大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Ann Redgrave of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of Wesley Piercy and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

A Baker at War 鈥� Part 2

In the first part of my story (A Baker at War 鈥� Part 1) I told how I came to volunteer as a baker soldier in France at the beginning of the Second World War. I now take up the story in the winter of 1939-40.

Before long the weather became cold: the winter of 1939-40 was the coldest for years. Just about this time we were joined by an advance party of another Field Bakery, the newly formed No.3. They were billeted in a large house in the town and while waiting for their main party to arrive they worked with us. After a few weeks they joined their main party which took over a large silk factory in Bolbec, a few miles inland from Le Havre. We were then able to move into their former billet, and the billet we left became the cookhouse. However, we were not to enjoy this comparative luxury for long, as we soon had to move to an unfinished building with neither windows nor floor. This was on the other side of the town, about half a mile away, and being just before Christmas the weather was now extremely cold. There was snow on the ground which had turned to ice on the roads. In the dough tents the ground was frozen solid, but dough needs heat to make it rise, so coke braziers were placed in the tents. With these burning the floors inside the tents just turned to mud a foot deep. When we stood at work mixing or moulding we just stuck in the mud. Wellies were issued which we wore all the time. The fumes fro the braziers in the enclosed space of a marquee made everyone cough.

Before long an epidemic of influenza broke out and a quarter of our people were soon in hospital. Soon the hospitals could take no more. They had people lying on the floor as the beds were all occupied. When I eventually succumbed and reported sick the MO told me to stay in bed in my billet. He did not tell me how I was going to get any food, a half mile away from the cookhouse. I don鈥檛 imagine who knew what sort of billet we were in either. I stuck it for one day but then went back to the MO saying that I would rather be at work. He sent me back to light duties and I was put to spud bashing in the cookhouse. At least I could keep warm there. The epidemic eventually died down and everyone recovered. During this time we had our first casualty through an accident. One of our men tripped over a guy rope, fell onto a tent peg and died of a ruptured spleen.

In the New Year we started moving to Bolbec where No.3 Field Bakery already was. As this was done a few at time, not all production ceased. In Bolbec we were in a factory together with No.3 and everything was inside. We slept in another part of the same factory and wonder of wonders, we had bunks to sleep in. It was ironic that after roughing it through the worst of the weather we should get into reasonably good quarters just as spring was coming.

Home leave had started by now and my turn came in March. We went by train to Rouen where we had time to walk around the historic city, then on to Boulogne, followed by a ship to Dover and a train to Victoria. I then had to take the tube to Liverpool Street, just catching the last train to Norwich. I didn鈥檛 get to Norwich until the early hours of the morning and had to wait until 6.30am for a train to Reepham. I was home in time for breakfast. Nine days later I went back by the same route in reverse.

Up tillnow nothing much had happened in the way of battles but at the beginning of May things got more exciting. The Germans invaded Holland and Belgium and the Allies moved up into Belgium. Before long rumours were circulating of German paratroopers disguised as nuns being dropped in our area and parties of men were sent out looking for them. This sort of thing went on for a week or two and then things really did start to happen. One night the nightshift had started work as usual making the dough ready for the next morning and the rest of us were asleep, when we were rudely awakened and told to get dressed and assemble outside in battle order. We were then taken about two miles up the road in lorries, where there was a road block manned by elderly French soldiers. Here we were each issued with five rounds of ammunition and ordered to load our rifles. Immediately a number of shots rang out and someone shouted that someone had been hit. The bullet entered his neck and went through his jaw. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. A life had been needlessly wasted by giving lethal weapons to people not trained to use them. There were no officers present at any time while we were on the roadside, and what we were supposed to be doing there I really don鈥檛 know. If a Panzer division had appeared we could have done nothing to stop them. We stayed there until daylight and then marched back to the bakery. We had breakfast and then packed our kitchen onto lorries, leaving all the bakery equipment and the dough that the nightshift had made.

