大象传媒

Young men and women who would normally be called up for military service could be classified exempt from conscription (at the request of their managers) because their job was vital to the War effort. Ernest was a young man of 19 working for High Peak Silica Company when war broke out. He was an automatic choice for the reserved list, but there was a snag: Ernest鈥檚 manager was his own father and that left him exposed to innuendo. So he asked his father to leave him off the list; and he awaited the call-up papers that came in 1942. His choice of service was RAF ground duties and, perhaps unusually, his wish was granted. He became a MT [Motor Transport] driver and served the next two years on home postings. Then, a couple of months after D-Day, he landed in Normandy and began a nomadic life with 2nd Tactical Air Force. This was a period of no fixed abode for the RAF, rolling up from one airfield to another behind the advancing army, so Ernest was soon in Ypres and beyond. With enemy fighter bombers scouring the roads for targets, driving a RAF truck was not an occupation for daydreamers, but Ernest brought himself and his truck home intact after VE Day. So that left only the Japs and, by the end of July, he was on embarkation leave for Singapore when, actually on his way to embark at Morecambe, he heard in Manchester that Japan had surrendered. Well, he thought, the RAF will not need me in Singapore now, and he toyed with the idea of returning home. He was quite right, of course, the RAF did not need him in Singapore, but they sent him there just the same prior to demob.

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