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This story was submitted to the People's War website by Sutton Coldfield Library on behalf of Dr.Bernard.H.Fookes. The author fully understands the terms and conditions of the website.

Really, I had come to think that “The Railway Children” was not a story to excite an eight year old boy, but when it was time to return my copy of the book to the library I decided to persevere and renew it.

It normally took me an hour to walk to the library, change my books and return home, but this book was due on 7th September 1940, the day Hermann Goering decided to switch the attacks of the Luftwaffe from RAF bases to London docks. I spent the next three hours watching aerial battles, “dog fights” from the entrance to Leytonstone underground station. The most curious thing was that at any time the adults around me saw puffs of smoke, they cheered, though they could not possibly have seen whether the smoke had come from a British or German plane. After three hours, the all-clear went, and I renewed my book. On my return home three hours later than usual, my parents did not say a critical word. Imagine today! A child alone, in London, in wartime, three hours late.

All this was Goering’s big mistake: by the 15th September The Few had fought the Lufftwaffe to exhaustion. Had the attacks stayed concentrated on the RAF, it would have been exhausted instead. The invasions of England would have followed and the attack on Russia not been delayed until bad weather prevented the capture of Moscow. All avoided because Goring wanted me to pay a library fine. For the Germans there was no Russian oil and no British navy.

The following summer Hitler did invade Russia and as soon as I heard the news, I said “We’ve won!” In the long term I was right, but nobody had told this nine year old boy that Stalin had already killed his best generals.

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