大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People鈥檚 War website by Margaret Payne of the Lancashire Home Guard on behalf of Samuel Holt and has been added to the site with his permission.

I was called for military service June 1941. My first station Pad gate, Warrington. I did six weeks training and was then posted to Worcester, a civilian airfield taken over by the RAF. There was accommodation for 150 personnel which was in a large mansion 鈥淧edicel Hall鈥�. Washing facilities for junior ranks was a stone barn at the rear of the hall, cold water only, and one iron bath. If you were lucky and allocated a bath, you had to carry your own hot water in a bucket from the cookhouse, going to and from many times. The toilets were outside in the open. My pay was two shillings per day 鈥� in today鈥檚 money, ten pence. The RAF regiment was formed at the airfield, and for a short time I had two uniforms, RAF and Army known as 2790D Squadron.

After leaving Worcester, we were posted to many more locations in England and Wales, mostly on the south coast. Six months before D Day, we were posted to Uppotery in Devon, an all American air base. We enjoyed free donuts and coffee, cigarettes were 200 for two shillings from the PX. No leave for anyone from this station during those six months.

D-Day arrived; I watched the gliders taking off to do battle. Next move for my squad was Tilbury Docks. We boarded a ship for Ostend; on arrival we were escorted to a bombed building for the night. To my surprise, someone was playing a piano. Eventually, we moved to Ghent and Brussels in Belgium. Our accommodation was a nunnery (nuns not included) then to Lille in France. After Lille, back through Belgium into Holland. Here we took over the airfield at Eindhoven and the German barracks, then came the break through Aachen on the Dutch/German border. We took over the first German airfield, then into the Rhine Valley again with an American radar unit. All night tanks and vehicles were crossing the Rhine. There was some small air activity 鈥� one plane shot down. Having crossed the Rhine we were on the move again the Hameln, the pied piper legend, then to Bonn, Hanover and Oldenburg, where my service ended. I then went to Hamburg and boarded a ship for Harwich, then to Hannaford in Staffordshire where I obtained my civilian clothing and my demob papers. I still have my pay book and several airfield passes. The devastation in Germany was terrible; food for the civilian population hardly existed 鈥� outside our dining hall was a large oil drum used for waste food, otherwise pg swill. I saw little children scooping the swill out of the bin to take home, probably for the family meal. Having done my bit like millions pf others, I think back to that bull dog of a man, Winston Children, and those wonderful young pilots of the 1940鈥檚 who assured us of our freedom. I must emphasise what wonderful comradeship I found during my service. Gone but not forgotten.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.