大象传媒

Tin hats and toy guns

Chapter seven
little ' Booster '.

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Mrs Deakin was worried ! How did Hitler get those things up there ? She asked.
We were listening to the sound of our first Flying bomb. My mother Had just reassured our neighbor ' Mrs Deakin ' that we were safe because the engine was still running.
We listened fascinated.
Suddenly, we were listening to silence !
It had been very loud, 'overhead ?'.
Then , it stopped.
" Oh heck", said Mrs Deakin .
Suddenly, there was a big explosion.
Then silence, then another droning 'Doodle bug '. But this one droned on and the sound just faded away.
So, our encounter with uncle Adolf's new bomb came and went.
We got no more. I found out later, that a Heinkel bomber Had released it from out over the north sea . A present from Holland ?.
But, where had it landed ? Obviously somewhere in Radcliffe.
As little groups of us kids joined up on our way to school, we could talk of nothing else. WE crossed the footbridge over our dirty old river and past the gasworks.
When we arrived at school, some of the windows were missing !
It had demolished Mr O' Neal's boatyard !
That was a small wooden building by the canal.
It also deposited a lot of mud across our school playing field.
We were disappointed. Why couldn't it have been a little bit further over ? It would have demolished our school.
Kids haven't changed all that much !.
We went over to gaze into the big waterlogged hole as soon as it was playtime.
There were lots of bits of paper floating about.
I picked one up. It was a letter supposed to be from a British prisoner of war. The Germans had put a lot of them inside the flying bomb.
It told us how useless it was to resist because they had lots of other secret weapons and they would win the war !
A little wooden boatyard wouldn't do much to change the course of the war !
Now, if they had demolished our school...
I WOULD have been impressed.
We were seeing less and less of the Americans. I didn't think that they were going home, but there was no doubt that there were a lot less of them about.
The few we saw, were now driving big lorries with white stars pained on the doors. Also, I noticed that a lot of them were not soldiers at all. They were Air force .
All kids knew a great deal about insignia and military badges.
These guys had a big blue and gold patch sewn on their arm with a big number 8.
The badge of the eighth army air force.
Where were they going with the big lorries ?
I wanted to know.
No doubt, the Germans wanted to know as well!.
What they were actually doing was, moving everything down to the south coast.
There was a huge air force base near Warrington and stuff was flown in every day.
Everyone knew by then. that we were going to invade Europe.
But, no one knew where or when.
This year, next year ? and where ?.
Suddenly we knew....................
We had landed in France, at a place called Normandy. They called it' D day '.
The wireless was giving us news by the hour. Everyone was listening to the B.B.C.
Our army was pushing inland. So were the Canadians and lots of other nations. The French were back in their homeland at last !
I knew then, where the 'Yanks ', had disappeared to.
They had been packed into camps along the south coast, alongside our troops and spent some months doing some very intensive training.
Sometimes, I listened to the B.B.C.s European service.
I was intrigued by some little messages that they sent out. Sometimes in English, sometimes in French.
We knew of course, that there were resistance fighters in France. and I knew that the little meaningless messages meant a great deal to them.
They were being given coded instructions about where to expect a parachute drop of weapons, or perhaps they were getting a request to blow up a certain railway bridge.
But, all we got was something like,
' The moon will be blue tonight '.
It really fascinated me ( and frustrated the Germans ).
Slowly, we moved further into Normandy.
This is where my little aluminium strips came into the picture.
We scattered millions across the sky in the south east of the English coast .
The Germans waited for the invasion there.
Their radar could actually see it coming.
They were waiting to defend themselves against little strips of aluminium !
All of us kids knew that, given decent equipment ans a fair chance, we would keep on pushing the Germans back.
I knew for sure that the lads who whizzed around in the little Jeeps, wearing little pointed hats were very good soldiers too.
They had a difficult job. They had suffered a lot of casualties on the beach .
Now, they were driving round the German flank to try to enclose them.
