In June 1944, the Germans started sending V1 Flying bombs to bomb London. We called these V1s “Doodlebugs”. A doodlebug was really a bomb with wings. It looked like a small aeroplane and had no pilot – a bit like a cruise missile, but slightly bigger. Thousands of these doodlebugs were launched against London. I remember them very clearly. They made a sound like a lorry engine going very fast. They kept flying until they ran out of fuel. Then they simply fell to the ground and exploded. Whenever we heard a doodlebug everyone looked up and followed it with their eyes until it had gone over past where we were standing. If the engine stopped before it got to us that was the time to worry! Sometimes a doodlebug dropped to earth immediately and sometimes it would continue to glide, gradually losing height. Very scary!
My mother worked in London during WWII and told us she could have been killed by a Doodlebug as one fell in a neighbouring street. However, I think this must have been after she worked there as I know she later became a Land Girl in the Women’s Land Army. I was born in November 1944 at Charing Cross Maternity Hospital which was evacuated to Berkhamsted, a long way from the bombs. So my song isn’t entirely truthful, but I’m not really sure as I assume she must have been living in London in 1944 to have been referred to Charing Cross. It’s a mystery which I cannot solve as my mum now has dementia and can barely speak never mind recall the war.
DOODLEBUGS
My mother worked her socks off once in London town,
Back in Nineteen-Forty-Four when the Doodlebugs came down.
It was old Adolf’s master plan to bring us to our knees,
But Londoners said. ’Not a chance. Till hell itself do freeze.’
But Doodlebugs were awful smart, and very hard to beat.
Too high for anti-aircraft guns at near four thousand feet.
But the brave lads of the RAF so valiantly did try,
To fly along and tip ‘em up and knock ‘em from the sky.
Now every day me mother went to work by omnibus,
Despite the devastation carried on without much fuss.
Till one gloomy afternoon they heard an awful sound,
And knew that when the noise did cease, a buzz-bomb would fall down.
No time to run, no time to hide and barely time to pray.
In the silence that befell me mother’s street that day.
Her heart it did stop beating along with all her friends,
Would they live another day or meet an horrible end.
The Doodlebug came crashing down and smashed the neighbourhood,
All windows they were broken as every building shook.
But lucky for my mother it landed in the next street,
For it was not her time right now, the angels for to meet.
Now later in that year was born a handsome little chap,
As mother managed to survive her Nazi bomb attack.
And as we all know very well old Hitler he did fail,
But I grew up to be a man to tell this Doodlebug tale.