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I was born in May 1938.
My earliest memories of the war are of the nightly trek down the garden to the Anderson shelter.
We lived in Rainham, near Chatham in Kent.
The naval dockyards at Chatham were a regular target for night bombing raids.
While the family huddled together in the shelter, my Dad (when he was on shore leave) would stand with his head out of the entrance, giving a running commentary on the progress of the raids up the river from us.
One of my earliest memories is of me losing my bowl of cereal when my Dad dived inside suddenly as a German bomber swooped low overhead, with it's bomb doors open, and my Dad scattering everything off the card table which held our meal.

My father was a CPO (Chief Petty Officer) in the Royal Navy, serving on HMS Mashona, at the start of the war. But his active service at sea was soon ended during the Bismarck incident in May 1941. The Mashona was sunk by German bombers on it's way back to port after the sinking of the Bismarck.
My recollection is of finding my mother lying on the kitchen floor, and me thinking that she was dead. A helpful neighbour came to help, and managed to revive her, and it was later, when I could understand these things, that I found out she had fainted after receiving news that the Mashona had "been lost with all hands". It was only later that she got news that survivors had been picked up and landed in Western Ireland.
I remember that Dad spent a long time in hospital, having been wounded in the chest, back and legs by shrapnel during that attack.
We used to have a glass jam-jar on the table at home, and would put our spoonsful of sugar in the jar, instead of our tea, so that the sugar could be taken to Dad in hospital in Chatham.
I remember one time visiting my Dad in hospital and I was horrified to see a "leg" lying on the floor under his bed. I was naturally very upset when I thought that his leg had been cut off, but it turned out to be the plaster cast which had just been removed from his leg, and was waiting for disposal!
It was not long after Dad finally came out of hospital, that he got a posting to Eastbourne, on the south coast, where he said we would be safer than near Chatham, because there was nothing to bomb there, and much of the town had been evacuated of civilians. He was an instructor at the College which had been taken over by the Navy for the duration.
It was not long after we arrived that the "Doodlebugs" began to fly over us, on their way inland. It was then that we found that Eastbourne was not quite as safe as Dad thought, because many of the V1s did not make it beyond the coast, either through malfunction, or being shot down by our fighter aircraft which would chase the V1s in over the coast.
This was a golden time for us boys, who did not realise what war was all about. The collection of "souvenirs" must have been horrifying to the grown-ups.
There were posters everywhere warning of anti-personnel weapons like "butterfly bombs" and rumours of booby-trap fountain pens, wallets, etc. being dropped by the "Jerries", but we still amassed piles of spent (and sometimes live) ammunition, cartridge cases, bullets, shrapnel and cannon shells. There was also this mysterious stuff called "chaff" which we found all over The Downs, which was long strips of aluminium foil.
Most of us carried around boxes or bags to keep our treasures in, or for swaps.
There were many bombed sites in the town, each with their hidey-holes for hiding stuff which we could not dare to take home.
Because of the frequent air-raid alerts, we often took a long time to get home, especially during the long summer days, mainly because we were roaming the bomb-sites looking for "keeps".
Then the town began to fill up with troops from different countries, and we would spend many hours following them around and cadging sweets and chocolate from them. They used the bombed-out areas of the town for manoevres, practicing for the coming invasion of France, although we did not know what THAT was all about.
We often used to go along the "sea front" near the beach (which was blocked with scaffolding and barbed wire) and watch the patrols destroying mines which had been washed up on the beach, usually after a heavy storm. They would unscrew a plate in the side of the mine, pour in petrol or diesel fuel, and then burn the explosive out.

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