The Importance Of Survival

Once things started moving, the air raids are a good example, your survival becomes uppermost and you automatically try to do what’s best for you, for your survival. And you forget quite a bit about what’s going on around you. I was caught on an air raid one time, in Stockton-on-Tees. I had to get across the river, on the bridge to get to the railway station, and there’s flack coming down around you. And then, we spotted a land mine coming down in a parachute caught in the lights, search lights. And it was coming down fairly close to us. So, we …where can I hide, that’s ... you go down against the parapet of the bridge and hope that you’re on the right side of it. But fear, I think, affected me at least more when I was anticipating what I’ve got to do, and what might happen. Once you get into it, you get so busy with the activity that you quit thinking about it. Or at least, that was my experience.