大象传媒

RAYMOND EWART POPLE
1939 鈥� 1947

IT is not an easy task to take one鈥檚 mind back 60 years to a time capsule which lasted those six years between 1939 & 1945 and to remember all your experiences in proper sequence.

ALL things have a beginning and for me it was that Sunday morning September 3rd 1939 when my father and I were listening to the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stating on the radio that no reply had been received from Germany and that therefore a state of war now existed. On the playing of the National Anthem we both stood to attention, my father as upright as ever, having been a regular soldier ( one of the 鈥淥ld Contemptibles鈥� from 1910 鈥� 1918 and a Company Sergeant Major.

IT was to be a time of great uncertainty, one of self sacrifice, of devotion to duty and in particular outstanding bravery by so many people . It is because of these attributes that I am able to write this now, in all these later years, at the age of 85.

AT this time I was employed by the General Post Office as a sorting clerk and telegraphist for the princely sum of 34/- ( 拢1.70 ) per week. I also happened to be an established Civil Servant.

WITH the outbreak of war I resigned from the GPO and became a civilian in the Army. I was now employed as a teleprinter operator by the War Office in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps at the Central Ammunition Depot ( CAD), Corsham, Wiltshire. Here for the first year I worked in an office 100 feet underground, the nature of which complex needs some explanation.

THE origin of the CAD Corsham was in the underground stone quarries of the Bath and Portland Stone Company, the cream coloured stone which had been used for building for many years. As a schoolboy I had been taken on a guided tour of the quarries and they were cavernous indeed . In the 1930鈥檚 someone with foresight observed how events were shaping and so the Royal Engineers were called in to transform the place with concrete, air conditioning, lifts, underground railway etc. In due course it was able to store up to 120,000 tons of ammunition of all categories. This was despatched to all theatres of war. Similarly in this area the Royal Navy and the Royal Airforce were also present in their respective roles. A distinguished personage at 鈥� Port Arthur 鈥� at that time was Prince Philip in his early Naval career.

SUBSEQUENTLY I was transferred to the surface, to the Teleprinter Room, to be in charge of 3 machines (Telex type) which afforded constant communication with the outlying depots and also the railhead. Here I worked alongside the ATS Corp of Signals which was an agreeable assignment.

UNDER Defence Regulation 56B I was restrained from call up until 23rd December 1943. But in due course the call up did arrive, my wife went back to Devon to live with her parents and I was on the train to Padgate, Lancs. for introduction to all the pleasures of square bashing, arms drill, weapon training etc. You might think that this was the Army but it wasn鈥檛, it was the RAF ! However having already served 2 years in the Home Guard I was conversant in using a rifle !

THEN on to Cosford, Staffordshire for technical training as a Flight Mechanic, Airframe, where amongst other skills I became expert in splicing one inch thick steel cables ! So to the passing out and posting, except that there was a temporary delay in that, and I was sent to North London ( in civvy billets) to watch ( and give the alarm if need be ) for V1鈥檚 ( Doodlebugs ) from a factory roof. Glad to say they kept their distance.

THE posting did arrive and I was sent to a RAF station in Bucks, the name of which escapes me, and thence to 71 Maintenance Unit Slough which operated a reclamation operation for all the wrecked and disabled aircraft in the Home Counties. There followed probably 2 years of being on the move, working in all weathers and on all types of aircraft which all too often had been reduced to tangled metal and ashes. We were sectioned into 14 parties, each party being 5 or 6 bods and 1 NCO who was either a corporal or flight sergeant. Three of the parties were all WAAF, doing the same work as we were. We had a capable young WAAF driver who drove the Bedford truck.

ALL wreckage was transported on the 60 foot long low loaders known as 鈥楺ueen Marys鈥� to a dump at Theydon Bois, Essex, a pile which eventually became as big as an office block.

WHEN the V2鈥檚 started to arrive we were sent to a lonely part of Essex near the River Blackwater where the second V2 had exploded in a field, making a very large crater and shedding bits over a wide area. We enlisted the local farm hands in the clearing up operation as the boffins needed to examine every part of the new weapon that we could retrieve.

ON occasion we were stationed on USAAF 8th Army Air Force bases in Essex and Herts, and the difference, in many respects, with the RAF was obvious.
The Boeing B17 bombers, the so called 鈥楩lying Fortresses鈥�, were very much in evidence, the co-pilot of one offering me a lift on operations as it taxied en route from dispersal to the runway for takeoff. The B17鈥檚 were heavily armed with .5 inch cannon but even so suffered heavy losses, as they flew in tight formations on daylight raids over Germany. The B17, incidentally, carried only half the bomb load of the Avro Lancaster !

ONE evening in the Red Cross canteen on the USAAF station at Wethersfield I spoke with a young American airman who was a B17 tail gunner and who had returned from a mission over Germany. He was very pensive, and understandably so having seen so many B17鈥檚 shot down around him. I have wondered a number of times if he had been able to finish his tour of operations.