Fight they did.
They had left their country far behind and were proving that they would not be pushed around by anyone.
As for little Arnold, I was past my thirteenth birthday by now !
An early visit to Wales.
A lot of the Liverpool kids had gone home by now, but some were still in occupation in Bethesda. What I noticed was that a lot more aircraft had crashed in the mountains!
One German plane had staggered over the peaks with its fuselage blazing after meeting an R.A.F. fighter somewhere southwest of Liverpool.
A couple of the crew baled out by parachute.
One was killed and the other was taken prisoner. The plane flew on. Over the Irish sea, the flames blew themselves out and the plane staggered all the way home !
Some of the crashed planes were American.
One, a huge Liberator bomber crashed just above Llanfairfechan, where I used to play in the far away , happy times of ' pre war '. Its name was ' Bachelors baby' and it had come all the way from Florida.
It was on the very last part of its journey, and had just taken off from 'Valley R.A,F, base' on Anglesey.
Five of the eleven Americans on board were killed. It hit the mountain called 'Moelfr' and a fire started. It was fully loaded with ammunition !
A couple of Welshmen from the farm below tried to help.
On several occasions, Welsh people had been very courageous trying to help crash victims.
Sometimes, they had been mistaken for Germans because, naturally, they spoke Welsh .
The reason I remember this crash so clearly is because the crew had a little pet dog with them.
It had flown with them all the way from Florida and it was killed in the crash.
It was a little terrier. The crew had called it ' Booster ', because of the boosters on their engines.
He is buried at the site of the crash. I have visited the remote lonely spot on the mountainside, and I have stood for a moment , looking at the spot where little ' Booster' is buried.
There is a plaque now, at the site with the names of the crew members who died there.
Little 'Booster' has his name on it as a member of the crew !
Another thing I remember was that there was half of a Liberty ship stranded in Bangor harbour for a few days. I never found anyone else who remembers it.
But, it certainly was there .
I came back to England for a few weeks, and then back to the little cottage at Tan y Foel.
This time, not with mum and Dad.
Grandmother and Grandad Walker were there an auntie Elsie.
It was near the end of my school holidays and I was going to be there for the last two weeks.
It was to meet my American cousin !
Till then. I didn't even know that I had an American cousin.
He had been wounded in Luxembourg and was sent to England to recover.
He had been invited by the family to spend a few weeks with us in Wales.
He had more or less recovered from his wounds.
Grandad went to Bangor station to meet him and we waiter in eager anticipation for our family G.I. to arrive.
Suddenly, they were at the cottage door !
Albert Sellen was a tall Lieutenant.( I think)
He stood, grinning and looking rather embarrassed.
He was taller than the little cottage door and had to stoop considerably to get in.
He was ushered to the most comfortable chair beside the big iron fireplace and immediately given a cup of tea.
We all stood in a row in the little room, beaming at him. Almost as though we didn't expect him to speak English!
He grinned at me. " You must be Arnold ?",
He reached inside his khaki bag and pulled out a handful of chocolate bars.
" I was told that you would be here. I brought you some ' Hershey' bars".
So much chocolate ! About 3 months ration !
" Some of our famous chewing gum in here somewhere". Suddenly, the ice was broken.
Everyone wanted to talk at once.
I just sat there trying to take in the fact that I was in the presence of a real American, and we were related !
It was like a dream.
I wondered if he was a cowboy ?.
He didn't look like a cowboy, but he looked and sounded just like the Americans I had seen at the 'Odeon', playing baseball and drinking their soda .
We all sat round the rather battered Victorian table in the middle of the room and enjoyed a marvelous meal.
Cousin Albert, knowing about our rationing, had brought all sorts of food that we had not seen for years, and some that we had never seen .
I could only describe it as treasure !
Among the tins of ham and fruit and tinned butter, he had something called ' Noodles '.
We didn't know what they were .
Elsie, like a lot of young ladies of that time, thought it very fashionable to smoke.
She was given some ' Camel @ cigarettes and Grandad was not forgotten.
He got a couple of packets of pipe tobacco with a picture of a Red Indian on the front.

