(bottom).

Phyllis Elder Matheson

"Rocket shells swished upwards,

tearing the night apart like a giant

hand tearing silk"

Phyllis Elder Matheson was born and grew up in Montreal. Before 1939,

she worked mornings as a private secretary to a Presbyterian minister.

Afternoons and evenings she worked with the Montreal Repertory

Theatre—acting and working backstage. After the war she

focused on her family and volunteering with

the Social Services in Montreal.

Most of my war service seems to have been at the wheel of a car. In 1939, immediately after Canada declared war, there was almost no military transport, so a group of women was organized as volunteer drivers with their own cars. We reported to Military District No. 4 Headquarters in the Sun Life Building in Montreal. I was assigned to a permanent force lieutenant who oversaw the building of guard huts on all the bridges over the river and canals on the south side of the island of Montreal. The only thing that made me official was an OHMS (On His Majesty’s Service) sign taped to the windshield of my car.

When that job finished I drove for the Child Welfare Association which organized the placement of evacuee children from England. The social workers visited the homes of all the people who had offered to take these evacuees, and we covered most of the Eastern Townships where many farm families had applied for children. We then drove the children to their new homes; that is until the ship City of Benares was sunk, and all the children aboard were lost. That put an end to the government evacuation scheme. I shall never forget the rows of empty beds that awaited the lost children in the reception centres.

At the beginning of 1941, I joined the Canadian Women’s Transport Service. This group was organized by the late Evelyn Chambers who had been awarded the Military Cross while working with the FANYs (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) during World War I. She had a FANY uniform sent from England as a model, and, apart from the nursing sisters, we were the first women in uniform in Canada during World War II. We were all volunteers who paid for our own uniforms and drove our own cars. Our nickname was The Cocktail Crowd in the Ice Bag Hats.

At first most of our work was connected with salvage. We had an enormous vehicle which had once been a mobile library, and we struggled up and down Montreal’s outside staircases with armfuls of magazines and newspapers. During the winter, the staircases were a nightmare. We also collected food hampers donated by a local grocery chain and delivered them to the needy families of some of the enlisted men.

Our training, which was to prepare us for overseas service, included first aid, home nursing, motor mechanics, poison gas courses, military map reading and army drill. The latter was conducted in the Grenadier Guards Armoury, by an NCO (non-commissioned officer), and we stamped and crashed our way around the Drill Hall with solemnity. What with the drilling and the heavy magazines it was no wonder that many of us developed back trouble. Later on, our drill sessions were moved to the Victoria Rifles Armoury, where the NCO in charge of us laughed himself sick and said that no one had marched like us since Queen Victoria had died.

When the Red Cross Society formed the Canadian Red Cross Corps, we were the nucleus of the Transport Division. We kept our uniforms, but were issued new cap and lapel badges. The other divisions of the Corps were the VADs (nursing), Food Administration and Office Administration. Each division had a distinctive uniform until we went overseas where we all wore the khaki uniforms of the Transport.

As members of the Red Cross Corps, our duties were now broadened to include the following: driving groups of men from factories to the Blood Donor Clinic and back to work again; taking the bottles of blood to the Canadian National Railway goods yards each evening; delivering samples of blood every afternoon to the Provincial Laboratory in Montreal for Wasserman tests; taking needles to the factory for sharpening and delivering; and picking up the empty blood bottles at the Royal Victoria Hospital where they were sterilized. All this was done in station wagons with removable seats, which belonged to the Red Cross.

In the autumn of 1941, five of us and our commandant, Mrs. Chambers, went to New York as guests of the American Red Cross. We led a parade of six thousand women in uniform down Fifth Avenue and were introduced to Mayor La Guardia. We were also entertained by two famous actresses, Leonora Corbett and Gertrude Lawrence. It was a memorable trip.

In order to conserve gasoline, the Red Cross acquired two motorcycles—one with a large box behind and one with a sidecar.

These were used for the transport of small items, including the Wassermann tubes, to the laboratory on Notre Dame Street East. This took place at 5 p.m. daily, right at rush hour. For motorcycle riding, we exchanged our khaki skirts for riding britches or jodhpurs. We created quite a sensation in downtown Montreal, especially when we stalled our machines in heavy traffic.

