- Contributed by
- Genevieve
- People in story:
- Alvin Mansfield
- Location of story:
- Hayes, Middlesex
- Background to story:
- Civilian
- Article ID:
- A5382146
- Contributed on:
- 30 August 2005
Later on in the war we had the V1’s and the V2’s, and the doodlebugs. We’d see them going over and we’d say to them “keep going, keep going”.
The V2’s — if you heard them coming, you were perfectly safe, because they’d already exploded. They were so fast that they overtook their own sound. If you heard the rumbling sound of them coming — it would be after the sound you’d heard of them exploding.
They travelled apparently at 3000 miles an hour, although you could not see them as they were going that fast. They reckoned that, that they went 80 feet into the ground before they exploded. The damage caused by the V2’s was much more localised than it was of the flying bombs - the V1’s.
This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh of the BBC Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Alvin Mansfield and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
See more of Alvin's stories:
- School Shifts
- Just imagine the headlines!
- Underground tunnels
- The Evacuation Line
- An extra egg
- What an anti-climax!
- In retrospect I was very lucky
- Swaps
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