Monday 3 June 2013

The Bomber Over Hampstead Heath


sweffling at stopping by woods wrote a thoughtful post about seeing and hearing a Lancaster bomber flying in the skies above her peaceful Derbyshire hills on the recent anniversary of RAF raids on the Ruhr dams, the Dambusters.  When she heard it "My legs turned to jelly, and silly old woman that I am, I felt very tearful and afraid.  It was the shape, the low rumble of engines, the vibrations and the potential.  Also the history.” she wrote. 

It’s alright, I want to say to her, don’t be afraid, it’s one of yours. 




It’s very different when the sound is deeply etched into your subconscious as a fearful noise you heard as a toddler, when your mother carried you, in your laundry basket bed, down steep stairs into the dark recesses of the coal cellar, lit, at pavement level, by the narrow slit of the open coal hole. The terror a mother feels, alone and helpless, is automatically transmitted to her baby. 

The day I was suddenly, literally out of the blue, reminded of the terror, Beloved and I were walking on Hampstead Health. It was one of those rare summer mornings in England when the air is soft and balmy, when the greensward shimmers with the last of the overnight dew, and people smile greetings at each other. London lay spread out below us and we could see the dome of St Paul’s and the towers of the City glinting in the light. We were also newly in love and nothing was further from my blissful mind than long-forgotten demons. And then it happened: one minute we were walking side by side, holding hands, the next I was diving into a gorse and bramble thicket edging the path. “What on earth are you doing,” Beloved shouted, utterly surprised. “The plane, the bomber, can you not hear it”, I said, cowering in the dirt.  On that day too the Lancaster’s flight commemorated a sortie in the bombers’ eventful and deadly history and the deep drone had caused a small child’s terror to resurface,  the very instant of hearing it, in the adult woman.

“It’s alright”, Beloved laughed, “It’s one of ours.” But, of course, it hadn’t been, all those years ago.


41 comments:

  1. I thank God everyday that I have never had to experience anything like that. I'm blessed.

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  2. This is a very powerful memory. I wonder if I have a trigger like that I haven't actually experienced. Beautifully written, too, I might add. Thank you. :-)

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  3. So well written...I was in the brambles with you..holding you tight. Don't quake child...it will pass.
    Hugs
    SueAnn

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  4. Friko, I can connect with your reaction. Ever since that certain September day in NYC, I keep an eye on the sky and am shy of low flying planes and copters and the loud sounds from fighter jets streaking across the sky. Oh yes.

    xo

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  5. A very moving and beautifully written piece, Friko. Terror is terror from wherever it comes. I am so glad that the end of that terrible war led to peace and most important of all reconciliation. We drove through Shropshire yesterday and I thought of you...

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  6. it etches pretty deep in your subconscious when you are faced with such a hard reality...i def can understand the reaction...oy...

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  7. Do you think it was the fear communicated to you as a child that brought about that reaction?

    My mother went through both strafing and bombing in the war as a young woman, not to speak of doodlebugs and V1s, but seems to have had no lasting effects from it as far as 'planes are concerned, save to remember seeing Lancasters coming back from a bombing raid when she was taking a break in Suffolk and the lines of ambulances awaiting them on the airfield.

    That still upsets her where being under bombardment doesn't.

    Being older at the time of the experience perhaps? I don't know.

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  8. One of the great good fortunes in this life of mine is not to have experienced that.

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  9. When I was born, that particular war had already been over for almost 25 years, but I grew up surrounded by similar stories.
    My Mum was born in August 1944; she was barely a few hours old when there was an air raid and her mother and all the other patients at the hospital were taken to the shelter.

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  10. I grew up at the end of the RAF Scampton runway - home of the Dambusters. This was long after WWII. The sound I grew up with -in the 60s- was the sound of Vulcan jets practising for the day they would deliver the Bomb, if ordered to. Large, grassed over concrete bunkers held -it was said- the actual atom bombs.