Those of us who owned cars were asked if we would volunteer to drive for the British Admiralty Technical Mission and the Allied Chemical Company. For this we were paid seven cents per mile, later increased to ten cents. Our passengers were munitions inspectors who travelled between the United Kingdom, Montreal and Washington, overseeing the production of munitions in local plants. This involved driving to Cherrier (just off the eastern end of the island of Montreal), Bouchard (just south of St. Jerome), Sherbrooke and Sorel, as well as many local factories. I saw the first tank christened at Montreal Locomotive Works and the first 25-pound gun at Sorel. I also chauffeured a British Army officer who was overseeing the shipping of tanks from the CPR Angus Shops to Russia. One group of munitions specialists set up a laboratory in the University of Montreal. I believe they were developing a new form of explosive. About that time all of us drivers were investigated by the RCMP. The conversations we overheard were probably top secret, but they were so scientific that they meant nothing to us.

In the spring of 1943, the first of our members went overseas. On the night of July 12, 1943, I boarded the S.S. Baltrover along with twelve other Red Cross women. There were two other groups of passengers: some English boys who had been at Canadian schools and were being sent home to England and a party of Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve sub-lieutenants who were being sent on active service for the first time. All through the hot July night, coal continued to rumble into the ship’s bunkers, making sleep impossible.

For five days the S.S. Baltrover beat her way up the coast, followed closely by five or six other freighters and shepherded by two small escorts. There was a stop, at anchor off Sydney, Nova Scotia, and at dawn on the fifth day the thinning mist of early morning cleared just enough to reveal the narrow entrance to the harbour of St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Government of Canada Labour Exit Permit, issued to Phyllis Elder, 1943.

While the rumble of the anchor chain hung on the still cold air, a naval patrol boat shot out from the harbour entrance, and as the engine died, drifted smoothly close to the ship. In the bows appeared the figure of a naval officer, swathed in a heavy duffel coat and holding a megaphone, through which he addressed the bridge of the ship. What is your name and the name of your owners? … What nationality? … Where are you bound? … What cargo? … How many passengers? … How many aliens? Apparently the answers were satisfactory, for he waved his hand and called out, We won’t keep you long—I hope. The engine of the small craft leapt to life, and it passed on to the next ship in the little convoy to repeat the performance.

In about half an hour, the patrol boat returned to the head of the convoy and led the little line of ships safely through the minefield and into the harbour. Here they dispersed to their allotted places among the many and varied craft: trim destroyers holding themselves disdainfully aloof from smoke-stained coasters and corvettes, and minesweepers whooping happily to each other as they came and went. The grey of the ships was repeated in the shabby grey shanties clinging to the rocky cliffs which rose sheer from the waterfront.

At night this grey world was blotted out by a strict blackout into which most of the ship’s crew disappeared as soon as they were off duty. Apparently there was more than just greyness to be found ashore for, some hours later, one of the crew came crawling aboard with his head split open, and several others didn’t appear at all. With a worried frown, the purser went ashore the next morning to bail them out of jail, returning with the report that they had all been in a fight, but that the crew would be complete when the ship was due to sail.

In St. John’s, the sub-lieutenants left the ship to report for active duty and more passengers came aboard, mostly women and children. All this time, cargo was being unloaded from the hold, then more cargo was stowed away, and four days after arrival, we were again ready to put to sea. At dawn we slipped quietly through the minefields, sailing alone to take up our place in the ocean convoy already assembling somewhere off the coast of Newfoundland. Before we reached the rendezvous the inevitable fog had engulfed us and we were left to wallow alone in the submarine-infested waters. For twelve hours we steamed slowly along, on a course parallel with the convoy, until finally, the fog lifted and we were able to slip thankfully into line.

The English schoolboys were pressed into service to help act as lookouts and to make up gun crews. The gunnery officer was a British Army corporal and the armament consisted of one Oerlikon gun on the afterdeck, and two machine guns, one at each end of the bridge. The boys had not been properly equipped for the North Atlantic weather, but the Newfoundland Red Cross had rectified that by giving them warm woolies. Everyone had been issued a life jacket and a waterproof suit which had to be carried at all times. Each life jacket had a small red light clipped to the shoulder, activated by a battery that fitted into a special pocket in the jacket. Everyone was ordered to sleep in slacks, sweaters and socks; an officer made rounds each night, shining a flashlight into each bunk to make sure that these orders were followed. There were daily boat drills, and the girls were made responsible for the safety of some of the children of those families with more than two. There was also daily gun drill, during which the corporal directed the schoolboys, and the Oerlikon gun was fired each day at noon, with great ceremony.

There were also other passengers aboard, but they were confined to the forward part of the ship, making the lounge out of bounds to everyone else. They were a party of Distressed British Seamen. These were men whose ships had been torpedoed and who were being taken back to England—incommunicado for security reasons.

