大象传媒

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 peoples war with the permission of Alex Dickson. The interviewer was Brian Morgan. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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When the war started in 1939 I was only 17 and too young for the forces, so my best friend Tom Boomer and I talked it over and decided we would go to the ARP and join them as volunteer stretcher bearers at a casualty clearing centre on the Shankhill Road, at Spears Place. In our spare time we trained there and during the very bad air raids we were kept very busy. By the time we had become old enough we decided, because Hitler had done some very bad things to Belfast that we would go to the Clifton Street recruitment office and join the Royal Ulster Rifles (RUR). At St Patrick鈥檚 Barracks at the beginning of training we were introduced to a Sergeant who was in charge of our platoon training. He lectured us saying 'I suppose you all think your heroes because you've joined the army. Well let me tell you your nothing but half a crown a day murderers....you've signed up to kill people ...and it鈥檚 my job to train you to kill'.

We were then given our kit and sent to a barrack room.......we were then sent for injections. After receiving numerous injections the Doctor told us to take it easy and rest for the day in the barrack room. Some of us were checking our kit...when the sergeant appeared...he accused us of being lazy and made us put our full battle kit on. That was our full kit that we had been issued with...two packs packed with all the things which should be in them....mess cans and so forth....He made sure that the water bottle was filled with water, that we had our respirator, steel helmet and rifle and told us to parade on the square where he made us run around the huge square as fast as we could. This went on until a few of the boys collapsed and even his boot hitting them did not make them get up. I don鈥檛 know how it would have finished but thankfully two captains that happened to be crossing the parade ground seen what was happening and stopped it. Sending us back to our barrack rooms.. The following morning when we were paraded there was a completely different sergeant introduced to us who stayed with us for the rest of the training at St Patrick鈥檚 Barracks. We often wondered what had happened to the previous one as we never seen him again, but we did hear a rumour that he ended up in a lunatic asylum.

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