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This is Mr FLS Phillips MBE story; it has been added by Geoff Knight, with permission from the author, who understands the terms and conditions of adding his story to the website.
Registered with the militia mid 1939, as my job as baker was not classed as a reserve occupation, but when war was declared in September that year, I was in the old Addenbrookes Hospital recovering from an operation for appendicitis, which delayed my call-up. On the night that war was declared,the air raid sirens sounded in Cambridge,causing complete chaos in the hospital, with beds being moved into corridors and staff running around in circles, not knowing which way to turn. However next morning it was revealed it was only a practice run.
After three months of convalescence, I eventually boarded the train at Sturmer Staion en-route for Felixstowe, where I was to undergo two months training.However my first job on arrival at Felixstowe was snow heaving with many others to clear the many roads blocked with snow drifts.
Having passed my Driving Test in 1938 I was to join the Royal Army Service Corps as a Driver and much of my training was directed to this end,although we still had to carry out rifle training along the front in freezing weather with snow caked to our rifle butts.Although I had passed a civilian driving test,we still had to pass the Army driving test under former London Taxi drivers that had been recruited for the job.I am afraid they had little sympathy for us rookies and gave us difficult tests with our three ton lorries on the steep hills of Felixstowe.One of the most difficult was stopping half-way up Bent Hill,probably the steepest in the town,and pulling away without sliding back.In order to prove the point,the examiners would place a matchbox under the backwheels to ascertain whether we had slipped back. If the box was crushed we were threatened with unrepeatable explicit language.Much of our mechanical training was carried out in the Winter Gardens.
Eventually having passed all my training I was enlisted in 224 Company Royal Army Service Corps attached to the Guards Armoured Division,part of 21st Army Group,and remained with them throughout the campaign.
My first location was at Chipping Norton where I was detailed as an Officer's batman and served in this capacity throughout all my six and a half years service.My first officer was an Australian,Lt Falconer Green and my eldest daughter still has a soft toy that he bought her from a large store in Kingston-0n-Thames when we were stationed near Weybridge.With normally eight officers in our Company, someone had to be responsible for organising duties in the Officers' Mess when in fixed locations and to fill this role I was appointed to the lowest rank in the Army,that of unpaid Lance Corporal,which gave me the authority to detail the other batmen to various duties such as serving drinks to the Officers,meals and other cleaning chores.
From Chipping Norton we moved to various locations in the UK including Warminster, Shepton Mallett and Weston-Super-Mare,conveying army rations where required and using many staging camps including Lutterworth,Doncaster Racecourse and Gretna Green. We were actually staged just outside Lutterworth on the night that the Germans carried out the blitz on Coventry and got very little sleep as the bombs rained down.Our Company was also destined for Norway but after preparing to embark from Dumfries with all our vehicles waterproofed our forces were unexpectedly evacuated from Norway and with no plans for our Company we were moved to Troon Golf Course to spend some two weeks under canvas with the evacuated troops.Fortunately the weather was baking hot and many of us got sunburnt.
From there we were stationed at may locations including Belahouston Park Glasgow wher we were entertained by Scottish Pipe Bands and each Friday I was invited to the Officers'Mess of the Indian Regiment also stationed there to collect Curry for our Officers' Mess. Without doubt the best Curry I ever tasted.Whilst there I was also given the opportunity of visiting Glasgow Rangers football ground.However whilst in Glasgow we also engendered the wrath of the Tram drivers as just for devilment we drove our three ton Bedford lorries so close to the trams when overtaking to snap off their long arm rear mirrors.Eventually they got wise to us and fixed a line to the mirrors so that when they saw us approaching from the rear they pulled the mirror inside their cab.Whilst in Scotland one of our destinations was to supply food to the Polish troops staioned at Fort William and it appeared that one of their favourite foods was beetroot which they appeared to practically live on.
