大象传媒

I was 16 when the war started. I went to a Territorial Army training camp for a 14 day training session on 20 August 1939 and got back home on 19 April 1946!

I was stationed at Stone for most of the war but was sent up to Glasgow for a time with several other young recruits. It was a very long journey and we arrived in the evening during heavy snowfall. We were told that we would be fed that night and shown the guns the next day! When we arrived at the gun emplacements the next morning, what did we see? 4 telegraph poles arranged to look like big guns! Our job was to move them around at dawn and then again at dusk so that people travelling past on the main road would think they were real guns and were being used!

On another occasion I was attending an Anti-Aircraft gun training camp. We had a warning that German paratroopers might be landing, so in groups of 5 we had to pass through a hut to collect our weapons and ammo. I was last in my group and the first four through received a piece of scaffolding with a bayonet on the end! I was the only one issued with a rifle and then I was only given 5 bullets and told not to use them all!

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