There was little to relieve the monotony of the crossing which took two weeks from St. John’s to England. No one knew which port we were headed for—or if they did, they were not telling. The purser was a good friend and let us use his iron; in return, we ironed his shirts. One girl helped him with the account books and also helped the first officer in the infirmary. There being no doctor aboard, the two of them did their best with the help of a book for use on His Majesty’s ships at sea. The weather was good in parts and bad in others, and in bad weather the trip to the smoking room, the only sitting room available, was hazardous. Access to it was only from the deck, with ropes being strung along in rough weather to provide a handhold.

One of the women passengers, the mother of two small children, was more interested in the crew than in the welfare of her son and daughter. One particular night when they were crying miserably, two of the Red Cross girls could stand it no longer. They went to the cabin and found the children, who complained that they were itchy. On investigation, it was found that they were covered with flea bites—the ship was far from clean. The girls undressed and bathed the children, dusted them and the bunks with Keating’s Powder, and finally got the children to sleep. The powder had been bought in St. John’s when it was realized that there were some unregistered passengers on board.

Two years later, when a Red Cross girl was returning to Halifax, she was recognized by an immigration officer who said, Glad to see you made it across—we never thought you would! Before the war, the S.S. Baltrover had been considered too old for the North Atlantic, but had been reinstated due to the wartime shortage of ships.

As our convoy neared the Irish coast, a storm scattered the neat lines of grey ships, and those with deck cargo had to turn and run before the towering seas. Our passenger ship forged ahead at a snail’s pace, and twenty-three days after leaving Halifax, she was led through the minefields into the quiet waters of the Mersey.

On arrival in Liverpool we were met by an RTO sergeant who expected to be paid, in pounds sterling, for thirteen first-class tickets to London. The woman in charge of our party didn’t have the money and the situation seemed desperate until I remembered my mad money, a chamois bag worn around my neck which my father had filled with pound notes. Retiring behind some packing cases on the wharf, I partially undressed and produced enough pounds for the tickets—we were on our way!

It was the beginning of August 1943, and already the grass was growing among the heaps of rubble left by the German bombers, as though it could clothe the naked inner walls of buildings from which the outer walls had been torn. Beyond the port, the mellow English countryside looked much as it had in peacetime. There were fields under cultivation. The sturdy figures of the Land Army girls, the green and brown uniforms of working parties of Italian prisoners of war, coupled with the numerous airfields and army camps, were all additions to the peacetime landscape.

London is always London, but what a pitifully shabby London it was then: great gaping holes where buildings once stood, and those still standing were unbelievably dingy. Many of those which at first sight seemed to be undamaged were only empty shells. Ragged fragments of blackout curtains fluttered from what once were windows. Clouds of dust, which never seemed to have time to settle, swirled along the unwashed streets.

The people were almost as shabby as the buildings and they looked so tired. Before the war they had hurried along the streets, jumped on and off moving buses, and run up and down the escalators in the tube. Now they walked slowly and stood resignedly in queues for everything from fish to newspapers. At night many of them queued up again for a bunk in the underground tube stations. Whole families, carrying their bedding with them, went down night after night and slept there—within a few feet of the trains and almost under the feet of the passersby. Little children would run along to the canteen at the far end of the platform for a hot drink before they went to sleep. The wonder was that they could sleep in the midst of all this—these children who didn’t remember sleeping anywhere else.

That autumn and winter of 1943, London—in fact, the whole of England—was packed to overflowing with troops. Every conceivable uniform was to be seen on the streets. To men on leave, London seemed a Mecca. From August 1943 to January 1944, I worked in the B.C. House canteen, open to men and women of all services, all nationalities, everyone including the police force. The food ran short regularly, but we never stopped serving meals. Looking back, I wonder what we used, but wartime England had produced endless substitutes. We made custard with powdered milk—grated on a cheese grater because it always solidified—no

Canadian Red Cross Corps House, Queen’s Gate Terrace, London.

eggs and no sugar. The standard question was, Will you have sausages or hamburger?—What’s the difference?—One has skin and the other hasn’t. The law said they must contain at least forty percent meat. On Saturdays and Sundays, the line of men at the counter snaked between the tables, up the stairs and out into the street, and it seemed to be never-ending. One especially gruelling Sunday, an exhausted voice from behind the serving hatch exclaimed, The whole Canadian Army must be here today. Whereupon an equally exhausted voice from the waiting line answered, No, only half—the other half’s at the Beaver Club.

