大象传媒

Hugh and Rose Martin (nee Gibbons)
Part1
Recollections of early days.

What work were you doing when war broke out??
Rose: I was 18, working at Vernons (Liverpool)
When did you decide to change?
Rose: I didn't decide, the place got closed down, the football pools place.
So it got closed during the war?
Rose: Yes, I was working there and got the sack. That building got closed own, but then I got a job in another branch, Grace Road in Bootle. But I didn't like being there, it was too far to go to work. So I went to Rootes and started work there.
What did you do at the Rootes factory?
Rose: I was a clerk in a part of the office where we kept records and what we had and what we needed, you know stock control.
You were building aeroplanes?
Rose: Oh yes, Blenheims. My brother George worked there as well.
It was superior to anything else wasn't it?
Hugh: No! ha ha ha
What was your brother doing?
Rose: Making formers or something, you know, the frames.
Hugh: They were long range monoplanes, they made them into night fighters.
Rose: Then we got married, I left the job to go to York and when I got to York I found out I was pregnant, so no more going to work. I wouldn't have got a job anyway.
Did you have a job in York when you first went there?
Rose: No didn't get a job at all.
You went there as a wife?
Rose: Had children, couldn't go anywhere then.
Was that in 1940 you had George (son)?
1941, got married in October 1940, George was born in December 1941.
You've got memories of when the Rootes factory was attacked once?
No more than any others. ..Oh it was when I was working there we had a bomb, well it wasn't a big bomber plane, it was pretty much a fighter plane, don't know what the hell it was. But that was when it dropped the bomb, and whole paving slabs were going up in the air like postage stamps!
Where were you?
Rose: I was out in the open trying to get from the factory into the air raid shelter.
.
So you had heard the siren?
Rose: Yes, but first of all, when the bombing got to its height, that was in the summer. It was always worst in the summer wasn't it Hugh?
Longer days?
Rose: No! Actually you used to get longer periods of bombing in the winter because it got dark early. But the thing was we used to work until 8 o'clock at night then. You didn't have a lot of time to yourself. By the time you got home, had a meal, it was nine or maybe later, and no sooner finish your meal, the sirens would go off. But then we were getting sirens in the middle of the day, every time during the day and we were running from factories. There was a drive in front of the dual carriageway, in front of the factory and we had to get out of the factory, into the factory surrounds, over the dual carriageway into a field where they had built an area, but that took at least 5 minutes to cover, and we were getting them., oh God, it was awful.
Hugh: That was the time they introduced the observers on the roofs, and not until the raid was imminent and he said there's a bomber attacking, evacuate!
Rose: We used to do that by the minute. Oh you could have 5 or 6 during the day. But then they decided that the sirens would go off in the factory but that was a warning. When the second when one went, go for the shelters.
But anyway, I left there to go to York, because your Dad was stationed in York, he got me digs with Mrs Grantham
Rose: Mrs Bittetrdyke was the second lady we lived with, she was nice.
So you didn't have married quarters?
Rose: No, we just lived in digs with civilians.
Hugh: The airmen were billeted out, we didn't have any barracks or anything.
Rose: Well you see lots of women were letting out rooms our because their husbands were in the army, they were away. They got a few bob.
When you were at Rootes, what time did you start in the morning?
Rose: 8 o'clock. We got one break mid-morning, well it wasn't a break, you grabbed what you could when you could. We had an hour at dinnertime and half an hour at teatime
A ten and a half hour day?
Rose: You would leave the house at about a quarter past seven, and you wouldn't get home until nearly eight o'clock. If you were busy you could take one day off in the week, no more.It was a 7 day week.
How much were you paid?
Rose: Five shillings a week, something like that. That wasn't bad those days. Well it wasn't bad because you couldn't go out and buy anything because there was nothing to spend it on.
So you saved it all...ha ha ha
Hugh: All the factories that weren't making anything essential to the war office were closed. It was as simple as that, you couldn't buy anything.
So when you were in York, how long had you been in the RAF by then?
Hugh: Years, I joined in 1935 and the war broke out in 1939.
And had you been abroad?
Hugh: Not by then
Rose: The next day almost!
Hugh: I went overseas (France) in 1939, with the British Expeditionary Force.They sent us out to send the Germans packing, they did it to us. It was the bum's rush ha ha.
How far did you get in France before they chased you back to the coast?
Hugh: Well when we arrived it was wintertime, we settled down, the aircraft froze up, in northern France, on the Somme.
