Gwen was born in 1936, just a few years before war in Europe. She remembers her father holding her in his arms at their home on the outskirts of London and telling her that the red sky was London burning.
She also remembers the German missiles fired in their direction. They called them “doodlebugs” because of the unusual sound they made coming through the air. When the sound stopped, that meant the missile was about to fall to the ground whereever it was at the time.
Before the missiles, the airplanes would fly over and bomb London. The people had a chance to sound the alarm when planes were sighted. Gwen remembers that the government built small bomb shelters for each family. They called them Anderson shelters. She remembers making many trips to the Anderson shelters.
When the Germans began firing missiles, especially the V2, there was not time to sound the alarm. She recalls one day they heard one flying over and suddenly the sound stopped. Her father moved immediately to get everyone under the kitchen table which was the closest cover of any kind.
The missile landed nearby and the explosion shook everything in the house. Gwen could not get one leg under the table and she felt something hit her leg. She began crying, thinking that her leg had been blown off. As it turned out it was a butter dish that fell from the table on her leg. It didn’t leave a mark. She said that her brothers still tormented her long into her adulthood about her leg being blown off by a butter dish.
Elementary school children were issued gas masks. There was nowhere they could go to rid themselves of the reality of war in their own back yard.
Rationing was serious business. It was taken so seriously that her father was stopped one day with a pound of butter and he didn’t have the rationing book with him to show that he was authorized to have it. He spent two weeks in jail for breaking the rationing rules.
The government made plans to evacuate the children out of the city to the countryside. Gwen was supposed to go with her brothers but they were separated. She said that the people in the country were not very welcoming to the children coming in from London. Gwen wondered how we, in the rural areas, would respond today to a lot of children coming to our schools from Atlanta, Chicago, or New York.
Shortly after the evacuation, Gwen’s mother came to visit and did not like some of the conditions. She took Gwen and her brothers back home with her and said that if a bomb hit the house, they would all go together.
She had fond memories of the American troops who were there. They were the friendliest and treated the children the best.
Gwen married an American serviceman and they moved to Germany where they got to know a German couple. She realized that not all Germans were bad.
As Gwen reflected on her own life she said, “I’m British by birth, American by choice, and Christian by the saving grace of Jesus Christ.” That’s a great way to look at life.
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