大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygather, Martine Knight, on behalf of Mr Stanley Pomfret. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

I joined the Royal Marines on 30th May 1939. I enlisted at Chatham (CHX3076) aged 19 years. I was at Plymouth Naval Gunnery for 2 months then back up to Chatham.
We did various sorties across to Boulogne and Calais then, on 11th May 1940, 200 men were detailed for a defensive role in an unknown place. They were formed into three platoons under the command of Major B. Mitchell and were conveyed to Dover. We steamed out of the harbour in the destroyers Verity & Venomous, onward to Boulogne. After three days fighting a rearguard action we were withdrawn to return to Chatham once again.

We did a final trip to Calais on 23rd May 1940, on the Verity. We landed at midnight then went to the Citadel on rearguard action once again. We were split up and sent to different areas, Captain Cortice in command. Ten of us were sent to a railhead where we were pinned down by snipers and tanks, continually bombed, until eventually we were overrun by the German forces.

From there we were rounded up and put in a field overnight, under guard, then marched to Luxembourg where we were put on a train to Stalag 8B.

It was a horrendous journey, stopping and starting for 10 days, in cattle trucks with no sanitation, food just one hard biscuit and very little water. Several of the men were shot and brutally ill treated, but the ones who survived were eventaully put in Stalag 8B, Lamsdorf POW camp.

We were then sent out on working parties called E3 at a place called Blackhammer, Nr Erinforst, which was under construction at the time - a very critical object for our sabotage.

After 4 and a half years we were forced to marched across Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia and down into Bavaria to Englestatt. We marched for six months altogether - December 1944 to May 1945.
General Patten's Armoured Division then overran us somewhere in the countryside between Munich and Nurenburg in May 1945.
We were taken to a German military airport and flown, by Lancasters, to Belgium and then, after a few days, sent on leave to go to our homes.

Our families were shocked as when I joined the Royal Marines I was 6ft 1in and weighed 14 stone - when I returned I weighed 7 stone.

I continued to serve after the war, retrained for the Royal Marine Commando Units in Towyn, N.Wales and Achnacarry, Scotland; the Cliff Climbing Unit at St.Ives and then served in Malaya - fighting in the jungle for 2 and a half years. I was discharged after serving 14 years and came home in November 1952.

I have in my possession a copy of the 'Evening Herald', dated Friday November 14th 1941, with the headline "Heroism Under Enemy Fire - 85 Marines go through Calais 'Hell'"

85 Marines went over and only 21 came back, no officers. I was one of the 21 referred to, but did not return until freed from the POW camp at the end of the war.

My wife, Rhoda, also had an experience during the war. She lived on a farm (Tregassa, Portscatho) and was nine years old when the war started. She did various jobs on the farm, including taking food to the cattle in the fields. When she was about 11 years old she was taking a horse and cart full of mangols across a field when a German plane came over and machine gunned along the side of the cart. The horse bolted across the field and ended up jammed against a gate. My wife ended up with cuts and bruises - the horse was badly shaken, but survived. The German plane machine gunned the church and another farmer, who was cutting corn in the next field at the time, as well as various other parts of Gerrans & Portscatho. No one got injured so obviously the gunner was a poor shot.

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