After one of those days we used to wonder whether we would ever get home, whether it was worth the effort of changing from smock to uniform and queuing for a bus. Sitting in the small stuffy dressing room, staring resignedly at our stained and roughened hands, it seemed easier to stay there until it was time to start work again. When the nights grew longer, going home meant groping through the blackout, very likely in an air raid, for at that time the Jerries were fond of short, early evening raids. Indoors, no one paid very much attention to them, but outside there was bound to be shrapnel, and it would be so stupid to be killed by one’s own guns.

During the autumn and winter of 1943, there were several weddings in the Canadian Red Cross Hostel. In many cases, the bridegroom’s leave was put forward suddenly, and the ceremonies took place at very short notice. My roommate, who had been engaged for two years, woke me up at seven one morning and said, If I can get a special license, will you be my bridesmaid this afternoon? From then on, that day will always be a rather blurred memory but, with the help of everyone who was off duty, the wedding did take place that afternoon, complete with a full service, organist, flowers, reception and wedding cake. Someone even had the groom’s best uniform pressed and his buttons polished. Those weddings were always very happy affairs. Everyone worked hard but enjoyed doing it. They were often the scene of happy reunions—friends who had been stationed in different parts of the country for months would find themselves standing side-by-side in the crowded dining room of the hostel.

In January 1944, I was fortunate enough to be transferred back to my old job as a transport driver. Our vehicles were wooden-bodied station wagons, of assorted vintages, with the Canadian Red Cross emblem painted on the side. The Brits referred to them as shooting brakes! After working in the canteen underground, it was a wonderful relief to get back to a job in the fresh air—even in the English winter. The best part of the job was delivering supplies to Canadian medical units stationed outside London. The soft, faded colours of the winter sunlight were kinder to the shabby buildings than the clearer summer light. Supplies were delivered regularly to medical units stationed all through Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire, which meant driving through some of the most beautiful country in England. There were occasional trips to places farther afield. I remember the awful devastation of Coventry and the beauty of the Essex countryside after a winter storm which had left each tree and hedge clothed in a sheet of silver ice.

Earlier, when there had been a threat of invasion, all the place names and road signs had been removed, so finding one’s way about the country was difficult. The only thing that didn’t change was the names of the pubs, and we used them as our sign posts. One was told to go as far as the Jolly Roger, where the left fork went to Staines and the right to Slough. To hear us giving directions to each other sounded as though our life was one big pub crawl.

The city streets were confusing, too; many of those shown on the map didn’t exist anymore. They had been obliterated by the Blitz. I remember once suddenly finding myself in the middle of Billingsgate, reputedly one of the toughest districts in London. The narrow street was teeming with men hurrying back and forth with fish baskets piled high on their heads and shouting to one another in unintelligible Cockney. One of them stopped by the car and I quite expected to be told to Get the blinkin’h—out of here! But instead he said, Kin I ’elp ye, miss? When I said that I was looking for the Customs House, he said, Strite along, on yer right, miss. Then he bellowed at the others, Out of the way, you up there—the lady wants to come through! Miraculously the road ahead cleared and through I went.

The London bobbies were wonderfully helpful. One day, one of our drivers was sent to deliver a parcel to Mrs. Churchill. At the entrance to Downing Street, the policeman on duty stopped her and asked where she was going. When she told him she had a parcel for Mrs. Churchill, he said, with all seriousness, Oh yes, miss, she lives at No. 10—just over there.

Downing Street reminds me of Buckingham Palace and the thrill I received when I first drove through those gates, taking my passenger to an audience with the Queen. On another occasion, one of our ancient vehicles nearly broke down outside the back door of the Palace. The driver had been sent to collect some honey which Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret donated regularly to the Red Cross Children’s Nurseries. With a vague picture of a few tins of honey in her mind’s eye, the driver lightheartedly set off for the Palace. About an hour later she came back looking very upset, and exclaimed, The Princesses must have the most prolific bees in the world; they loaded honey into the station wagon until the springs almost touched the ground. I very nearly couldn’t get going and had visions of being towed away. I’ve crawled all the way back along Piccadilly, with everyone honking at me, and if we don’t get the car unloaded immediately it will fall apart in the street.

During February and March of 1944 the Germans stepped up their raids on London, and we had what was commonly known as the Little Blitz. The raids lasted only an hour or two, but sometimes there were two or three Alerts in one night. On one unforgettable night, we heard a bomb whistle, and not long after, two came down at the corner of the street where we lived. The second two bombs didn’t whistle like the first bomb we heard—they were too close for that. They made a noise like an express train going past at high speed. Then everything seemed to heave up, the house swayed and showers of glass and rubble came down all around.