    At the gate stood a Lancaster. I got to know it when very small, at an age where I appreciated swings and climbing frames. I always wanted to clamber about inside it - although of course I never could. Sight of a Lancaster always takes me back to those days.

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  11. Hi Friko - your story reminds me I was lucky enough not to experience any of that - having been born after the War .. but your words ring terror in my heart, as those experiences must have been much worse for you and your family all those years ago.

    From this post - that terror must have been truly horrendous - and you've expressed that in just a few words .. very chilling .... and very thought provoking -

    With thoughts - Hilary

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  12. Chilling. As Frances says, 9/11 has brought a little bit of that fear here to us in the U.S. Still, nothing compared to England in WWII.

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    1. HI Tom, I believe Frico was talking about her experience in German during the war, which towards the end of the war was far worse than in England, where complete villages and cities were leveled by these bombers.

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  13. What a frightening memory and response. You wrote about it as if it was part of my memory as well. Thankfully, it is not.

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  14. No child ... or adult , come to that ... should ever experience a bombing raid . Tragically , there is always somewhere in the world where they are a daily occurence .

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  15. I think the fear we experience as small children can leave a truly indelible mark on our minds and hearts. You capture this with piercing clarity and deep emotion and bring home to us luckier ones what it was like to live through such experiences at an age when you couldn't understand or process what was happening. Very powerful writing.

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  16. We call this PTSD now and no longer ignore when our war weary are brought home. We try to fix it and sometimes do.

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  17. The memories of childhood - both good and bad - are buried deep.

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  18. Oh, Friko -- yes, indeed. I can only imagine, though other sounds have triggered my emotions, but I suspect not nearly to that extent. It's a wonderful story, in its way -- and yet so sad that you had to endure that experience as a child. That anyone did. Beautifully told -- thank you for sharing it.

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  19. This is a powerful story and indicative of how deeply ingrained in the psyche our memories and experiences are.
    Sorry you had to go through that as a child.

    "/

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  20. Oh Friko. Such terror lodged deep that explodes into action when triggered. I'm sorry. But I'm in awe at how well you've conveyed that memory to the page.

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  21. Powerful memories. I saw evidence of this in my dad one 4th of July fireworks display here years ago. He was a medical officer right behind the front lines in Germany during the war. PTSD for sure. I am certainly glad that he, and you, survived.

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  22. I can understand how this terror has stayed with you and was triggered so easily. I was born 15 years after the war ended. In the town where I grew up we had a division of the Belgian military stationed, and they often rode their tanks along the street that was very close to the house we lived in. They loved to do this in the middle of the night, and it scared me to death as a small child. Since then I cannot hear the sound of a tank without shivering.

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  23. A heart-hurting and beautifully written reminder. My mother was buried under a bombed house for two days and to the end of her life an ambulance siren made her cringe.

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  24. My wife grew up close to the Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. She was nine years old when the Cuban missile crisis happened, and she has a memory of the sound of the bombers taking off, and going to the underground shelter in case the base was a target of missile attack. Happily none of those things happened. When you were a child, the bombs really fell many times, and so you must have been terrified. Let us pray that some day children will no longer experience this fear.

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  25. I don't remember bombing I was born in 43. But my mother was traumatized her whole life long each time she heard a siren's wailing or a thunderstorm, she always hid in the basement. It's only when I was a teenager that I understood her strange behaviour. They lived in Frankfurt/Main at that time which was destroyed to 90 %.

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  26. Thanks for these memories Friko I often wonder how German people coped with the war and bombings during WW2. If the British suffered serious bombing I am sure your people did too. War is rotten. If politicians had to go and fight first there wouldn't be wars - Dave

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  27. Yes really, what a scary memory! There is a million things to be said about war... So sad!

