A Boy's View of the Home Guard, Buckinghamshire

I was a small boy during WWII. Born 1939, Langleybury, near Watford.

Father war-working on the land, in the Home Guard - he had to go on parade on some evenings and spend nights as one of 2 soldiers guarding a local airfield. I remember seeing him on parade. He signed for a clip of bullets each evening and had to return them in the morning.

I was playing outside our house with some older boys when we heard a strange sound. We looked up to see a Doodlebug passing over the house. It was not very high as I could see all the details written on the plane. Older boys ran for cover but I stopped in fascination to watch the plane pass. My mother came out screaming and dragged me to cover. It crashed not far beyond our house. I started school at Hunton Bridge on the side of the A41. I recall having to go to a nearby air-raid shelter which was on the other side of the A41 around 1944. Army convoys stopped to let us cross the road.

We had prisoners working in the fields near us. They looked dejected and not what we expected of the enemy. They used to call me over and share their coffee with me. For that, I was criticised by my older friends. I felt sorry for the prisoners but my friends were more anti-Nazi than me. On some Saturdays, my mother used to take me to Watford where we would see displayed tanks and parts of aeroplanes which were there to raise funds for extra armaments.

At the end of the war in 1945, we were able to travel by rail. We looked to see who was in the station and saw pilots in uniform. They were the heroes. I remember seeing a soldier, alone and in tears. Also, we saw American soldiers who were very friendly and tried to give us sweets. After VE Day we moved to the village of Mentmore and there we had a victory party, bonfire and fireworks. In the cottage during the war, my father kept his rifle by the front door in case of emergency. I used to help him to clean it. My job was to look for the pull-through weight coming out of the breech. He used the radio battery to be charged. When the radio was on it was forbidden to talk during news flashes.

At school, the usual playground game was Germans versus British. One member of the family was killed in the Royal Navy.