A Land Mine in Burnham-on-Crouch

Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex was the most unlikely place to be a target for a German bomber. It is situated about fifty miles from London and is famous not for heavy industry, but for yachting. Yet on September 21st 1940, after another attach on London, a German Heinkel 111 was heading back home, still carrying a land mine, which the pilot decided to unload so that he could get away quickly.

Only the day before, my father brought the bed downstairs - we did not have an air raid shelter and the raids were getting more frequent. He was standing in the garden watching the planes when he saw one of them drop the land mine. He managed to run indoors, throw himself on top of my mother, baby brother and myself, when the landmine exploded, destroying our home and everything in it, but miraculously saving our lives and emerging unscathed himself.

One of my earliest memories is the sight of a neighbour, lying in the street with his head blown off. To this day I can not pass a building being demolished without the smell of the plaster making me re-live the experience. One of the strangest effects of the blast was Dad finding our dressing table with the mirror still intact and some eggs which survived the blast unbroken.

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by David Windham of the BBC Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Joan Upton-Holder and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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