大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Story gatherer Jessica on behalf of Ivor Dunstan. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.
I worked at Farm Industries until I was called up on 5th March 1940 and I put in for the Navy. I had a medical soon after and although I only had one eye I was accepted. I was sent to HMS Drake in Plymouth as an engineer. By the end of March I developed the flu which left me with a nasty cough. I was sent to the sick bay where they left me for a few weeks. One day the doctor came around and said,
鈥淲hat鈥檚 this man doing here?鈥� and he decided I should be thrown out because I only had one eye. My records show that the admiralty decided I was physically unfit for Naval Service.
I came back to Playing Place and went to work at Falmouth Docks as a fitter working on ship repairs. We were very busy converting peacetime ships to wartime ships. We felt safe in the docks as the area was completely surrounded by barrage balloons, if the air raid siren sounded we were brought up out of the engine room and stood on the centre castle (the main deck) until the warning was over. One day, when working on the Tascalusa, the siren went and all of a sudden there was a tremendous explosion. A bomber had come under the barrage balloons and dropped a bomb on the ship moored next to us, The BP British Chancellor. It was chaos, there was debris flying through the air. We were moored on the Northern Arm, which was a wood jetty. We were on the outside edge (the Flushing side). We had to wait on the centre castle even though we could see people were hurt, and the lascars (the foreign crew) panicked and lowered the lifeboat and rowed away towards Flushing! No one knew what to do next so we waited. The gun crew on the ship next to us was quickly manned, they fired at the bomber, but no trace was found. A motor launch came and we went down on a rope ladder to it, it took us to Custom House Quay and from there we walked back to the docks to clock off.
One morning in the dry dock there was an unexploded bomb. There were lots of different things going on, we never knew what could happen next, we got used to it but it was a scary business.
When the troops sailed out of France from Dunkirk, lots of small boats came into Falmouth loaded with soldiers. It was lucky for them they had a smooth crossing as they really were stacked on board.
Locally, the roads were packed with American troops, I remember them being at Shortlanesend, building up to the final push.
One evening we opened the backdoor here at Playing Place and saw a plane. We heard a whooshing and a bang but we never found out where the bomb hit. Sometimes these were in the Carnon Valley as before the war German engineers worked in the mines in this area, so this area was known to them.
One night walking to Chapel at Penpol we saw a German Plane and the Gunner inside waved to us, he had the machine gun there and could have got us if he had wanted.
I joined the Home Guard or as it was first called the L.D.V (Local Defence Volunteers) we were supposed to deter any invasion by air. At 10 pm I would patrol from Kea School to Playing Place, armed with a big stick! If any air craft had come, we probably would have dived into the ditch! They became better equipped later. I also went on river patrols from Truro Town Quay to Turnaware to Tolverne and back to Truro or Malpas if the tide was low. We commandeered boats for these trips; one I remember was Pearson鈥檚 (a jeweller from Truro) boat. I was with Tommy Pryor and Roy Masters they took the boat up the Ruan River, they were a pair of characters! The owner feared for his boat but they could handle most!
As I had a motor bike I became a dispatch rider. Our headquarters were in Lemon Street. At the public rooms we learnt how to map read being taught by Mr Frost, the Superintendent of the bus company. One evening as a map reading exercise Mr Frost asked our sergeant, Sgt Trenoweth, to give us some coordinates to test our knowledge. I found this really difficult and when Mr Frost checked it, he said that the coordinates would be in the Atlantic Ocean! One night standing outside the public rooms we heard bangs. We thought it was the gun fire practise at Malpas, but before we knew it there was a plane and a bang I found out later was at Agar Road and then it flew around and bombed the hospital. My wife鈥檚 cousin was the post man killed at the train station from machine gun fire that I had heard.

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