Reg Miles Dad's Biography

Reg Miles Dad's Biography

A brief biography of Grandad Miles. He spent the war in Dover repairing and constructing buildings. Reg discusses flying over Dover in bomber attacks near Boulogne.

One printed sheet

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Just a little of the History of Grandad Miles during WW2, He spent the whole of the war in Dover where he was responsible for all the building work, new and repairs due to shells and bombing. He and granny rented a house at a place called Stone Hall Halt, a very small village, they had to close their nice house in Margate. At the bottom of the garden in Stone Hall was the railway line and a tunnel in which one of the cross-channel guns was hidden, it was taken to the site to fire by an engine and then returned to hide in the tunnel, when home on leave I watched it many times being taken out Jim saw it many times a week. Jim walked to school for a while but had to stop as shells were landing where he went to school, the whole of Dover and locality was fenced off and only people with jobs or house could get in , I had to get the OK when I went on Leave from flying with bomber command. My uncle Jack Price (brother to Courtney who married Granny Miles years after Grandad died) was killed by a German shell not far from Stone Hall, he was riding his bike home to Margate for the weekend. I flew over Dover many times on the way to bomb targets some by day and many by night, Jim says he often watched our planes and was sure I was in one of then, which I was. We also bombed the German Guns in France and one that was built deep into the ground at Boulogne and targeted on London the barrel was very long and part of the ground, we flew over Dover in daylight at about 8000 ft and dived to 2000ft over the Channel to arrive low over the target, our greatest peril was to be hit by the exploding bombs of the bomber in front of us. Just a little extra history which might be of interest to you, Grandad, Granny Jim and I were all very lucky to survive WW2, had a phone call on Saturday from Jim Tease my Canadian pilot offering me a trip to join the other three left of our crew to celebrate our survival. The towers you can see in the background of shots of Dover are the Radar towers at Dover and are the same as Mum used at North Foreland and Ventnor on the Isle of White. Dad