´óÏó´«Ã½

This story was added to the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People's War website by Helen Jubb, ´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Leeds on behalf of the contributor, with his permission.

I served as a heavy Ack-Ack Gunner on 3.7 mobiles all along the south coast. When the excitement died down I volunteered for the Paras and was accepted into the XX1st Independent Parachute Company, ‘The Pathfinders,’ who dropped ahead of the main force to lay out the landing zones for gliders and parachutists.

However my story is not a tale of ‘derring-do’ or headline grabbing heroism but it does deal with a special kind of courage.

When I was being interviewed for the Ack-Ack I was asked if I was ‘gun-shy.’ This was an army euphemism for being afraid of very loud BANGS. In the First World War soldiers were court marshalled for it. Thankfully, in the last war we were more understanding. I replied that I wasn’t.

I was a layer for elevation, the man who brought the gun barrel up and down. Believe you me on our first firing run by the time we had finished our run I was just hanging on to my brains, but I did get used to it. At this time we had in our battery a man who was officially ‘gun- shy.’ He was second I/C of the latrines, his name was Cocker Day and as nice a bloke as you could wish to meet. Someone had to do the latrines and this was Cocker’s job. It kept him out of the way of the guns.

At this time our full compliment of weaponry was 8 heavy Ack-Ack 3.7s, 2 Bofors and, lastly, 2 Lewis guns usually fired by the off duty cooks. We had enough men to man all the guns but were desperately short of ammunition numbers. These last were men who grabbed a 56lb shell from the magazine, ran with it to the gun, put it into the fuse setter and then slammed it up the breach. You then hit the firing handle on your way back for another shell. You had to keep this up all night and it was punishingly hard work on a 4 second firing time.

We had just finished a run when I became aware of Cocker Day slowly coming into the gun pit. Sgt. Pledge (in civvy street he was caretaker of Waltham Town Hall) also spotted him and asked what he was doing. ‘I have come to give you a hand,’ replied Cocker. ‘I know you are short handed.’ Cocker was completely untrained and the only job ‘Pledgie,’ could give him was on the ammunition. Just join the team and do what they do and you will be OK. We gave him a few dummy runs just before the next enemy wave came over. So went the night with run after run. One very grateful ammunition man attempted to get some rest as Cocker took over his job.

You have to hear a 3.7 gun fire to understand the heaven splitting bang that goes off at four-second intervals with seven other guns doing exactly the same to appreciate what Cocker must have been going through. I watched his face change from pink to ashen grey as they night wore on and silently prayed that ‘Pledgie,’ was aware of the poor man’s plight. Cocker was almost green as he tried desperately to hang onto his scrambled brains. Eventually, when Pledgie called a halt he put his hand on Cocker’s shoulder and thanked him for his help and sent him back to his quarters.

Cocker Day is one of the men I remember the most during the last war. If I had been in charge of awarding medals Cocker would have been at the top of my list.

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