大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Allan Price on behalf of Len Hall and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The first war work carried out by my school friends and I on the day of the declaration of war was filling innumerable sandbags with quarry dust, the by-product of the giant crushers at Rubislaw Quarry. The quarry played quite a prominent part in the lives of those who lived in its vicinity 鈥� one memory which survives is the sight of hundreds of pigeons taking to the air as soon as the warning hooter went off at twelve o鈥檆lock every working day. It also warned us to abandon whatever activity or game we were playing and return home for something to eat! The pigeons flew around for a few minutes after the warning to warn everyone else of the impending blast which would loosen more granite to be prepared for lifting to the surface and then they leisurely returned to their perches! On one day later in the war when Aberdeen endured its 鈥渂litz鈥�, a German bomb, by accident or intent landed and exploded at the very bottom of the quarry hole. The damage it did was considerable, collapsing cranes and hoisting equipment and putting the water pumping plant out of action and flooding the quarry hole for months. I was allowed to go down to see the damage 鈥� the normally tidy hole looked as if a bomb had hit it! We all wondered if any of the pigeons were killed. They certainly got no warning hooter that day!

I remember hearing Neville Chamberlain telling the nation that Britain was at war with Germany and experiencing a vague feeling of excitement rather than fear or alarm. At the time we had no knowledge of what Nazism meant and I suppose we thought of this war as a second half of the match against Germany! We were aware of the terrible losses of the First World War and saw on the streets of Aberdeen blinded and bereft of limbs, many trying to earn some money by selling matches, boot laces and suchlike to supplement the meagre pension provided by a grateful nation. But we were totally unaware of what was to come, the disruption of captured nations, the planned extermination of the Jews in Germany and Europe and the other dastardly things the Nazis planned. We knew that the one politician called was warning us but it was only later that we listened to him. There is little doubt that had we not, the world would have been a different place today.

Towards the end of the thirties, I had developed a serious interest in aviation and remember well cycling out to Dyce Airport to see the latest Hawker fighter aircraft, aggressive looking biplanes and the last to be produced before the Hurricane and Spitfire arrived on the scene. Thank goodness they did because the ones we say at Dyce would not have stood much chance against Germany鈥檚 Messerchmitt 109鈥檚 when the war in the air became very serious.

The interest in aircraft stemmed from years of building and flying balsa wood models and as the war started and exciting new aircraft came on the scene, 1/72 scale models were made as soon as planes became available. This era culminated in a display of model aircraft in the greenhouse of a neighbour to raise money to help Aberdeen鈥檚 鈥淏uy a Spitfire鈥� appeal. The boys who made the models wee all thrilled when the popular Lord Provost Thomas Mitchell paid a visit to the display and we got our photographs in the Press and Journal. Early in the war, or even just before it, that very air-minded pioneer Gander Dower organised a squadron number 102 of what was then the Air Defence Cadet Corps. As the usefulness of this young movement was recognised it became the Air Training Corps and two other squadrons were formed in Aberdeen, one of which was the 107 squadron meeting at Fairfield House in Ferryhill. We continued to parade on Sundays in a hanger at Dyce for some time before moving into Aberdeen, parading in the former Soup Kitchen in Loch Street and eventually in Nelson Street School. We were proud to have been the first squadron in Aberdeen and especially of our Commanding Officer Gander Dower. In the early days at Dyce in the freezing cold hanger, he announced that we were all to be issued with greatcoats! It was generally believed that he paid for them out of his own pocket and whether this was true or not, we were the only squadron in the area to have greatcoats to go with our uniforms and proud of them we were! The ATC gave many of us our first air experience whilst at summer camps. We had trips to Oxfords, Ansons, and Wellingtons, in the latter whilst at RAF Edzell.

About ten years after the war ended, a reunion of members of 102 squadron was organised in the Athenaeum in Aberdeen and though he was getting on in year, Mr Gander Dower came up from London as the main guest. It was a memorable evening and after his farewell speech, he retired from the room to thunderous applause just like the thespian he had been in his early days. Of course some of the original members who did not survive the war were missing but we were able to show our appreciation to our CO鈥� and his officers for their efforts in training us.

None of the meeting places mentioned exist today but some of us have memories of earning an honest bob or two fire watching at Nelson Street School in the days before we went into the RAF. Another source of income for impecunious scholars and students was serving in the Observer (now the Royal) Corps in its Centre at the entrance to Woolmanhill Hospital. We sat at a huge plotting table in telephone communication with observer posts strategically placed all round the north east and as reports came in from the observers, we plotted the movements of every kind of aircraft flying in the area on the board, with details of height, direction and type where known. They were mostly know and identified aircraft but occasionally an unidentified came on the scene and there was a heightening of the tension while the senior people in the balcony came to a decision about sounding the sirens. In one corner of the room was a large screen showing the sea areas round the coast and this was manned by WAAFS. It was the Early Warning System, all a bit hush-hush and it showed aircraft coming in towards the coast as they were picked up by the radar stations. We were able to warn the observers on the ground to look out for these aircraft. You could tell they wondered how on earth we knew long before them!

As the war progressed, I went up to University to do Engineering, a reserved occupation. I would have gone into the Army Cadet Corps but this longing for the air was still there and I eventually got myself into the University Air Squadron. The squadron had its own Tiger Moth and pilot so there was plenty air experience up to and beyond solo level although solo flying was never allowed. This was the stage of the war when the big build up for the and expected long and brutal battle against Japan was being planned and the aircrew losses were expected to be high. When eventually I was old enough, I was called into the RAF and got as far as solos in Tiger Moths and Harvards and some 80 hours before going off to the States to finish pilot training in Arizona.

But the atom bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and our gang of 200 potential pilots were stranded in New York when Lease-Lend finished and the Grand Canyon was never witnessed from the air. But we had a wonderful time in the Big Apple before returning to post-war UK in the Queen Mary. We were invited to take short service communications and continue flying but most of us wanted to resume our studies and so declined.

So ended my war. I trained as a fitter but never fitted anything. Instead I taught Maths and English to new recruits in as National Servicemen until I was released in time to catch the University year. It was tough going to study after four years away from it but eventually it was all over and I could start to earn a living.

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