Fifteen years in a childhood paradise

"Look up," I shouted over the droning noise, "hundreds of planes. They are Lancaster bombers, four engines. We had to learn to identify enemy planes. I'm sure that's what they are. They are all heading for Posen."

"They are flying in formation. I think there are about 25 planes in this squadron." Vater took his glasses off to see better.

"There comes another one." It was Mutters turn to count, but she didn't get very far.

"And another!" I exclaimed. They kept coming, squadron after squadron. At least 200 planes went right over our house, high above, about 10,000 m. The noise went right through my bones.

"Here I am, sitting at home, when my comrades have to operate the instruments and man the guns. I'll go crazy. I missed the first encounter of a real air attack."

"Calm down, Dieter. Be glad that you're here and not in Posen. Who knows what damage they will do?" Vater had been through one war, he knew the devastation and destruction of the First World War. This one was only worse.

"My comrades will be engaged in fierce shooting in a couple of minutes, and I'm just watching them fly over. What can I do?"

I was almost envious, the first real experience of a major air raid in broad daylight, and I wasn't there!

Next day I heard everybody's story. They all seemed heroes in my eyes. "And you know what? We were awarded two full hits, two bombers of the ones that were shot down. We can now paint two white rings around the barrels of our canons."

"Good luck to you. I saw all the planes, they flew right over our house." "Did they drop a bomb? Obviously not, otherwise you wouldn't be here. But joking apart, it was terrible here. It scared the living daylight out of me. Bombs were falling, the noise of the guns, the smell of gun powder and dust. I wouldn't mind if I didn't have to go through that again."

The destruction from that air raid was considerable. Parts of the passenger and goods station were hit (including the waiting room for Poles and a train with soldiers on leave from the front), the Focke Wulf works (aviation parts), also the railway bridge, the exhibition building, and some buildings in town. Apart from 150 soldiers killed, there were 35 German civilians and 47 Poles killed. (Armin Ziegler, Posen Januar 1945,
p.4) There were no casualties in our battery. Soon after, all boys in our barrack were ordered to change from the command bunker to the canons. I was trained to operate the gadget for the distance. The change came about, because our unit had received a new electrically operated transmitter, which transferred the data directly on to a gauge of the canons' instruments. That meant, it was no longer done orally, but electrically. The crew at the guns had just to follow the indicator on the panel before them.

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