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Part Two: War Service

“Aged 16 I enlisted in the Home Guards and a couple of months after my 17th birthday I went along to the Army Recruiting Office and volunteered for service in the Royal Armoured Corps. In volunteering I was motivated by a desire to play an active role in ending the war, partly because I didn’t want to be conscripted into an Infantry Regiment but also to ensure that I did not become a “Bevin Boy” in a coal mine. During the war every 10th conscript was directed into the mines instead of into the forces. At that time one of my former schoolmates, Alan Burrowes, had been called up into the mines and the thought of it happening to me filled me with horror.

The Army recruiting clerk had no legs, whether as a result of war injuries or natural causes I don’t know. But I can remember watching him swing, legless, up a flight of stairs so that I could be sworn in and take the “King’s Shilling.” This was really a carry over from the days when the Army consisted of mercenaries volunteering to fight for the King in return for payment. However, the deed was done as I had volunteered for “the period of emergencies.” I then had to wait to be ‘mustered.” (Peter then describes the family shock at his action. During the period when he waited for his muster papers he describes his observation of some of the preparations for counter invasion.)

In Suffolk we were surrounded by fighter and bomber bases and so there was an almost continuous noise of aircraft engines being run and warmed up before take-off. Before the air-borne attack on Arnhem there was increased activity and some of the air-borne force of planes towing gliders, escorted by bombers and fighters passed overhead, but this was nothing compared with the D-Day landings when the whole sky, from horizon to horizon, was filled with aircraft towing gliders, a sight that I shall never forget. We had not been told that the invasion had begun, but we had been expecting it at any time, so seeing that huge armada pass over left us in no doubt that D Day had well and truly arrived.

In the summer of 1944 my muster papers and rail warrant arrived, instructing me to report to the Royal Armoured Corps Initial Training Wing at Bovington Camp in Dorset. As I had to arrive at Bovington at half past 10 in the morning, Dad cycled with me to Ipswich Railway Station to catch a train to Liverpool Street Station at 10 o’clock at night. After a seemingly endless train journey, which ended with a short run on the crowded milk train via Exeter to Wool Station, I was very tired and hungry, and pleased to be met by a corporal with a 5 ton lorry who had been sent to meet the new recruits. He took us along a new road which was being built by Italian prisoners of war and which ran between Wool Station and Bovington Camp, the home of the Royal Armoured Corps. On arrival we were divided into troops and allocated a bunk in the WW1 wooden huts before being marched to the Quartermaster’s stores to draw our clothing and equipment and where I was issued with a Royal Armoured Corps black beret. I had to exchange my Home Guard infantry type steel helmet for the rimless type worn by the tank men, also exchanging my cumbersome gasmask/ respirator for a very compact mask with the filters down one side and a thin diaphragm on the other where a microphone could be held when using the tank’s RT set.

Then began our eight weeks of basic training which was to make a young offender’s institution seem like a holiday camp by comparison. Each hut had 20 two tier bunks to hold 40 troopers but no other furniture except for the scrubbed trestle table which was in the central pathway. At Reveille we had to fold our blankets and lay out our kit on the bunk ready for inspection. Then we had to sweep the hut, “bumper” the floor, scrub the table and we even had to scrub the back of the scrubbing brush! (This latter took some ingenuity and we resolved it by co-operating with the next door hut.) We were drilled from 6.00 am to 8.00 pm and, apart from marching drill on the parade ground, we had to go everywhere at the double. We were marched to all meals in the Cookhouse: to the camp barber’s shop that first week; to the camp tailor (a German Prisoner of War) to have our best battledress altered to fit; to the Medical Officer for fitness tests; inoculations, Tetanus Toxoid, TAB, Typhus; and we were even marched to the ablutions block for a daily cold shower. The hair cutting parades were probably a racket as we were deducted 6d from our pay for each haircut and I’m sure that the infantry sergeants in charge of us had some sort of rake off. Because of lack of earlier dental hygiene (we had only visited the dental clinic if we had toothache.) I spent many sessions in the dental chair during those first few weeks and I have every reason to be grateful to the Army for correcting the many years of neglect.

We were issued with two coarse army blankets, heavily impregnated with DDT (now a banned substance) and we slept in our shirts and underwear. I had begun to wonder if I had been allocated to an infantry unit by mistake as every day contributed to an intensive course on marching and rifle drill, training in the use, maintenance and care of rifle, Sten Gun, Bren gun and Piat mortar. There were target practices with live ammunition and hand grenades on the ranges; bayonet practice, unarmed combat, route marches, assault course training, field exercises … and not a tank in sight! I learnt later that all tank crews have intense infantry training because, if they have to abandon their tanks, they are expected to join the nearest army unit and fight their way back to headquarters in order to crew another tank. At the end of each week we were marched to the pay parade to receive our 3/- a day. But instead of 21/- we received 17/-, 1/6 having been deducted for haircuts, 2/- for tailoring and 6d for “barrack room damages”, although we were never told exactly what had been damaged ! We were trained to “spit and polish” and learned that Besa wadding, a coarse padding used in ammunition boxes, made a marvellous polishing medium when impregnated with Brasso. However, towards the end of ITA we were marched to the tank park and were introduced to Cromwell tanks, the latest cruiser tank to be brought into service.” After training in Driving, of which he had no previous experience, Radio Telegraphy and Gunnery his troop was stationed at Warcop Gunnery Range up near Hadrian’s Wall.