We were taken to a place called Caudebec where there was a ferry over the river Seine. Here the lorry left us and we all crossed over on the ferry. As there were about seven hundred of us it took some time. Another lot of lorries turned up and started carting peole away and coming back for more. When they stopped at night there were still some of us left, so we ate the rest of the rations we had with us and bedded down for the night in a nearby farm building. There was a heavy storm that night and in the morning we discovered that Lieutenant Smith of the Pioneer Corps and been up all night keeping guard rather than ask any of us to do it.

We now shared out our remaining rations and bought a couple of loaves of bread from a nearby house. Nobody came to pick us up; it seemed that we had been forgotten. All that morning refugees were coming past. There were civilians on bicycles or with farm carts pled high with their belongings, sometimes with grandmother perched on top of the load. An English couple stopped to speak to us. They had cycled from the north, having been to Dieppe trying to get a ship home without success, and were now making their way to Bordeaux. There were Belgium Gendarmes and Dutch soldiers, as well as a party of Royal Indian Service Corps with pack mules.

When it appeared that nobody was coming for us Lieut. Smith called us together and suggested that we started walking. This was agreed. We set off in parties of six so as not to be conspicuous from the air. German planes had been coming over all morning. Six men were left behind to guard our kitbags. The road had thick woodland on either side and as we went along we dived into the trees each time a plane came over. After walking a few miles we came to a fork in the road and had no idea which way to take. Here we stayed and rested. We were all starving by this time and Lieut. Smith gave us permission to eat our emergency rations 鈥� the tin of chocolate which everybody carried. His did little to stop the pangs of hunger, so when some more of the Indian mule leaders came along, this time led by two officers on horseback, we were glad to accept the few army biscuits they offered us. Behind the Indians came an RASC unit, a field butchery. They were going to Bernay which was the left fork and promised to send their wagons back to take us there, which they did.

It was late in the day when we arrived in Bernay. There were refugees and parties of British troops everywhere on the pavements. We were still without food so some of our number went foraging to see what they could get. A party of Royal Norfolks was having a brew up on the other side of the street and generously gave us some of their rations which was a great help. We settled down to spend the night on the pavement when SSM Ruttens arrived with to wagons to take us to rejoin the others. We never found out why they had been so long coming, or how he knew where to find us. We found the others on a farm, a few miles from Bernay, sleeping in the farm buildings. We were put into an open shed with the farm implements and chickens.

While I was here we were twice put on full marching order sand started marching towards the fighting, but each time we were turned back when a dispatch rider appeared with other orders. After about a week of this I contracted quinsy on both sides and could not speak or swallow solid food. I reported sick but was told there was no way of getting to an MO. The Captain didn鈥檛 seem to care, but a few days later he left for Britain and was replaced by a more sympathetic Captain who got me to an MO at Evreux. He immediately sent me to a Casualty Clearance Station at Passy, situated in the grounds of a chateau and in the house itself. As soon as I arrived they took away my rifle which I never saw again.

A convoy of wounded arrived before they did anything else so I was temporarily forgotten while they were attended to. Among them was one German who the nurses and orderlies all clustered around, to the disgust of some of the British who thought they should have priority. When the wounded had been attended to I was taken to a tented ward where I was supposed to be isolated, but there were other people in it. With the treatment I was given and the better environment the swelling in my throat soon went down and I could eat and drink normally. After five days I was discharged and sent back to the MO in Evreux, who was also the sub0area commander. He told me that my unit had moved but he didn鈥檛 know where to. He made me out a railway warrant to Pornichet, where the General Base Depot was. I never saw No. 2 Field Bakery again.

The train from Evreux went as far as Le Mans, where there was a long wait for a train to St Nazaire, the nearest station to Pornichet. The train from Le Mans had carriages with a corridor, in which I had to stand the whole way, as it was crowded with troops and refugees including some nuns. Some time before we reached St Nazaire these nuns somehow got the idea that we were nearly there and came pushing and elbowing their way along the whole length of the corridor, treading on everyone鈥檚 toes as they went. They were not German paratroops either!!

