Wartime life
Elaine Piesse recalls living on an American airbase during the Second World War...
‘I was responsible for my sister and Mother’s strict instructions were loud in my head’
It was 1944 and I was stopped from getting my little sister home from school on the American airbase where we lived. What was stopping me? A big man in a uniform with a rifle, that’s what! England was still at war and children were scattered all round the country, away from London and the bombing. I must have been just eight and my little sister Janet, five. We were walking hand in hand home from school and were surprised and a bit frightened to find a soldier blocking our path. He told us to go away, we couldn’t go any further. “But we must,” I cried, “We live here, our mummy will be waiting for us.” He must have realised then he had a problem and invited us to sit in his little hut while he made a phonecall. Now I didn’t know what to do… I was responsible for my sister and Mother’s strict instructions to, “Keep hold of her hand, come straight home and talk to no-one,” were loud in my head so I decided we would wait outside. Mother was contacted and arrived to collect us. What was going on? We were just told, “Don’t ask questions.” We had previously been staying in Cambridge; quite how we came to be there I don’t know, but I presume it was to do with the evacuation. I had been in a sanatorium with TB and my mother and baby sister had been bombed out twice in South London. I think the authorities must have taken pity, decided we should all be together, and sent us to stay with a family in Cambridge. I do remember Father visiting us there just once. He had on a blue suit and it seemed he was not supposed to be there, but I think he must have been so longing to see Mother and the little girl he had left as a sickly child that he managed it, and Mother took me with her to meet him. We met at a phone box in a lane and he was soon gone. I later learned the blue suit was an indication of a member of the Armed Forces undergoing hospital treatment. We didn’t see him anymore during the war, but Mother kept him up to date on both his little daughters with photographs over the long years he was in Egypt with the Eighth Army. One of those photos caused an Egyptian engineer to offer to buy me. How could Father have refused an offer of six camels? Luckily he did! We moved again when Mother was invited to join her parents on an American Air Force base at Wormingford in Essex, where they would be running the canteen for the hundreds of air force personnel. It seemed to be a secret and I was sure that meant we would be getting out of school! No such luck. Very much against our will we still had to attend school, which involved what seemed to us a very long walk twice a day. We soon made friends at school because we were able
to supply chocolates and lots of cookies, given to us by the generous American airmen, no doubt missing their own families and spoiling us. I don’t recall any other children on the base but there must have been other catering staff with families living nearby, borne out by the social activities such as the dances my mother so much enjoyed and where she learned to jive. We spent only one Christmas there and I remember it well. We had happily gone to bed early with the promise, “Father Christmas will still come, maybe in one of the big aeroplanes instead of with reindeer.” We had been told not to expect too much because,
‘We soon made friends at school because we were able to supply chocolates...’
“There’s a war on.” That year I knew just who Father Christmas was because I roused, having heard a man’s voice. I realised he was putting things in the pillowcases we had put at the end of the bed and heard my Mother whisper, “Be quiet, don’t wake them up.” In the morning I knew for sure it was an American Father Christmas because we had books, crayons and a rag doll each. There was also nuts and all sorts of sweets for us, nylons and chocolate for the ladies and Grandfather enjoyed a cigar or two, none of which other people would have had at that time in the war years – a fact we were frequently reminded of by Grandmother. It seemed to me to be a happy place with dances and concerts and smiling faces, so why the sudden strict security stopping two little girls getting home in time for their tea...? It was, of course, all about D-Day and the Americans were joining other British and American Air Force squadrons. Naturally I knew nothing of that at the age of eight but to this day I remember the sight and sound of what seemed to be a black mass of aircraft disappearing into the distance. A strange quiet followed with many sad, worried adult faces and everyone seemed to go to bed early that night. Very soon after, we returned to London to live with our other grandparents and await the homecoming of Father in 1945. We didn’t lose the goodies altogether as Mother always kept a tin of sweets on a high shelf and allowed us a few before cleaning our teeth at bedtime. She no doubt went without a lot of things to enable us to continue with sweets as they remained on ration for a long time. So many years have passed since then but I still love sweets and chocolate!