What was the name of the first airfield you were on?
Hugh: Near Lille,..oh no, Peronne, Douai, half a dozen, we moved around all over the place.
It was really cold winter that year?
Rose: It was cold all over England as well.
Hugh: The men got frostbite, lots of them were in tents, it was a hell of a state. So they moved us into villages, which had been abandoned, and we slept in with the cattle and so on.
Rose: It was warm though!
Hugh: Yes.
When did you realise that the Germans were going to be chasing you? Was that May, April?
Hugh: Beginning of May they made the big push but prior to that they had made a lot of raids with aircraft.
Were you worried about that?
Rose: He was worried all the time (ha ha)
Hugh: I had no idea how long the war would last, I was thinking of the first world war, not being kicked out or sent home or anything.
You thought you would entrench and be there for ever?
Hugh: Oh yes.
Your father was near to where you were? (First World War)
Hugh: Yes he was near, yes.
How did he feel about seeing his son go away to the same places he had been?
Rose: He had two sons, Jimmy was in the Marines.
Hugh: Yes.
Was he a career soldier as well?
Hugh: No he had been on the staff of King Haakon of Norway as a marine.
Rose: He was a bodyguard.
How on earth did he get a job like that?
Hugh: He was a big lad, it was as simple as that! ha ha. He was over six-foot. He got five shillings off the king! ha ha
Was that on board the Ark Royal?
Hugh: No, on a warship of some sort, then he went overseas. The Far-East at the time of the kamikaze.
So you realised the Germans were in a position to push you out in early May. What happened?
Hugh: Well we got warnings about tanks and they were sending more aircraft.
Churchill wouldn't release Spitfires, you see, they had a hell of a time, we said we hadn't got them, the blokes in charge of fighter command said they weren't releasing any more, that鈥檚 it! So they began sending over Hurricanes over, in pairs or threes, and they landed on aerodromes where they could, and re-armed and took off in that district and when they had run about a bit they came back again.. Sometimes they flew back to England but it was this sort of thing, they didn't belong to anyone, basically, but I was on a regular squadron.
That was with your Lysanders? (4 squadron)
Hugh: Yes we lost a lot in accidents. Lysanders were dreadful aeroplanes for novice pilots to land. It was supposed to fly very slowly, and it didn't! ha ha And as soon as it got below 40mph it fell out of the sky, basically.
Were they grass aerodromes?
Hugh: Grass, yes and they were always snowed in, mud and all sorts.
Were you on an aerodrome when you realised the Germans were coming?
Hugh: Oh yes.
Tanks arriving or what?
Hugh: Yes at that stage we had an aerodrome on the outskirts of Lille. We had moved up from further back and come up to the front.
Was this Abbeville?
Hugh: No right up on the Belgian border, where they broke through in the first world war, so we were the first to be attacked.
Was it aeroplanes or tanks or troops?
Hugh: No it was shells mainly; kept on coming in from different directions, and eventually I realised that these shells, there was only one way out as far as we were concerned.
You were in charge?
Hugh: I was a corporal.
How did you get out?
Hugh: We eventually got a lorry. We managed to patch it up and get it going, and we put in what was left of us, a dozen I suppose or something like that, and made for the coast.
That was ground crew was it?
Hugh: Yes, well we had lost all our aeroplanes, the two we had were unserviceable, basically we wanted to dump them.
Did you disable them?
We saved a lot of stuff but these two they were so desperate for aeroplanes we managed to patch these up. One of them for instance had the tip of a propeller shot off, so we hacksawed, with a big hacksaw, the tips off. To balance a propeller takes days, and they use halfpennies and chalk-marks...ha ha.
And a pilot got in and flew it?
Hugh: Oh flew it home, yes and landed at Linton.
Rose: Did he go all the way to Linton?
Hugh: Yes and it got demolished then because a (Whitley) landed on it.
Rose: You went to Manchester fist, Ringway.
Hugh: Well we finished up with them at Linton.
So you were with these 12 blokes on a lorry, what happened?
We had to wait for orders to evacuate, and it was a simple order of head to the coast. We went through Abbeville, that was the aerodrome. We parked out for the night, and the shelling got rather intense, and there were a number of tanks in the distance, you could hear them rumbling around, you know. And the poor French peasants were on the road in hundreds and thousands and whenever you moved anywhere you couldn't get down the road for them, with their bundles and kit and everything else. It wasn't only us being harassed from the air, the Germans were having a go at them too, with their aircraft.