Cousin Albert wasn't a cowboy.
But, I forgave him for that.
Not every American could be a cowboy. Some of them were unlucky and had to do something else !
Then, I wondered if he had ever come face to face with 'Al Capone ?'.
I didn't ask him.
The following morning, we went down to Bethesda to look round and buy a couple of things. I felt a bit superior whenever we saw a Welsh kid or one of the temporary residents from Liverpool. They gazed in awe at the tall American .
He got asked for 'Gum' a couple of times as most Americans did. He produced a couple of sticks, grinning.
When we arrived back at the cottage on the mountain, he looked at me. " Guess I had better abandon uniform. I got a few civilian clothes with me ".
It didn't work too well because his civilian clothes looked very different to ours. But, we managed to move about, more or less unnoticed.
The weather was superb. It was late august and summer was at its best.
We spent some time playing golf on the mountainside and visited the rather deserted wartime beach at Llanfairfechan.
I told cousin Albert about the crashed Liberator bomber on the mountain, and about little ' Booster '. He looked sad as he gazed over the mountain to where his fellow Americans had died.
Towards the end of this Welsh adventure, it became indeed a real adventure !
In fact, almost a disaster .
Grandad had always been a keen mountain walker. He thought that it would be a good idea for us to climb Snowdon.
The expedition was to consist of himself, Albert and myself' little Arnold'.
I don't think that Albert was too keen on the idea but he was far too polite to say so. He didn't complain , But, no one seemed to consider that he was recovering from being wounded !
The chosen day was overcast and it was obvious that there would be no view from the summit. but, armed with Gran dad's usual survival equipment consisting of a brown paper bag containing the usual rather dried up cheese sandwiches, off we went.
A walk down our little mountain and a bus to Bangor, another bus to Llanberis and we were at the starting point for our climb.
The sky darkened and a stiff wind blew across the lower slopes.
I didn't like the look of the mountain. Most of it was hidden under low heavy mist that often hangs on the slopes of Snowdon. It looks dramatic, but it holds a warning for the less experienced climbers.
I don't think that cousin Albert liked it very much.
But, Grandad could not be called inexperienced. He knew the mountain well and had lots of experience of the weather conditions.
Off he went up the track. Grandad swinging his walking stick, his homburg hat rammed tightly on his head. So, off we went too !
It was not a mountaineers route. It followed the track of the mountain railway for part of the way. But it was a long hard slog. The path, in those days, was only a sheep track. Wet rocks and rough grass.
In these modern times of Gortex jackets and mountain boots, we would have been a strange sight .
Stout leather boots , mackintoshes and Grandads homburg hat! I had my school balaclava helmet on . Poor Albert had no hat at all ! We each had our stout walking stick. That's how it was in those days.
Pioneers ? I suppose so really.
Higher and windier. Now, we were actually leaning on the wind. It was blowing from the north east. That is, across the summit and swirling down into the Llanberis pass with considerable force
Then, somewhere above the half way point, we came to a place where the only way onwards was across a wide exposed gap, tight up against the rock face, with a drop of perhaps a thousand feet right down into the pass.
Through gaps in the swirling mist, we caught glimpses of the black scree down below.
At last, Albert spoke up. He had to shout to be heard above the screaming wind.
" We can't let young Arnold try to go over that gap", he shouted.
Being very young, perhaps I didn't see the danger, or perhaps I didn't want to let the side down ? " Oh, I can do it ", I shouted.
Fortunately, even Grandad could see the hopelessness of the situation.
" Your right ", he said.
He pointed back the way we had come.
I must admit that I was very relieved as we leaned once more into the howling gale and slowly made our way back down to the lower slopes.
We got back to the cottage as dusk was creeping across the valley.
On Baby mountain, the weather had not been too bad .
Grandad said nothing about our abandoned attempt to climb Snowdon.
I think that he was quite relived that we said little about it.
The ladies would, I think, have given him a hard time ?
A good rub down with a warm towel and some dry clothes, followed by a mug of cocoa
and we were none the worse for our experience .
It was, on the whole, a great time for me.
To meet my American cousin and to have such adventure. It was what little boys thrive on.
The last couple of days passed very quickly.
I didn't want them to.
WE sat round the fire and chatted about everything that was happening and discussing the outcome. Cousin Albert was going back over to Europe to rejoin his unit and continue with his war, I was going back to school and soon. the little cottage on the mountain would be at peace with itself once more.
I really wanted the moment to last forever !
Cousin Albert did go back to his army unit and he survived the war.

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