大象传媒

This story was recorded and posted by Mark Jeffers with permission from the author.

In the late summer of 1937, there were half page adverts in the local papers about forming a Territorial Army unit in Belfast so I joined up before the war had even started. My unit was the 591 Antrim Fortress Company RE which later became the 591 Antrim Field Company Royal Engineers and later still near the end of the war the company became the 591 Antrim Parachute Squadron. In fact this was one of the first unit鈥檚 which was dropped during the night before the D-Day invasion to prepare for the beach attack..

All our first training was done between Greypoint and Kilroot forts. We were called up at one stage during the Munich crisis however we were stood down again three weeks later. We carried on our normal weekly meetings until 1939.

We were called up again and I remember being in Fitzroy Avenue in Belfast when Chamberlain came on the radio and regrettably declared war with Germany. 591 Unit spent our time ensuring that no undesirable cargo boats came up Belfast Lough. We were protecting Belfast harbour from ships which contained explosives or other dangerous cargo which Germans in Belfast may have used to destroy the harbour. We had two searchlights at Greypoint Fort and another two at Kilroot Fort. It quickly became obvious that no enemy boats were going to come up the Lough. However, there was a fast boat called the Examination Ship, which was kept in the Lough at all times. It had a whole load of lights on it and would check the cargo of any ship that came into the Lough. One night a ship came in that didn鈥檛 stop for the examination ship. It was a Polish ship and the captain did not understand the signal. The ship communicated by morse code and soon the gunners were running from their shelters and firing one of the 6鈥漬aval guns. Each shell was without a percussion cap so it was like firing a lump of iron. The captain understood that message and it soon stopped so the examination ship could check it.

The unit was divided between Greypoint Fort and Kilroot Fort and the Lough forts were manned day and night. The winter nights were horrible as there was little or no shelter. We were on duty from four in the afternoon until the middle of the night or the reverse, the middle of the night until four in the afternoon. It was the worst part of our war for pure misery and discomfort, but there was no danger and we were never without food for long.

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