9 September 1940

After Des Sheen’s second bale-out on 5 September, he was initially taken to a ‘wizard hospital’, a private mansion which had been converted, and which already housed two others from 72 Squadron. As London was blitzed, Des, in his hospital bed, had been witness to:

‘lots of scrapping lately and to see the size of the Jerry formations from the ground even has been unbelievable...hundreds in each. Have also seen quite a few go down as some of the fighters were right over our head and one Jerry jettisoned his bombs which fell about 50 yards from our hospital Up till when we left they were still unexploded’.

Despite the aerial shows, they had a ‘grand time’ for a few days but on 9 September were moved to St Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup, an ‘awful’ hospital just outside London where he had even more of a grandstand view of the blitz:

‘We get it every night now too and last night heard nothing but machines, bombers and AA fire all night. I think the invasion is about to start but luckily after an incredible spell of too perfect weather clouds and rain have started to appear.’

It is interesting to speculate if Desmond’s experiences of air raids while he was hospitalised inspired his father to develop in 1942 a new, inexpensive type of air raid shelter, especially designed to provide safer and more comfortable protection for hospital patients. He considered it ‘ridiculous to think of putting people who are seriously ill in open trenches’.

Desmond knew his parents were concerned with how London was being treated when the blitz started there on 7 September—after all, Walter Sheen was born in Lambeth, in inner London. Although not in the East End, Desmond reported the ‘amazing reaction’ of the East Enders when they ‘caught a packet’: 

‘It’s not fear but anger and determination. As the chap who picked me up said ‘never mind. We’ll get you another Spitfire’. They really are unbeatable.’

 

 

 

As much as he was able, Des kept in contact with his extended family and friends and especially his air force friends. In an interview conducted in 1990 he stated that ‘we were all fast friends. I think we were a pretty close knit team. [If you] lost people you had to replace them. I’ve still got my old buddies...[from] 1940 and we get together.’ They had a strong bond. Despite the exigencies of war, he maintained a strong bond with his Point Cook classmates. He celebrated their successes—‘another of my RAAF crowd has collected the DFC that’s the 6th. Doing OK I reckon’—and grieved their loss: ‘There’s another gone west’. As Des was lying in his hospital bed watching the aerial battles on the opening day of the London blitz, his friend Pat Hughes was last seen spinning to earth, out of control with part of a wing missing.