One of the bombs was a new type of incendiary—highly efficacious. The building it hit was about six storeys high and was instantly smothered in a sheet of flame. Someone came and said that the gas main, which passed under our house, was burning and that we must be ready to leave at any moment. Apparently they got it under control, as we didn’t blow up, and eventually most of the household went back to bed. Tomorrow was another day starting at 7 a.m. and sleep was the most important thing at the moment. The unfortunate girls on the fire-watch team spent what remained of the night sitting on the roof.

The next day, the repair squad appeared and asked if they might set up a temporary office in our house. In return we got our windows replaced—with cardboard—before anyone else in the street. We also found ourselves running a non-stop canteen in our kitchen, feeding sandwiches and tea to the workmen, so it was a doubtful advantage.

After that particular incident, new air-raid precautions were enforced at our hostel. When the Alert sounded, we all had to don tin hats, respirators and haversacks containing a change of clothing. Then we were herded down into the cellars where we stood propped against the stone walls of the passages, with the door leading to the outside area left open for easy exit. It was extremely cold and our minds went numb with tiredness, but there we had to stay until the All Clear sounded. One night a girl came down eating a piece of cake. When someone remarked that it seemed an odd time for a snack, the cake-eater answered, I had been saving it for tomorrow, but decided to have it now. After all, I may not be alive to enjoy it tomorrow.

Early in 1944, our headquarters was moved from Berkeley Square to Burlington Gardens and new fire-watch teams were organized. Now we each had to do fire-watch duty twice in every nine nights—once at the hostel and once at headquarters. At the hostel, six girls were on duty each night. Two had to stay awake for two hours while the other four slept on mattresses in the next room. Very few of us were able to sleep at all under these conditions. Nevertheless, we were all on regular duty again the following day.

At headquarters there was an ARP (Air-Raid Precaution) post under one corner of the building, and this was manned each night by representatives of all the tenants in the block. In addition to the other Red Cross girls, my team consisted of an elderly man from the Red Cross shipping department, an orchestra leader who was often away on tour, a Jewish tailor who spent the evenings busily sewing decorations on American uniforms, and two hat check girls from the Bucks Club who rejoiced in the improbable names of Keene and Mustard. We all reported to the post as soon as the day’s work was over and were given five shillings with which to buy dinner. Any restaurant we patronized was supposed to be not more than one hundred yards from the post, but this was stretched to allow us to go as far as Shaftesbury Avenue, there being no restaurants closer than that.

Accommodation was provided for us to sleep in the post: two small, stuffy brick cells with double-decker bunks opened off the central room. However, we were allowed to sleep upstairs in our building, provided that we immediately reported to the post when the Alert sounded. Sleeping on the lower floors near the shipping department was unpleasant because of the rats among the packing cases, but these never bothered us on the upper floors, where we set up canvas cots in the offices. When the Alert sounded, we broke all speed records getting down the stairs, out into the street and around the corner to the post. The orchestra leader used to complain that we always made it before he had time to climb into his trousers. In the morning we entertained all the fire-watch team with breakfast in the headquarters canteen where we made them toast and coffee.

By springtime, preparations for the Allied invasion of Europe had accelerated. D-Day had been talked about for so long that when it actually arrived, no one could really believe it. For months ahead of time, southern England was one great big armed camp. Troops were everywhere and the roads were a solid mass of moving convoys. Our trips to the Canadian Army hospitals would have been almost impossible, had it not been for the motorcycle dispatch riders who rode with every convoy. They would see the station wagon with the Red Cross insignia and would lead us through and past the long line of vehicles, sending us on our way with a cheery wave. The whole of southern England became a restricted area and we were issued laissez-passers which read: This is to certify that Miss________ is a driver for the Canadian Red Cross Society. Her work involves the conveyance of supplies and personnel to Canadian Military Hospitals, some of which are in the restricted area. She always returns the same day. It is requested that she be allowed to carry out these services. We particularly enjoyed the part about always returning the same day: if our lives were not very well protected, our virtue most certainly was.

On D-Day I had to deliver supplies to a hospital at Cuckfield, only about sixteen miles from the south coast. It was unbelievable: all the troop concentrations had gone, the countryside was deserted, and only the sound of birds broke the silence. I said a silent prayer for the men who had been there so recently.