The base depot at Pornichet was a tented camp among pine trees, with the beach just the other side of some sand dunes. There were four or five Companies, each one a different Corps. The RASC was No. 1 Company. I could not rejoin my own unit as nobody knew where it was; actually it was not far away. We spent our days in drilling except when it got too hot and we would go for a dip in the sea. The beach was normally deserted and nobody had any bathing trunks. One day some friends and I had been in the water and were sitting on the sand when two ladies appeared walking along the beach. Both were formally dressed with hat and coat, and even gloves. The sight of men coming out of the sea in the nude and then trying to hide their embarrassment on seeing the ladies was rather hilarious. The ladies just kept on walking, looking to neither right nor left.

Each night a fire picket was detailed to patrol the camp to look out of fires and get everyone up and into slit trenches in the event of an air raid. The night that it was my turn to be on duty was the night the Luftwaffe decided to come and drop some bombs. When the warning went we woke everybody and got them into the slit trenches, awaiting developments according to orders. An individual came rushing up out of breath and in a panic shouting 鈥淒on鈥檛 panic, I鈥檓 the Orderly officer. Keep calm, don鈥檛 panic!鈥� He kept on in this was until the Corporal told him it was all under control. I do not know whether the bombs were intended for us or not, but they fell well clear of the camp.

While all this had been going on the main body of the BEF had been evacuated from Dunkirk and we in Brittany were the remnant left behind. There was an intention to send Canadian troops over to France to form a second BEF. I was one of a party sent from Pornichet to a place called Isse to erect tents for some of these Canadians. There were sixty of us in this party under the charge of a young officer, Second Lieutenant Ian Black. He was the type who inspires confidence and who men would follow anywhere. At Isse we were dumped in a field with 250 bell tents and 25 marquees to erect. In two or three days we had erected all the tents and were about to start on the marquees when a dispatch rider came with orders to return to Pornichet immediately. France was about to cease fighting and we only had a few days to get out. I believe the troops we erected the tents for arrived at St Nazaire and went back without getting off the ship.

Three small civilian lorries arrived to pick us up. Most of our personal kit had tobe left behind as there was not room for it on the wagons. All the tents we had put up were left standing and our kitbags were left in a pile in the middle of the field. On the journey back to Pornichet we went through a town called Blain, where people in the streets made obscene gestures to us.

We arrived back in Pornichet after midnight. I found a space in a tent and got my head down but before I could get to sleep the air raid warning went and we were told to go to the slit trenches. I took my time getting out and there was no room in the trenches when I got there. I did not see any point in stopping so went back to bed. At 4.30am we were called to breakfast, and then marched to St Nazaire to board a ship for Blighty. Long before we reached St Nazaire we joined a queue which moved a few yards now and then. German planes flew over all day, but dropped no bombs on us. It was early evening when we reached the quayside, and eventually got onto a little steam tugboat. Four ships lay in the harbour and our boat took us towards the Polish one. Before we got there, a plane came and started bombing us. The helmsman of our boat kept an eye on the plane and managed to dodge the bombs, until we eventually boarded the ship. By this time it was getting pretty late, and after we had been given a meal I lay down on the deck and fell straight off to sleep.

When I awoke we were far out at sea and I had apparently slept right through an air raid during the night. When it was almost dark we docked at Plymouth, too late to get into the harbour, so we had to wait outside until morning. When daylight came we docked and disembarked. On the quayside some ladies of the WVS had breakfast waiting for us and a packed lunch to eat on the train. They also gave us each a postcard to send home. We got on a northbound train to Northwich in Cheshire.

My story continues in a separate People鈥檚 War site entry entitles 鈥淎 Baker at War 鈥� Part 3鈥�.

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