大象传媒

This story was added on behalf of Frank Burns by Pauline Pearson of London CSV Volunteers. The author is aware of the site's terms and conditions.

I started work at the age of 14 in 1943 working in a factory making ammunition boxes for the army. One of my mates called Bobby Stone was evacuated to a village called Stapley in Somerset. We decided to go on a weeks holiday in the summer of 1944 to stay with the family he was evacuated to. They ran a village shop. I say shop but all it consisted of was a table placed outside the front door and a few bottles of lemonade and other things for sale.

A couple of fields away there was an American transit camp where the American soldiers, who had just landed in Britain from America were sent to. Some of the soldiers would come to the shop in the evening and stand around talking. In the week we were there we met many friendly soldiers and on one occasion one of these soldiers sat quietly drawing. When he finished he had been drawing a profile of my mate Bobby. It turned out that he had been a cartoonist for Walt Disney. Another occasion we got talking to soldier who was only about 19. I cannot remember his name but his nickname was Romel. He was just a few years older than us. We mentioned that we were going to Weston super Mare the following day and he asked if he could come along too.

We had a great day at Weston super Mare but unfortunately we stayed too long and did not get back to Taunton until late when all the buses had stopped running. So we set of to walk the six to eight miles to Stapley. As we were walking, along came a big American army lorry which Romel waved down. The lorry stopped and Romel spoke to the driver. We heard him ask the driver if he could give us all a lift back to the camp. The driver said he could give Romel a lift but that he could not give civilians lifts in army vebicles as this was against regulations. Romel pleaded with the driver who eventually relented but said we would have to jump off the lorry as it turned off the main road into the lane that lead to the camp as he could not stop. This we did and watched as the lorry turned into the camp. We did not see Romel again. I can only presume that he was transferred to another camp or shipped to France.

Over the years I have often wondered if he was lucky enough to survive the war and return home.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.