London
Most nights the air raid sirens sounded as darkness fell, with the London sky lit up by searchlights and anti-aircraft fire, punctuated by the intermittent sound of explosions. One night, sleeping in my uncle's apartment, I was awakened by particularly heavy blasts. With a premonition of worse to come, I decided to go down to the basement where many of the building's occupants gathered for protection and slept on cots. Soon a bomb exploded across the street, violently shaking our building and causing plaster to fall from the basement's ceiling. When the all-clear signal sounded at dawn, I went up to the apartment and saw my bed totally covered with collapsed furniture, glass, and debris. By going down to the cellar in time, I had escaped injury or possibly death.