With the invasion came a new visitor to London. One evening the Alert sounded and we all trooped down to the cellars. Distant gunfire rumbled through the warm, still air. Suddenly the heavy guns in Hyde Park took up the chorus. Next the mobile naval gun nearby opened up—something was very close. The gunfire became frenzied, the naval gun sounded like an angry watchdog barking at a prowler in the night. Rocket shells swished upwards, tearing the night apart like a giant hand tearing silk. Through all this came the sound of a strangely sputtering engine—flying very low. Would it clear the roof? Instinctively everyone crouched down as the noise went over and around and then started to fade into the distance. No one moved for a moment and then someone whispered, What the Hell was that?

All through that night the guns muttered and grumbled and roared at intervals. They appeared angry and baffled by this new menace which flew so low that it was beneath their range. For three days and nights they were almost never silent, and the air was full of falling shrapnel which did almost as much damage as the new bomb. The people were dazed with the noise and fear of this new weapon. It struck at anything and everything. In the daytime it could be seen flying low, like a blunt-winged plane with curved fuselage, carrying a curious-looking tube on its tail. At night its path was marked by the red flare that streaked out behind it, and always there was the unmistakable stutter of its engine. When the engine stopped, the thing went into a glide—sometimes for a few yards, sometimes for a mile or more. Usually it glided straight ahead, but sometimes it banked around like a plane about to land. These were the infamous buzz bombs.

One never knew where the bombs would fall. Sometimes a bomb would hit a train or the tracks and cause a delay, but a repair gang would immediately set to work and the line would be serviceable again in a matter of hours. Other times a bomb would fly along beside a moving train; then suddenly, as if by some quirk of fate, it would turn away and hit a nearby building. The train passengers would see destruction and death receding into the distance and wonder why it had been someone else’s turn to die. Sometimes a busload of people would come close to oblivion and have to throw themselves under the seats. The greatest damage, apart from a direct hit, was caused by flying glass. The bombs did not penetrate very deeply into the ground but the surface blast covered a wide area. In a closely built-up East End district, one bomb damaged fifty houses.

The windows of buses and underground trains were made shatterproof by a protective covering, making it very difficult to see out. To deter people from pulling off this covering, there were illustrated posters bearing the admonition:

Please pardon me

For my correction,

That stuff is there

For your protection.

On the edge of one of the posters someone had scrawled the retort:

I thank you

For your information

But I can’t see

The bloody station!

The southern and eastern districts of London bore the brunt of the attacks. In some areas scarcely a single house was left undamaged. Repair men were everywhere, boarding up broken windows and attempting to make the damaged houses habitable. In most cases, only one room could be repaired, and the family had to live in it. The repairs never stopped because the task was gigantic. Repairmen were killed by blasts which hurled them from their ladders or scaffolding. The hospitals were filled with casualties, including women and children, slashed beyond recognition by flying glass.

The authorities gave permission to the Canadian Red Cross to donate blankets and clothing to these casualties, and we delivered packing cases to hospitals in all the hardest hit districts. These supplies enabled the less serious but homeless casualties to be evacuated to a rest centre, thus freeing beds for the new casualties which the morrow would inevitably bring.

The West End, although it did not suffer so badly, was by no means untouched. At noon one day the Annex of the Regent’s Palace Hotel was hit. One night Conduit Street was smashed and the south side of Berkeley Square was damaged. On two occasions a piece was blown out of the garden of Buckingham Palace. The blast swept across Green Park, and all the buildings along Piccadilly, from Hyde Park Corner to the Park Lane Hotel, lost their windows. One Sunday the Guards’ Chapel received a direct hit during morning service and one night an American barracks in Chelsea received a direct hit. The next morning, men’s bodies were still being carried out and laid in rows along the pavement. Strange to think that only the night before, these silent forms were probably strolling along Piccadilly, whistling at silken ankles passing in the blackout.

All through these months the ARP (Air-Raid Precaution) Services did a magnificent job. Almost before the dust of an explosion had settled, they were at the scene and each department was doing its work quickly and quietly. Operations were directed by a central figure called the Incident Officer. As the various services arrived at the scene, they reported to and took their orders from him. Mobile first-aid units were set up in the nearest undamaged building. Rescue squads carried out the casualties, the Incident Officer having obtained a list of the inhabitants of the building from the local air-raid warden. The ambulances transported the serious cases to hospitals and the walking cases to the nearest rest centres—and suddenly, miraculously, comparative order was restored. If the water, gas and electricity supply had been cut, mobile bath units would appear on the scene and the Ministry of Food Flying Squad Mobile Canteens would feed