大象传媒

This story has been submitted to The People's War website by Liz Andrew of the Lancs Home guard on behalf of Frank Richardson and added to the site with his permission.

I was almost twenty five when I was called up and I went for initial RAF training to Padgate and then to electrical Training school in Bedfordshire. I had a good war - it was all paid for and I wasn't ever in much danger!!

After five or six months I was posted to the Wirral and attached to a Squadron that was involved in the Battle of the Atlantic. Afterwards I joined the Coastal Command Squadron in Cornwall and was posted throughout the war to all sorts of places around the coast - we were never far from the sea - we were in Newquay, South Wales and even in the Hebrides.

In February 1944 I was sent to Croydon and we went to Normandy ten days after D Day. It was very quiet until we moved inland. We made a wet landing and had expected heavy fire but it was a quiet, almost holiday atmosphere. However, they were still bombing the German lines from the battleships offshore - one of them,I remember, was The Rodney.

We moved right through Europe. We were welcomed by the French and the Belgians - though not by the Germans. But there was no harrassment. I noticed that outside the towns in France they were growing tobacco instead of food in thier allotments. Children would come out asking us for chocolate and I remember lovely little girls with blonde hair using swear words (though they obviously didn't know their meaning). We travelled through Denmark and Germany. I particularly recall the good food and friendly people in Copenhagen.

I was at Luneburg Heath when they signed the peace treaty. Montgomery signed for the British. Himmler and Lord Haw Haw were both arrested outside the town at about the same time.

After the war ended it was back to Civvie Street - in my case to the Oil company I had worked in before the war. I had a good war - the best things were the camaraderie, meeting different people and seeing how people lived abroad.

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