Returning south twelve months was spent at Weston-Super-Mare where the course of my family life could have been ruined.My shopping for the Officers'Mess took me almost daily to a greengrocers in the town for additional supplies which were not supplied through army rations.The shop was owned by a married couple Harold and Gwen with one young daughter.Harold was detailed to the duties of an Air Raid warden and apart from inviting me to tea every Sunday night I was also invited to keep his wife company whilst he was on duty.It proved to me the saying that 'Women can be attracted by a uniform'.However I survived but did experience a close encounter with death when our Mess along the sea front was practically demolished in an air raid but fortunately wwe had taken shelter in the cellar.Whilst in Weston I also had a weekly visit to Bristol to replenish supplies from Harvey's of Bristol Cream fame.
Back up north again the destination was the pretty little town of Thornton-le-Dale where we were gradually being prepared for the Normandy Landings although we were unaware of this at the time.Deep water driving and scrambling up nets to board boats at Scarborough was being practised almost daily along with the technique of waterproofing our vehicles in readiness for driving into the sea.Whilst we were there we were inspected by Field Marshall Montgomery driving along our ranks in a large RAF hangar at Driffield.Preparations for his visit to our barracks even included whitewashing our lumps of coal.
Moving back south we were stationed ina large house at Gressinghall, Norfolk from where I was able to hitchhike home on two weekends and then on to Haven Green Court,Ealing from where we were able to visit Chiswick Empire each week as it did not close during the war.I well remember one of the best shows I saw 'The Ralph Reader Gang Show'
The next move was the last in the UK as we moved in the Spring of 1944 to Isenhurst Park,Sussex,a large house used by film makers which included 'Four Feathers'
On the night of June 15 we were disturbed by an unusual noise aroung midnight followed by an early call on June 16 and an order to move out at 3.45am still wondering at the noise in the night.Our destination was a staging camp at Wanstead Flats, London and it was here we found out that the noise was the first Doodle Bug to strike the country. After three days at Wanstead we made our to the Victoria & Albert Docks to embark on the Ocean Vagrant Liberty Ship bound for Normandy.We laid off Southend until June 22 before moving to the Gold Coast at Arromanches overnight surrounded by smoke screens,Barrage Balloons,aircraft overhead and gunfire.At daybreak we undertook to drive our vehicles into the sea with water up to our waists but thankfully our waterproofing proved effective and we made our way to the outskirts of Bayeaux expecting to come under fire. However we arrived safely and proceeded to strip the waterproofing from our lorries.During one brief lull in the fighting I took the opportunity to visit the famous Bayeaux Tapestry.
Our speedy advance through Normandy including the battered town of Caen and on to Brussels resulted in our liberating the town on September 3rd where a tremendous welcome awaited us with the streets thronged with people excited to see the back of the Germans.
By the end of September preparations were in hand to cross the Rhine and make the historic dash for Eindhoven in Holland to Nijmegan and the outskirts of Arnheim.So fast was our advance to Grave and Nijmegan that the Germans were able to cut off our supply lines and we were cut off from the main army for three days util we were relieved by an American Brigade that arrived by gliders.
At the end of November came the most scarring experience of my military service when a small detachment from my Company was called upon to defend the front line on the Ardennes sector to give the front line troops a breather during a lull in the fighting.A citation from our Company Diaty reads 'A Services Battalion composed of RASC and REME was formed to relieve infantry in the front line for a matter of three weeks'. 224 Company was formed to provide two Officers and thirty six other ranks for this purpose. Those chosen to represent the Company in this happy band of warriors were:Capt Curtis,Lt Mulryan,Sgt Cullen; Cpls'Powell, Gallimore,Read and Scott;L/Cpls' Marshall, Hay,Jones,Robinson,Chant and Boultwood;Drivers Richardson,Grinnell,Ansell,Baron,Liddall,Newell,Parlett,Adams,Bright,Morris,Biggar,Rock,Winter,Brown,Higgins,Cox,Insley,Heron,Lofthouse,Foster,Phillips,Holding,Trent,Read;Company Sergeant Major Sutter.
This episode warrants a separate history of its own representing as it does yet another example of the variety of the RASC's duties but it is only possible here to give a brief synopsis of the three exciting weeks involved.
