大象传媒

[Continued from "Searchlights in Southern England"]

Heading for Scotland out of King's Cross, the train was crowded with service personel and we dozed abit sitting upright and wedged together. I remember the train stopping at York long enough for us to get a cup of tea. The next stop I remember was Edinburgh where it was beginning to get light. On arrival at Glasgow I enquired at the Rail Transport Office how to get to Maryhill Barracks and was told which number tram to catch. I discovered there were other soldiers from the train making for the same place. I found that the trams in Glasgow, unlike those in Bournemouth, did not really stop at stopping places. They merely slowed right down so that people could jump on and off. It was no use standing on the pavement with a heavy kit bag expecting it to wait while you got to the middle of the road and board it. You needed to be standing alongside the tram track with your kit bag ready to throw it on, then grab the rail and jump on yourself.

At Maryhill Barracks a major exercise was in progress with soldiers arriving from all sorts of different units. Split into groups, lorries took us to our new billets and told to report to the Royal Technical College in George Square the following morning. With three others, I was billeted in a block in the Shettleston district. Glasgow tenements, with their granite walls and covered courtyards, were a new experience for me, but I was not complaining. Our Scottish landlady made us very welcome, provided us with good meals and beds with sheets as well as blankets. I could hardly believe I was still in the British Army.

The reason for my transfer was revealed the next day. There was a desperate need for wireless mechanics. Having long since grabbed all available ones, they were now selecting any soldiers who looked capable of being trained for tht occupation. After four months basic training in wireless theory, we would be tested. Those who passed the examination would be transferred to the Royal Army Ordnance Corps for a further three months at the School of Wireless.

The RAF were also in great need of wireless mechanics and the college was a hive of activity, with classes organised in four-hour shifts almost round the clock. I found the classes to be interesting and it was good to be doing something of a technical nature again. Weekly bath parades were organised through the streets of Glasgow to the nearest public baths for a hot wash; the tenements not having such facilities.

Our studies of basic wireless theory ended in November 1941 and we were given a weeks leave. My girlfriend Gwen and I decided to get engaged. My parents were apprehensive though and thought we should wait until the war was over and my studies completed.

On arriving at the RAOC School of Wireless near Derby, we were informed that if we completed the course successfully we would become Telecommunication Mechanics Class 3, receiving trade pay in addition to basic pay. We would be posted to one of the command base workshops for three months practical experience.

At Derby we settled down to learn all the workings of the different army wireless receivers and transmitters, together with telephones. We were in timber huts within the main barracks, each with a coke stove. The weather became colder again. It became so cold that the pipes froze, the parade ground was covered with sheet ice and our huts were surrounded by snow. There was not much to do in Derby when off duty, except to visit the YMCA canteen. I remember the main roads being lined with oil drums every 10-15 yrdsor so. The drums were filled with old sump oil which was burning slowly to create a dense smoke over the whole town. This prevented enemy aircraft from identifying the Rolls Royce factory which was turning out aero engines as fast as they could.

Passing out in February 1942 and after another weeks leave, I was posted to Aldershot Command Workshops. Soon I joined a small team which went on tour with a mobile workshop lorry. We made our way around Sussex and Kent tuning wireless sets of the 51st Highland Division and 7th Armoured Division. All the units we visited were expecting to be going overseas shortly. Little did we know that we would all be in the same convoy of ships two months later.

Towards the end of May 1942, with two weeks embarkation leave, Gwen and I were married.
She was working at the Post Office HQ Section which occupied a number of hotels on the West Cliff in Bournemouth. Part of my leave was spent in London and it was noticeable that there were now quite a few American servicemen to be seen.

[Continued in "Convoy to Nigeria"]

(PK)

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