“Sleeping arrangements at Warcop were primitive. We were each issued with 3 house bricks, three 6 ft lengths of floorboard, a wedge shaped mattress stuffed with straw and a couple of DDT impregnated blankets. To create a bed the bricks were placed a little way apart but near the wall of the hut. One end of each plank was placed on a brick with the other ends coming together on the floor at the foot of the “bed “ and the straw mattress was then laid on top. It was surprisingly comfortable and there was little danger of falling out in the night! The ablutions block appeared to have been modelled on the Roman pattern as seen at Housesteads on Hadrian’s Wall. On one side was a row of basins, each with only a cold water tap and on the other was a row of toilet seats, perhaps 10 to 15 in all with only a thirty inch wooden partition separating it from its neighbours so that when the block was in full use outside of parade times the troops could be seen sitting on the seats like a row of hens on nesting boxes. There was no provision for modesty in the wartime army!

The ranges were in open and fairly mountainous moor land but this was in an area where there was still active lead mining being carried out and so the guns could only be used during certain hours when the miners were safely underground! During firing the tanks were stationed on concrete rafts and practice was given in using both the 75mm and 105 mm guns and the Besa machine guns with which each tank was equipped. We each had to take it in turns to act as Commander, Wireless Operator (and loader) Gunner, Driver and Co-driver (who also had control of a hull mounted Besa machine gun.) Each crew was responsible for loading its own shells and belts of ammunition into the tank and for carrying out proper firing procedures. If, on firing, a shell failed to detonate, after a number of seconds the gunner had to repeat the firing procedure and if, after this second attempt the shell still failed to detonate, the breech had to be opened after a further delay and the faulty 75mm or 105 mm shell had to be removed from the tank. In action this would normally mean that the faulty shell would be tossed over the side, but on the ranges the tank’s commander had to carry it to a safe area. I was perfectly happy to be handling live shells ( and sometimes putting the canvas bag of smoke inhibitor back in the shell case and replacing the warhead ) but I have never felt so frightened as when I was carrying dud 75mm shells, on which the detonator had been struck, back to the sand-bagged area designated for their safe storage. There was one serious accident while I was at Warcop when an HE shell exploded prematurely immediately after leaving the gun barrel of a neighbouring tank and causing death and serious injuries. I was lucky that I was in the gunner’s seat of a Cromwell tank at the end of the row and was therefore protected and unharmed.

Every three or four months I was entitled to seven days privilege leave so was able to visit home. The journey was always difficult because thousands of other UK based forces personnel were also on the move and the trains were always packed to overflowing with the corridors, the toilets and sometimes the luggage racks packed with bodies and equipment. Because of the uncertainties of war I was required to take all of my army kit with me every time I went on leave. This meant wearing full webbing with large and small packs, ammunition pouches, revolver, gas mask, steel helmet, gas cape, ground sheet (which doubled as a rain cape) and kit bag; no one would complain about the pressures on the London Underground today if they had experienced the problems of getting that lot across London using the tube in wartime! At home in Suffolk, air raids were still in progress although these were largely from V1 and V2 airborne weapons. These rockets landed without warning so there was little anyone could do about them but the “Doodlebugs” were a different matter. They were a crude sort of pilotless flying bomb which came over at a low altitude making a very loud engine noise until, when the engine cut out, the device glided to earth and exploded on impact. After the engine had stopped the flight path was very erratic so no-one could forecast where it might land and, during my first privilege leave one landed so close to our cottage that we could smell the cordite. The searchlights and anti-aircraft barrage tried to intercept them but without much success and our fighter planes sometimes managed to turn them around by touching their wing-tips and sometimes, if they were intercepted over the Channel, to shoot them down, but most of them got through. The shrapnel from the Ack Ack guns could create more danger than the Doodlebugs as I can testify. On one seven day leave period I was in the garden watching a memorable and particularly spectacular display by the searchlights and guns. Fortunately I was wearing my steel helmet as a piece of shrapnel hit me on the head knocking me over. I lived to tell the tale and suffered nothing worse than a headache, but the Quartermaster took some convincing when I tried to exchange my dented helmet for a new one!”

Peter’s war continued in a pattern of more training, becoming one of a band of fit, dedicated professional soldiers. Shortly after VE Day he was mustered as a Gunner Operator. The war in Japan continued to be bitterly fought. It was known that his unit was destined for service in the Far East and that, if they survived long enough, would be required to fight in mainland Japan. When he was on Embarkation Leave in mid August, the momentous news was broadcast that atomic bombs had been dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and that the Japanese Imperial High Command had agreed to cease fighting, although their armies were still intact. He served with his regiment, being promoted to Sergeant, until he was demobilised in December 1947 to face an uncertain future as a civilian with the problems and shortages of post-war Britain.

This story was collected by Jill Hollands and submitted to the People’s War site by Becky Barugh, both of the ����ý Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk. The story was very kindly shared with us by Peter Williams and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr Williams fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Read more of Peter's story:

• Excerpts from “A memoir” by Peter Williams.

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