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  28. I was living in Hawaii when Hollywood made the film 'Tora Tora Tora' about the attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. The bombers were a friendly sight after the enemy aircraft (Zeros) 'bombed the Arizona and all the other ships in the harbor.' A friend of mine, a young Japanese-American boy at the time, says he climbed on the roof of his house and watched the bombing.

    The saddest sound I heard for over two years during the Viet Nam War was the bombers taking off from Hickam Air Field carrying troops and munitions out and bringing the dead and wounded in.

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  29. There are memories I have that are so deeply ingrained that I cannot help but react instinctively. Glad your Beloved was with you.

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  30. I wonder if in many ways the relationship you have with Beloved was crystalized this day, the day when he so kindly and reassuringly told you that this bomber was "one of ours." This story, so hauntingly beautifully told, tells us so much of your life. Those war years must have been so hard for both sides. Thanks for sharing this story with us.

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  31. Moments and memories of terror have such staying power. How horrifying those wars years must have been for those caught in the conflict, whatever side one was on. I'm so glad Beloved is still by your side to reassure you and help to calm the old terrors.

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  32. I can very well imagine the blood pounding in your ears. I've often expressed my displeasure with Americans who think they know all about war. You don't know until the bombs are dropping right over you. We are, at times(Americans), well-meaning but clueless.

    My maternal grandmother was killed by an American bomb dropped on Bologna during WW2. She'd been worried that my father, her only son, would die as an officer in the army, but dad survived & she was killed.

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  33. Excellent post - most Americans have always held such high respect for those who endured the continual pounding you all received during WW2 - and how you managed to do that with such stamina.
    While never had the same experience, the sound of a Huey helicopter always brings me up to full alert and I am once again a new bride with a husband fresh out of Army flight school and preparing to head over to Vietnam for the first of his two tours. I can pick that sound out of all the many helicopters that are around.

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  34. This puts me in mind of many things (Sebald, for one, whose work I so admire but know at the same time I can never understand it as you do). One is the 4th of July in the US. I often wonder how people here would react to the fireworks if they'd had a real-life experience like yours. To me, there is something unsavory about them, particularly the noise-makers. "Most early fireworks were simply repurposed military munitions, fired for entertainment rather than to frighten or kill the enemy," one site explains. What are we to make of these bombs become toys?

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  35. i can understand your reaction entirely

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  36. Dear Friko, just over for a visit. How we do get away from visiting those we once visited so regularly. I have been going over my followers list and visiting some I have not been to for awhile. Your writing is so vivid and the comments add to the story. We live near Fort Knox and that is the closest I have ever been to battle sounds. Sometimes they rattle our windows. I sure remember the war time. One day America may be hit with newer and more devastating weapons. One never knows. Blessings to you and yours.
    Peggy

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  37. Something only you and others have experienced can only truly understand, Friko. All I can offer is compassion - and hope that someday children will not have to experience such terror. sweffling's post and reaction must have brought out your own long ago terror. Well written, Friko.

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  38. I understand, Friko.

    My husband grew up in St. Albans during the war. During the Blitz, the bombers on their way back to Germany used to jettison their unused bombs over the Hertfordshire countryside. Though his family home was never hit, one of the bombs landed across the road from his school. The crater is still there, full of weeds and scrub brush, now furnishing a home for rabbits and badgers. But to this day, the sound of certain sirens still raises the hairs on the back of his neck.

    You can live through -- and past -- some things, but the fear never entirely goes away ...

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  39. An extremely moving post Friko. I am very sorry if my post wakened these memories for you. Thank you for referencing me albeit I was the cause of returned pain.

    I am beginning to think that trauma leaves its marks on us all, whatever and whenever. It is not just the diagnosed pstd which goes so deep. Even hearing of someone else's terror can remain with us for ever. But I suppose that is how species learn to survive: take account of danger and avoid in future. However, if only we could learn and remember the lesson without the accompanying emotions replaying as swell.

    I hope the gardening is burying the immediate sharpness of the memories again: it is so healing, being as it is, the antithesis of pain and destruction.

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