woman next to her whisper under her breath, ‘Come on, lads, see them off.’
All eyes were centred on the map, on those twenty-two planes, and all ears were attuned to the ceiling. She, like everyone else, had been taught in basic training that the bombs made a whistling sound as they got closer to the ground. Lizzie closed her eyes and counted the seconds being ticked off by the room’s lumbering clock, trying to focus more intently on any sound above her head. What would it be like to have a bomb drop on top of her? Could the operations room protect them? Or would she be one of the early casualties of the war on British soil?
Her thoughts were interrupted by Stan giving her new coordinates and with a sense of relief she noticed it appeared the bombers had missed Kenley altogether and were flying north. She was surprised – maybe they were heading for Croydon. There were some RAF fighters there on the airfield and it was where her barracks were. But surely with all the tracking equipment here, Kenley was a much more logical target. Over her headphones she listened to the British pilots as they communicated among themselves, trying to make sense of it all.
‘Red two, I’m engaging bombers going in.’
‘Roger Red Two, coming in behind.’
‘Got the lead bomber in my sights – firing.’
‘Going around.’
‘Coming in from your right – firing. I think I hit the gunner.’
‘Damn, what the hell are they doing? The Jerries appear to be panicking, they are dropping their bombs everywhere. The lead pilot is heading for the ground. Staying on him.’
‘Direct hit! Direct hit! I got him, his wing’s on fire.’
‘He’s descending to try and put it out. Staying with him. It will be hard to get out of that dive.’
‘It looks as if he only just made that but he is hedge-hopping. I’m staying with him, firing again.’
‘Direct hit, direct hit! He’s losing altitude, heading for the woods, no sign of a chute.’
‘He’s down! He’s down! Crashed in the woods, plane’s on fire. I don’t think he will be walking away from that.’
Another voice came over their headsets. ‘Well done, Red Two. We need you back up here to finish the rest.’
In the plotting room they all breathed a sigh of relief as the lead plane had been destroyed and the squadron continued to pick off as many of the rest of the bombers as they could.
At the end of her shift, she went to have a tea break before she went back to barracks. It was while she was in the canteen that some of their fighter pilots appeared and sat at the table next to her. They were talking in a very animated way, and she could overhear the conversation.
She gathered from what they were saying that even though Kenley had been spared, the Germans had dropped their bombs on RAF Croydon instead, which was four miles north. The Croydon airfield, which had been London’s public aerodrome before the RAF had taken it over on the first day of the war, had mainly factories and residential homes all around it. Lizzie felt the air catch in her throat. From what the fighters went on to describe, it appeared there had been a significant loss of life and explosions that had taken place beyond the boundaries of the airfield itself. If this was correct, it would be the first time the Germans had dropped bombs on a civilian area.
Finishing up her tea, Lizzie knew she needed to get over to her barracks to see if everyone was all right. Managing to get a lift from another officer, they started their way across the few miles to the airfield. When they got there, the overwhelming devastation was evident. Lizzie never realized how intense the bombs could be; twisted metal and piles of crumbled stone were everywhere. The acrid smell of smoke and burned wood swirled around them as did the ash that rained down on the truck as if it was snowing. It was hard as they drove for Lizzie to distinguish any landmarks, because the ruined buildings were all just heaped into broken, smouldering masses.
As they inched forwards, making their way as best they could, it was obvious the bombs had hit some of the neighbouring houses as well as the several factories that had surrounded the airfield. It was at the end of the afternoon shift, but the factories would still have been packed with workers. Firefighters were