Let it be said straightaway that the Company detachment did particularly well and discharged their duties like veterans of the line.
The position manned was situated around a wooden feature known as Pan Handle Wood with the enemy entrenched before a village few hundred yards away.This scene was to be found in the Geilenkirchen area in the valley of the notorious River Roor.When manning this forward position our lads lived through the long drawn-out hours in trenches only hopping out during hours of darkness.They spoke of the necessity for quietness and patience for the slightest light or sound by night or movement by day would bring a hail of mortar bombs directed by direct observation from a mill in the village.They could see the enemy moving about the village at times and by night could hear a farmer's horse drawn tumbril coming into the village at certain hours.It was quite as sinister as that.Here was no dramatic heroism engulfed in spees and excitement but instead a tract of land shrouded in silence in which at one moment not a shot or sound could be heard although one false move could bring explosive death in the next. It was nerve wracking to say the least and our lads, inexperienced as they were in the application of their infantry training in an actual theatre of war,showed they could do it.One unpleasant experience for our men was occasioned by our Typhoon pilots making error of judgments causing their rockets to pass by uncomfortably close to our positions.
There were many mines in the area and booby traps in unoccupied trenches some affixed to the bodies of the yet unburied fallen,both British and German,as the enemy had no compunction about treating their own dead in this mamnner.Our only real casualty was unfortunately a fatal one in which Cpl Powell sustained wounds from a booby-trap which shortly caused his death.George had been with the Company since 1940 and was well liked
One other incident in the trenches which I will never forget (just as clear today as 60 years ago) when Sgt Cullen was caught with his trousers down.The incident happened when one of our Company, strictly against orders, was exploring a deserted German dug-out and was seriously wounded by an exploding booby-trap, dying soon after.In an attempt to rescue him from the dug-out,Sgt Cullen sprained his back and whilst standing on the side of the trench with his trousers around his ankles being trated by a medic, the Germans suddenly opened fire on our position.All of us with the exception of Sgt Cullen dived for cover in the trenches leaving the Sgt high and dry with his trousers down.I can picture the incident as clearly as if it happened yesterday.
This experience in the trenches was the most nerve wracking of my army service for as we made our way up to the front line at dusk the Germans bombarded us with shells exploding all around and it was a miracle that none of us received serious injury.One sensed that the Germans were aware of what was going on.
Soon after I was laid low with Rheumatic Fever and put on a Red Cross train which I was led to believe was the first leg of a trip back to Blighty.However I finally landed up in hospital in Brussels for about three weeks.
For the remainder of the war after rejoining my Company we gradually advanced into Germany and when Peace was declared we were up at the German U Boat base at Cuxhaven in the north.The news of the Armistice was greeted with much relief.
For the next year I was stationed at Bad Godesburg on the Rhine with our Officers Mess of which I was still orderly actually housed in the same hotel as Hitler used for his Councils of War.Being in charge of the Messin this location wa a piece of cake as I had an excellent German cook, Walter, to do the cooking and two attractive German maids ,Katie and Carola who came in daily to do the housework but in addition brought us batmen tea in bed in the morning.
After a very choppy crossing back to England I was finally discharged from the Army on June 15 1946 and discharged from reserve liability in June 1959
PS Obviously during five years and a further one year plus of occupation in Normandy and on the banks of the Rhine, a number of unforgettable experiences spring to mind but one of the most nauseating experiences was driving through the notorious Concentration Camp at Belsen shortly after its capture by our Group.Although by the time that our Company arrived most of the bodies had been buried but driving through the Camp with the detention huts on one side and the large mounds of freshly moved earth on the other gave one a sickening feeling just imagining what the victims had suffered at the hands of the Nazis.
One story story emanating from this horrifying situation in Belsen was 'That the birds no longer sang at Belsen'.I have since been told by aretired Colonel,one of the first persons to set foot in the capture of Belsen and has since visited the site, that this saying is true and the birds do not sing there.

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