Fleeting encounter with German plane

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Helen Hughes, of the People's War team in Wales, on behalf of Edgar Lloyd and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I worked in the coal mines during the war…I was an engineer … I started as a surveyor and became an engineer. My war experience was limited to civil life I was in the Home Guard — of course you had to join the Home Guard — but I did have a very brief fleeting glimpse of a German plane.

I was on holiday in Torquay in August 1942 and the chap who eventually became my brother-in-law was with me and one day he said lets take out a boat and do some fishing. We were in a rowing boat….and the harbour is under quite a steep headland, and as we were passing through the harbour entrance we looked up and there were some torpedo tubes fixed torpedo tubes with torpedoes sticking out of them….and as we said “look at those torpedoes” there was “Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh” and a German plane - a fighter came swooping down from behind that headland and fired a burst of machine gun fire - over our heads of course, we were in shelter - and flew across Torbay and then dropped a bomb, probably going for Brixham where the fishing boats were. But it all happened so suddenly that we thought “what are we going to do? What shall we do?” and my brother in law said we’d better jump overboard….and I said “We can’t jump overboard I’ve a ten shilling note in my pocket!” — it’s the mad things you say…in circumstances like that! That was really the only time I saw or heard anything at all. I was a very lucky chap.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.