大象传媒

Bill served with the Royal Warwickshire regiment from 1940-46. During this time he was involved in the Coventry blitz and served in N.Africa and Italy.

During the Coventry Blitz he provided field kitchens to feed the bombed out people and remembers many delayed fuse bombs going off during the day as well as the night-time bombing, and having to comfort a small girl who was terrified and hysterical when a bomb went off close to her. The troops were given instructions to control any looters be firing over their heads, and if that didn't work to shoot them in the foot.

In the Italian campaign the army had to dig into their positions during the winter as the weather made the roads over the mountains impassable. One year the regiment were at Rimini, where a canal made a loop around their position. The enemy sabotaged the canal and flooded the British position. As cooks Bill and his mates were first up, and when Bills mate woke Bill with news of the flooding, Bill was not concerned at first, but when he realised the water was at chest height he was very upset, as the previous day he had been stoning some beautiful large raisins to make some mince pies and now they were all under water!

The cooks were always on the look out for extra food from the land to suppliment army rations - once they acquired a turkey and fed it up from left over scraps from the mess. One of the cooks had been a butcher which came in handy when the day came to turn the turkey into Christmas dinner. They had opportunities to barter, salt being very popular, it was amazing how many eggs could be obtained for a little salt!
While in North Africa Bill was stationed close to a fort guarded by French Arabs; through the gateway of the fort Bill could see fresh lettuce growing - a real delicacy in Africa! So one night Bill and some mates crept through the gateway, ignoring the danger of being shot, and pinched the lettuce. The officers mess were amazed to be served lettuce in North Africa.

While Bill was in Italy, Vesuvius erupted, but Bill thought the danger from the eruption was negligible compared to the danger from the enemy planes strafing their positions daily. He can remember the restricted visibility and the smoke and dust - his main moan was the dust undoing all the spit and polish on his army equipment and having to polish it all again. The lorries had to keep close together while on the move during the erupion due to the loss of visibility.

As Bill was a cook he got many tips from the officers, and as he didn't smoke or drink he was able to save these and his pay while he was serving, so when he was demobbed he came home with about 拢80.00, a good sum in those days.
When he was demobbed and came back to England, it was such a rush he was unable to inform his wife he was arriving, so he hitched a lift in a lorry from Stoke station and arrived in Silverdale in the middle of the night. He was able to get into his house, as houses were never locked, but on putting on the light he was shocked to see banners proclaiming "Welcome home Charlie" He was just beginning to wonder who Charlie was when he realised it was his brother-in-law, who had managed to let his sister know he was coming.

Bill earned several medals during his war service, but he didn't value them, as he thought the people left behind in England deserved medals more than him for putting up with conditions at home. He recently gave away his medals to his grandson, and they are being kept with pride by his family.

After the war Bill was called up again in the Cold war crisis in the 1950's, but the call up only lasted a fortnight; Bill was based in Taunton and helped out in the floods in the Lyton/Lynmouth area.

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