´óÏó´«Ã½

Mr. Hawkins was working as a gardener in his home village of Barlaston, in Staffordshire, when the 2nd World War began. At the age of 23 he was still single, and apart from visits to the cinema in the nearest town, he had travelled no further than Blackpool. He was at home when the outbreak of war was announced, and for the first 6 months worked 2 nights a week as an Air Raid Patrol warden on fire duty at the lodge of Barlaston Hall, where there was a small switchboard connected via Stone to Stafford.
On April 4th 1940 Ernest was called up by letter requesting that he report to Ludgershall on Salisbury Plain. He was given a rail pass for the journey through Birmingham to Tidworth, where he was to train for 3 months as a soldier in the Royal Armoured Corps. On arrival new conscripts were inoculated and asked their religion; Protestant was unacceptable; you were either Catholic or Church of England. Early training included PT, which included 10-mile runs across ploughed fields, before breakfast. This was Ernest’s first time away from home and during the early days he was homesick and wanted to run away, as did many soldiers over their years in action.
At Tidworth soldiers trained with Bren gun Carriers instead of tanks, because all the tanks were in France. Indeed, during those 3 months training, French and British troops returned to Tidmouth, from Dunkirk, shell-shocked and tattered and the trainees helped with their rehabilitation. Once the 3 months were up Ernest joined the 15th and 19th King’s Hussars in Yorkshire, billeted with civilians, young newly-weds, who gave up their bed and slept down stairs to accommodate their 3 soldiers.
The regiment was moved over night to Keele, a mere 8 miles from Ernest’s home village, so his bicycle was kept conveniently in the stables at the Sneyd arms, in readiness for courting excursions to Barlaston. These escapades resulted in him being put on a charge, ‘absent without leave’ for which recurring offences were rewarded with ‘Jankers’, which at Tidworth, could be anything from non stop pack drill for 2 hours to awful chores, like cleaning latrines. For more serious offences, such as absconding, soldiers were fetched back by military police and sent to ‘the glass house’ in Aldershot.
After Keele the regiment moved to Uttoxeter, where the stables at the racecourse were used as sleeping accommodation. Again Ernest and his bicycle went AWOL, but then in 1941 he was sent to Thetford to begin training on tanks.
Stuart, Crusader and Grant tanks were used for training purposes; the Stuart was large and top-heavy, while the Crusader was lower, more manoeuvrable, and could consequently cover more ground. During their time at Thetford the regiment were convinced that Hitler would invade, an attitude that must have leant considerable purpose in the continued training in Northampton. Ernest was still a private soldier with the 15th and 19th King’s hussars, a regular regiment expecting very high standards, with strict officers and NCOs
In May 1942 they were sent on embarkation leave to Seaforth barracks in Liverpool, and Ernest, assuming the Liverpool train would take the line through Barlaston station, where his father was the signal man, wrote a post card to throw from the train window. Unfortunately, the train changed lines at Norton Bridge for Crewe, but, not to be thwarted, Ernest threw the card out anyway, and someone must have picked it up and delivered it, as he still has that post card today.
Leaving Liverpool on the liner ‘Orontes’, Ernest travelled to join the ‘Nelson’ and ‘Rodney’ off the Irish coast, and then in convoy with destroyers, into the Atlantic, where troop ships sank regularly during 1942. They landed at Freetown in Sierra Leone and then sailed on to Cape Town. They were at sea for 2 months, many soldiers passing out with the heat, and since Ernest was in the last batch to board, sleeping on hammocks strung between girders in the hold. The food was awful, mainly tripe, and it was common to queue for hours for an orange. To combat boredom, the soldiers played bingo, or ‘Housey - Housey’ as it was then, boxed and did PT.
Cape Town was well lit after the blackout they’d left behind, and the soldiers were collected in cars, taken on trips and given food parcels to send home. However, unaware of their next destination, after a fortnight they were off once more, via Madagascar and Suez to Egypt.
The barracks in Cairo was infested with bugs, and Ernest was so badly bitten between his fingers and toes, he was bandaged and put into hospital. When he was released from hospital he went to join his next regiment in the desert. There was a choice of 3 regiments in the desert; the Staffordshire Yeomanry, the Queen’s Greys or the Nottingham Sherwood Rangers. Ernest and many of his former colleagues from Tidworth joined the latter, which had been a TA regiment before the war, and had served in Palestine in the early part of the war as cavalry. However, the horses were replaced by artillery at Tobruk and Crete, before returning to Egypt. The Sherwood Rangers was different from the 15th and 19th in that it comprised officers who were country gentlemen and soldiers who had worked on their estates. In all, Ernest was with them 4 years, from Alamein to Tunis.