IT WAS at Stanstead airfield (later to become Stanstead International Airport) that I saw a Messerschmidt 163 Swallow rocket plane which had been brought back from Germany. A very small aircraft with a flight duration of only 8 minutes and which originally had been test flown by Hanna Reich, the chief test pilot of the Luftwaffe.

WHILE stationed at Wethersfield we were able to see the contrails of the V2 rockets taking off from their bases in the Low Countries, and to hear them 5 minutes later as they crashed down on London.

TRAVELLING then was achieved partly by hitch hiking at which I became adept and also by train, both of which had their drawbacks. I found it possible to hitch from Essex to Devon but on one occasion ran out of lifts about 10.00 p.m. and walked through the night. An early milk lorry came to my rescue and so on to the first train from Exeter. Returning by train from Newton Abbot was a crowded affair. On one journey I sat in the washbowl of the loo, with 4 standing while across the width of the coach outside stood ten others, even the luggage racks made good hammocks! Held up by an air raid on London made me late on arrival at camp in Essex which resulted in fatigues for the rest of the week !

WE WERE sent at one time to an aerodrome which was either Heston or Hendon to dismantle a Douglas Boston, which was a medium bomber: the aircraft was in good order as events subsequently showed. Having removed the propellers and cowlings you can image our surprise at seeing a pilot arrive who had instructions to fly the plane away ! So having put the aircraft back together again the pilot did just that and we watched him disappear into the wild blue yonder.
FOOD naturally figured largely in service life. Whilst at Chivenor, North Devon the food was then so awful that for the first and last time in my service life I stood up and said 鈥淵es Sir 鈥� when the Orderly Officer asked 鈥� Any complaints ? 鈥� Cannot remember what happened after that.
In contrast, when at the Central Empire Flying Training School, Hullavington we even had menus. Can you imagine ? The reason, of course, was that RAF Hullavington had been a peacetime establishment way back in the 1930鈥檚.

EXCERPS FROM ESSEX.
The Warwick aircraft was a development of the famous Wellington bomber and was used on Air Sea Rescue and was designed to carry a lifeboat which was slung underneath to be dropped to airmen who had ditched in the sea. An exception to this was when one became detached over land and we were called upon to recover it. Being some distance from the nearest road meant it being hauled across country and so afforded a voyage of opportunity to one particular airman who just happened to be there !
We were working right by the runway when a Stirling bomber came in to an emergency landing, the reason being that it鈥檚 port undercarriage had failed to lower. I should mention that the undercarriage on the Stirling was electronically operated and was quite a complicated arrangement. The pilot, with remarkable skill, gradually lowered the port wing on landing so that at the end of the runway it just kissed the ground !

AND SO to the end of the war, 9th May 1945 when we were given a 48 hour pass to go home. I spent the first day hitch hiking and on passing through Bristol saw all the hundreds of people dancing the conga through the streets ! As we all went into peacetime my service continued until the spring of 1947. My demob Group was 56 which meant that my delayed enlistment had resulted in a delay in returning to 鈥榗ivvy street鈥�

MY SON, Clive, was born April 25th 1946 and as my wife was ill for some time afterwards I was able to get a compassionate posting to Culmhead, Somerset from where I was able to cycle the 25 miles home. Our clearing up work continued meanwhile across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall until 鈥�47. I recall walking through the blitzed ruins of Plymouth while on a weekend pass.

YOU do meet all types of people when hitchhiking and perhaps the most unusual, in my experience, was the US truck driver GI who said he had just returned from Germany . He would insist on firing his revolver out of the truck window while driving. Was I glad when he stopped !

AFTER returning at night from Teignmouth to Taunton by rail and then collecting my bike from the station came a pleasant cycle in the early hours, passing the fields of broad beans which were in flower and filling the air with their scent. AND for good measure hearing the nightingale singing in the hedgerow !

OUR job in the vicinity of Hatch Beauchamp was at airfield of the RAF Transport Command, which I understand now to be used for helicopters. Our patient was an Avro York, a transport aircraft developed from the Lancaster, which had met with an accident while undergoing a ground test. Someone had by mistake operated the undercarriage retract lever, causing it to drop onto it鈥檚 belly. Although still in one piece it was a bit bent ! No doubt some poor bod was put on a fizzer !

IN DUE course I was eventually demobbed and it was a red letter day, with other bods by train up to Lytham St Annes, Lancs. For a 鈥榗ivvy suit鈥� ( I chose a natty chalkstripe !) and the rest of the gear.

OUR war effort had not been spectacular but was necessary and now in these late years one is ever mindful of all the 56,000 aircrew who did not come back from ops.
It remains a very sobering thought.

SUBSEQUENTLY I joined the Royal Observer Corps, to serve 10 years, in a spare time capacity. It was interesting and enjoyable and as aircraft recognition had always claimed my attention I was able to put it to good use.

A SUITABLE MOMENT now, perhaps, to write the Royal Airforce motto :

鈥楶ER ADUA AD ASTRA鈥�

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