacuated. I suppose we were lucky as whole families were split up for nearly six years. Anyway, the sirens sounded and the teacher told us to hurry to the shelter in the playground. We came out when the all-clear had sounded to have to walk home amid the rubble. One sight I will never forget, was seeing a woman's head in the gutter that had been blown off. We had to endure that fear for three years.

Soon after, we were required to black out our windows and things like streetlamps and headlights were to be switched off; this became known as the BLACKOUT. You weren't even allowed to smoke in the street, in case the enemy saw the light. In an Air-Raid at around 2AM, we had to hurry downstairs in the dark. My mother told me and my sister to go on out to the shelter in the back garden and she would be down in a minute. That night, our house suffered a direct hit and my mother was killed.

We endured a terrible time in the war, but we got through it.