I wrote earlier about my experience in 1944 as a young lad and applauding our bombers as they past over my school in Surrey on their way to targets on the Continent.
On a slightly lighter note, around the same time the Baby Blitz was in progress and we were spending many a night in our smelly black beetle and spider infested shelters. My elder brother was in the Home Guard and after one rather heavy raid returned home just as it was getting light with two German aircrew who he had captured in the field behind our house. They had parachuted from a Junkers 88 which had had its tail blown off by AA fire. One of them turned out to be the pilot who had a nasty gash across his forehead which my sister who was in the ARP quickly patched up. In the mean time my Mother set about preparing our breakfast and promptly put a further couple of our precious eggs, fried bread etc. in the frying pan for the prisoners. The two other members of the crew of the JU 88 were un-be-known to us not so lucky as they were dead inside the wreck of the aircraft in a wood not very far away.
The pilot spoke some English and I believe expressed a view that for Germany the war was lost and he for one was glad to be out of it. My brother said that when he found them they offered no resistance and immediately gave him their pistols. My brother kept one of the pistols which he hid and which did not come to light until after he died which was only about ten years ago.
As a small lad I was rather mystified by these rather strange goings on. Particularly as I was more used to hearing about the "wicked, evil Germans" and here was my family treating them like human beings and even feeding them our precious rations. Given that two members of our family were regularly flying in the other direction to drop bombs on the enemy, I am not so surprised.