Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
The Blitz
Do you remember any ofthe air raids?
Oh sure! I was in London during part of the Blitz.I remember the first time, first bomb fell, we were playing cards and the wholebuilding shook. And everybody else went under the table and I was so scared Ikept arranging my cards. I didn't-did nothing. And then when we, I got up wesaw that the house across the street had been hit. That's why our buildingshook. And I saw a lot of minor casualties. People being shrapneled and thatsort of thing.
So this was a nightlyoccurrence.
That went on nightly. That went on every night. Mymother went to the uh, uh, underground, the subway. She had a seat there. ??? Idon't know, they had some kind of system. I didn't go. I felt it was going toget you one way or the other. I just stayed home in bed. But it went on nightlyand it went on during the day too. But very heavy at night. And they had theseflares where they lit up the whole area. So it was practically like day youknow, they could see you. Well, one very strange thing that I saw is theywere-a German flyer. Of course the uniform was very familiar to me. And he hadto bail out and a mob attacked him. And it was a very strange feeling to seethat I was not, I did not feel a feeling of satisfaction. I felt awful. Youknow, that they would attack this man who had been bombing us. It'sunderstandable, their reaction. But still, it was ghastly. Yes, the air raids Iremember them very clearly. In the first one I got so scared I couldn't doanything. And from then on you more or less ignore it. The children weretouchy. They would scream when they heard the, the siren or... And you couldtell by the sound of the bomb, when it got louder it would come closer. So yousort of listen to see if it was coming your way or not.
And you always stayed inyour, in your flat.
Yeah. I felt there was no guarantee that youcouldn't be hit somewhere else.
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