Life

Hiding in the Closet Was the Only Way to Avoid This Danger

A memory from the past must have come into play that day

During the 1940s and 1950s, while living near Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn, it was common practice for our school to conduct Air Raid Drills unexpectedly. The memory of being in a state of heightened alertness due to the possibility of being bombed was unforgettable, and in later years caused me to imagine that a response from a particular sound was evidence we were under attack instilling an immediate feeling of dread.

Fearful decades later

Although decades later and living in a safe neighborhood in a small two-bedroom apartment with my 9-year-old son, one night while putting clothes away in his room, an old, panicky feeling returned. I heard a low humming sound emitting from an object in the sky. Instinctively, I knew we had to seek shelter.

I wasn’t aware of ever having heard this sound before, nor did I ever know of anything else flying this close to my home or this low in the sky. Yet, I knew, before even seeing the actual object that we were in mortal danger.

Without a moment’s hesitation, I shouted to my son, who was only a few feet away, “Quick, get in the closet — we’re being bombed!”

As he stood staring at me, I wasted no time grabbing his arm and yanking him into the closet, not that it would have made any difference if we were being attacked.

The two of us huddled in his closet scared to death with no clue of what would happen next.

I anxiously listened as the humming object approached, and held my breath as it flew directly overhead. It seemed to take forever as it slowly moved across the sky and eventually kept going. Immense relief washed over me when I realized it had flown past without incident. My heart had been thumping so fast I thought it would jump out of my chest.

I felt as if I had been in this situation before. I was sure of it, but when? Was this Déjà vu? I know it hadn’t happened in this lifetime or I would have remembered it. A dozen thoughts were racing through my mind as I left the closet with my son in tow, asking me questions I had no answers to.

That night we did not get bombed!

Then what was it that we just experienced? I ran to the window in time to see the Goodyear blimp flying by. It was a small blimp, nothing like the dirigibles I had seen in Brooklyn as a child, so why did this affect me so much?

At that moment, I could not comprehend why I had reacted in such a way, and this puzzling experience would remain a mystery for the time being.

More information

Years later, as I was thumbing through an old issue of a popular magazine, I found an article that mentioned the usage of blimps for scouting and bomb dropping during wartime, due to their ability to fly low and produce minimal noise.

Curious, I researched online and discovered blimps of various sizes, even smaller ones were used to drop bombs. But how could possibly have known this and reacted to it as if I had lived through it before?

I do remember seeing airships — the huge ones — twice in my life. And I do remember my mother being with me for the first sighting and running to the window with me following her. She was clearly upset over what she saw, but stood there hanging out the window by the fire escape fixated on this large, slow-moving airship.

The next one I saw was years later while attending school in Coney Island. It was amazing to see and others must have thought so, too, because everyone stopped what they were doing to watch it pass.

Those large ones were still in the sky until the mid-1950s and traveled between military bases, but that did not explain why I thought a small, innocent-looking, blimp with the words Goodyear painted on it, would cause me that kind of panic.

Maybe the sound of the airship and my mother’s obvious state of fear, curiosity, maybe even contempt brought me back to that place when I heard the hum of the little blimp.

She was pregnant with me during wartime. Maybe, just maybe, airships went by at that time over her building and she thought she was going to die and blocked it out.

Another explanation could be reincarnation. Maybe our energy and memories remain with the earth long after we pass and I was reliving someone else’s fear, attack, or death. After all, I did have several family members who fought and died in the world wars, and anything’s possible because we don’t know what’s beyond this life.

The events of that night remain a mystery. However, it serves as a sorrowful reminder of the horrors people endure during wartime, even in today’s world, and the ongoing fear they experience every waking moment.

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