大象传媒

I was born on July 1st, 1928 in Southsea. By the time war broke out, I was about 11 years old and we had moved to Guildford in Surrey.

As a boy, I can remember being on Guildford railway station and seeing the soldiers returning from Dunkirk. The soldiers would give us their French and Belgian coins and sometimes bullets. To a boy of 11 this was real treasure as I, like all boys of that time, collected bits and pieces and traded with each other.

One day on my way to Stoke school the air raid siren went. A policeman told me to get into a shelter but I stayed up on the railway bank and watched the dog-fights between the aeroplanes, which appeared to be over towards Weybridge. The next morning we heard that the Vickers aircraft factory had been bombed and a lot of people had been killed but the actual numbers weren't mentioned.

When planes were shot down, they were usually taken to Farnborough Aerodrome for examination and the wreckage was transported in Commer lorries. We boys would wait by the Bridge Caf茅 till the drivers went in for tea, then we would climb on the lorries and pinch bits of the planes, another way of adding to our collections.

We used to have quite a big back garden in which I would help "dig for victory", growing potatoes, lettuce, radishes etc.

We also used to go to St. Catherine's, which was an old monastery by the River Wey, where we would watch the Canadian soldiers practising with grenades and .303 rifles. Again we were able to add to our collections with badges and chewing gum from the Canadians.

By the age of 14 (1942), I was working at Weymann鈥檚 Motor Bodies at Addlestone, Surrey, later moving to Horsham working for Hackbridge Transformer Factory. It was then I joined the Sea Cadets. I remember being woken up one night by an unusual noise. Thinking it was a plane in trouble, I got up to have a look and saw what I thought was a plane on fire, but I found out the next day it was one of the first pilotless planes being sent over by the Germans - "doodlebugs". At the time, 1944, I was in the Sea Cadet Corps at Walton.

While working at Hackbridge鈥檚, because of the doodlebugs we had to dig a trench all round the factory for the workers to shelter in if there was an air raid, as I don't suppose there was enough room in the shelter.

In 1944-45 I was employed as a gardener by Sir Philip Richardson. I was about 16-17 and was keen on joining the Royal Navy. Sir Philip knew this and helped me get into the Navy as a boy sailor. I joined on the 6.1.1945 at H.M.S. Royal Arthur where we were kitted out. Later I went to H.M.S. Duke for initial training. My stoker training was done on H.M.S. Resolution, an old battleship, and it was here I joined the boxing team. We used to train running in the Malvern Hills, and one of my running companions was Randolph Turpin, later to be the famous boxer.

After H.M.S. Resolution I was sent out to the Far East to join the aircraft carrier H.M.S. Indefatigable. On April 1st, Indefatigable had been hit by a kamikaze and lost about 17 of her crew and I think I must have been one of the replacements. I spent about two years aboard the Indefatigable in 1946-1947, bringing the men home from the Far East and taking bush brides to Australia. To make room for the passengers, the aircraft hangars had to be made into dormitories.

My last trip on the Indefatigable was in December 1946, bringing back men who had worked on the lease-lend ships from Norfolk, Virginia.

After Indefatigable I spent a year on H.M.S. Scorpion and then was demobbed in 1948-49, with 56 days demob leave at Inkerman Barracks, Woking, Surrey.

Peter Osgood. via Dundee Central Library

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