When the soldiers joined their regiment at transit camp, the morale in the 8th Army was low and Rommel was only unable to take Cairo because of a fuel shortage, so the British troops felt they had their backs to the wall. It was at this stage that Churchill visited the 8th armoured brigade to lift morale, and Ernest remembers Horrocks addressing the troops of 30 corps of the 10th armoured division.
Alamein was Ernest’s first experience of battle. On 23rd October 1942 he was driving a tank during a horrific barrage, after which the engineers preceded the tanks through the minefields, laying guide tapes. These marked routes were given names, such as ‘Piccadilly’. Towards the end of the battle Ernest’s tank was hit, but there were no casualties. Many tanks were set on fire as they were easy targets and the German ‘Spandaus’ had the capacity to penetrate armour plating, killing the tank crews. Although tank personnel were generally safer than infantry, they dug in at night to sleep beside their vehicles, in slit trenches which occasionally collapsed and buried the occupants when other vehicles passed too close. Many soldiers were killed by mines, and many more were permanently afflicted by illness contracted in the desert, such as amoebic dysentry and the accumulation of sand in the stomach. The sand was swallowed in tea and food and set rather like cement.
The regiment suffered many casualties, including many colleagues from Tidworth, and most soldiers doubted their ability to win the battle.
At the end of the battle columns of prisoners, both German and Italian arrived. The Italians seemed glad to be captured, but the Germans still thought they would win the war.
After Alamein the regiment set off to Tripoli and Benghazi. There were skirmishes on the way, and the 8th army stayed on to fight in Sicily, but Ernest’s regiment, dispersed by death, injury and illness, were placed in hospital in North Africa. The commanding officer sent a 15cwt. truck to fetch Ernest out of the dysentry ward and take him to Alexandria, to board a ship for England. While on board, the same officer insisted Ernest was too weak to be left in hospital in Sicily and had a medical orderly carry him up on deck, from the sick bay, wrapped in blankets and dosed him with M & B tablets (penicillin). He remained on the top deck all the way back to Scotland, where he began to recover, although he still has recurring dysentry, now.
On the journey home Ernest sent post cards to his parents, and was welcomed as a hero, because the 8th army was now famous, but while he was at home a letter claiming he was ‘lost in action’ arrived. Evidently the war office had lost track of him.
In addition, the girlfriend he’d cycled off to meet during his early training had married someone else. After spending Christmas of 1943 with his parents, in Barlaston, Ernest began the New Year in the New Forest, testing floating tanks, in preparation for the expected invasion. Apparently a mere piece of driftwood could sink these tanks, evidenced by the number scuttled in Studland Bay.
7 weeks were spent at the Southampton camp, where the troops were briefed by Eisenhower, in readiness for D-day in Normandy. On the 5th June everything was loaded up, when their departure was cancelled because of bad weather. To pass the time the soldiers went to the cinema, but after an hour a message flashed onto the screen recalling them to camp immediately.
They landed in France at 3am on June 7th, and although the engineers had laid luminous tapes to guide the tanks, they were soon caught in mortar fire and were stuck for 2 days. Eventually they arrived in Bayeaux. The roads were full of refugees, mostly women and children, and the carcasses of German horses and cattle that had died from neglect, and been left to rot in the summer heat. The tanks just pushed them aside, but Ernest can remember the stench, even now.
In Ernest’s regiment 5 officers, the 2nd in command and a poet, named Keith Douglas, were all killed.
From France they moved on to Holland, sleeping in trenches, under snow, in the Ardennes, and in cellars. In all they had not slept in proper beds for 4 years. At one stage 30 corps was cut off by the Germans for 2 weeks, so they raided a nearby railway siding for supplies. When they reached Bremmen the war was over, Hamburg was in ruins and there were no German soldiers to be seen.
Ernest came back home in May 1946, de-mobbed at what is now the SAS headquarters in Hereford, arriving at 12:30pm in Stoke, just in time for his wedding at St. Peter’s church that afternoon. Marriage arrangements had been made while he was still in Nijmegen, in Holland, and his bride had been introduced to him as a pen friend, by his sister-in-law, who worked at the same munitions factory at Swynnerton. The ceremony was simple, owing to rationing, and although they had only met briefly, their marriage was a success.

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