You were on the road but really slowed up by all these?
Hugh: Oh yes.
They were also going to the coast?
Hugh: Don't know, they were just getting away from it. You can imagine the chaos.
You were attacked weren't you dad, on the way back?
Hugh: Yes, we had a Messerschmitt come down and straffe the whole lorry and a number of other lorries that were on the road. And I will always remember jumping out of the back of the lorry to get out of it quickly and the bullets from the aircraft were spattering on the road like cigarette ends and we dived off into a ditch, quickly!
Is that where you knocked over a telegraph pole or something?
Hugh: It was prior to that.
Rose: That was looking for coal!
Hugh: Coal, the winter was so cold we went out one day scavenging for coal, in Maignelay-Montigny. And they were Poles, these people, commies, communists these, lots of communists, lots of coal-miners, France was full of communists.
I came home on a destroyer. Luckily when we got there (Dunkirk), although it had been shelled and bombed and the (oil) tanks had been set on fire...That was my main impression of the place, it stunk and there was smoke everywhere.
The mole, which was the landing point for ships, was still intact and luckily one or two ships managed to come in and one of them was a destroyer and we got what was left of our unit on this.
You said you were being jeered once?
Rose: He got home to Liverpool on a Saturday afternoon with your .45 and a tin hat!
Why were you being jeered?
Hugh: By the army "where was the air force?鈥� you know...Little did they know our blokes were way back, struggling, couldn't hold them up.
Were you given preference over army units?
Hugh: Oh yes the air force was, immediately, any aircraft was valuable you see, it took so long to ferry them.
Rose: He wasn't on the beach or anything, he had a taxi waiting for him!
Hugh: But the army was expendable!!
Do you remember which destroyer you came back on?
Hugh: No, I, because we didn't need them anymore. I remember on the funnel there was an 鈥淗鈥� something or other, but I didn't take a lot of notice.
Where did you land?
Hugh: At Dover.
I've got the name of her somewhere, she was lost in the far east.
Hugh: The ships at Dover were lashed to each other so you couldn't get near the dock, your ship docked onto another ship and then you walked across the decks.
And then did you get some leave after that?
Hugh: We went up to Dover castle and stayed the night. They attempted to disarm us and we wouldn't have any of it.
Who was it who tried to disarm you?
Hugh: The army had some idea they were short of weapons. They had all been left in France, you know. The army were dumping a lot, you know They made no attempt to save anything. But even our own lorry had to be ditched in a canal. We smashed up the engine and works and dumped it in the canal in the hope...it was all strategically determined, it was a beautiful planning thing. These canals were of great aid to the Germans so the sooner we blocked them the better
Rose: He came home, tin hat鈥�
Hugh: stayed at Dover, got on a train after that
How long was it until Mum knew you were safe?
Rose: Well I didn't until he arrived on the doorstep. I didn't know where he was.
Did you know about Dunkirk?
Rose: No!
Hugh: It was very vague in the news.
Rose: We had no TV, there was limited news.
You had no idea this was happening?
Rose: You did as it got worse.
So he came home and he went to Ringway. He came home, he knocked at the door on the Saturday, came in, then he went to see his mother, then he said "I've got to go back tonight, to Ringway鈥�. I didn't know where Ringway was, properly, in Manchester. So I said well I will come over tomorrow and I'll make tomorrow my day off for the week, and I'll come to Manchester. And I went to Manchester, got a bus, said I wanted to get to Ringway, because half the time there were no signs anywhere, of where you wanted to go.
Hugh: Ringway was an escape aerodrome, for aircraft from the continent who were fleeing the continent , it wasn鈥檛 an airforce aerodrome.
Rose: They put you in a private billet didn't they?
Hugh: Yes
Rose: I said to this chap I wanted to get to Ringway oh Northenden Road or something, he was staying. The conductor put me off and as I got off the bus a bus came the other way and off stepped him! I was as if it was arranged!
Were you at Ringway long?
Hugh: No, just enough to set us up, a bus to Manchester, a double-decker we got one of those and this was to house the squadron because we had no transport.
You lived in a bus?
Hugh: No we moved equipment and so on, wherever we were sent to we went in the bus.
How long were you around in England then?
Hugh: I don't know 10, 14 days or something like that.
Then you got posted overseas?
Hugh: We got some aeroplanes then.
Then you got posted to Linton?
Hugh: Linton, yes.
With Lysanders?
Hugh: Yes they were sent up from wherever they had landed.

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