I WAS born in Hertfordshire in 1943 and my mother told me how she used to hide with me under the kitchen table when the German V2 doodlebug bombs overshot London.

If this sounds a little crude its how people learned to cope with this particular danger. There was a warning of sorts, but when the time came to find shelter it had to be done quickly. Apparently when the bombs were in flight their engine emitted a clapping noise, but this stopped when they fell from the sky.

I was too young to remember, of course, but one can imagine the fear of those on the ground when the clapping stopped. A bomb was about to explode somewhere in your locality.

Currently, of course, the US military use drones, a much more sophisticated and sinister version of these weapons in their role as self-appointed global policemen.

It’s a supreme irony that most of the technology in developing these weapons probably originates from the work of the very same German scientists who worked on the VI and V2s, and who the Americans quickly recruited at the end of the Second World War.

VJ Connor, Bishop Auckland.