大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People's War site by CSV Storygather, Martine Knight, on behalf of Mr N J Green. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

When the war started in September 1939 I was nine years old and I remember listening to Mr Chamberlain, on the radio, making the announcement that we were at war.
My father, Albert Edward Green, used to go away all summer crewing on large yachts at southampton and he was there at the time. He was directed to go and work in the Supermarine factory, building Spitfires. He had no option but to go into the factory as everyone of working age was directed into war work. After some months he was able to get a transfer to Visicks in Devoran, who were also on war work, and he stayed there until he retired many years later.

We were all issued with identity cards and gas masks. These were supposed to be carried at all times. All schoolchildren had to enter a Tear Gas test van to check that their masks were effective.

Later in the war households were issued with either Anderson or Morrison shelters. Ours was a Morrison table shelter, which was a table-sized steel box that we went into during air raids. We used it as a table until it was collected at the end of the war.

The first lot of evacuees were London Irish Catholics. We had two boys billeted with us about the same age as my brother, Jim, and I. They were called Terry & Patric O'Carrol. Later we had Plymouth and Bristol children in the area and there were many children for the school at Devoran so we local children went to school in the mornings and the evacuees in the afternoons. This didn't do much for our education, but we had half a day off every day.

Food rationing was in force throughout the war and lasted until 1954. Living in the country we were able to supplement our rations with rabbits, mackerel and blackberries whilst many people kept chickens or a pig, fed on scraps.
Children were allocated concentrated orange juice and cod liver oil capsules. Dried egg was available and was good for cooking. Rose hips were collected and made into rose hip syrup. Surplus friut was made into jam or dried and bottled.
Each town had a government restaurant called British Restaurants where you could get a basic meal very cheaply and these meals were extra to your rations.

Petrol was only available to essential users and was of very poor quality. It was called Pool and made engines pink, burnt out valves and did not produce much power. Car headlights were fitted with grills to stop aircraft from spotting the light.
All houses had to fitted with light proof curtains and this was known as blackout.
Road signs were removed to confuse the enemy.

All men over 18 had to join the Home Guard unless they were ARP Wardens, Police, Firemen or on fire watch duty. Training was compulsory unless you had a good reason not to attend. Weapons and ammunition were kept at home. The Home Guard was used to guard railway tunnels, viaducts and other installations of strategic importance.
One of my fathers duties was to operate a large paraffin flare on a hilltop at Perranwell. This had to be lit on instructions from the Air Ministry, on certain nights, to guide our aircraft home after bombing raids on the continent.

Most of us boys joined the Army cadets where we were trained to shoot and to act as messengers on Home Guard or Army manoeuvres. This, of course, was exciting.
I was at cadet camp at Heamoor, Penzance, during the first week in June, when hundreds of aircraft went over to support the D-Day landings. Leter, when they came back, many were damaged - engines stopped and smoking holes in the wings and tails - they were lucky to get back.

As our house at Carnon Downs overlooked Falmouth we had a grandstand view of all the air raids and action that took place there.
Falmouth was protected by barrage balloons which, during thunderstorms, were often hit by lightning and, being filled with Hydrogen, came down in flames.
Gales would tear some adrift and they would drift away to come down in open country where the local populace salvaged the rubber coated canvas they were made of. This material was waterproof and was good for many purposes, even mackintoshes were made from it.

One of the raids was successful in hitting the oil storage tanks at Swanvale and the resulting plume of smoke could be seen for miles around.
The Germans came at night and laid mines across the entrance to the harbour. Next day 3 ships were sunk leaving it.
E-Boats sometimes attacked shipping in the Channel and we could see gunfire and star shells from our bedroom windows.
I was woken from deep sleep one night by the scream of a falling bomb, which landed in the grass verge about 500 yards away in Old Carnon Hill. The explosion shook our house, but did not cause any damage. Another bomb landed at Carnon yard and damaged many of the boats there. These bombs were jettisoned at random and were not aimed at any particular targets.

My mother, Evelyn Green, my brother, James Green, and me returned from Plymouth by train and made our way down Richmond Hill and Kenwyn Street in Truro. When we reached the Swan Inn gunfire was heard from the direction of the station. Looking up we could see a single-engined German fighter bomber sweeping around towards the Royal Cornwall Infirmary. It was quite low and the pilot was clearly visible.
As we watched he released a bomb which fell and hit the RCI, causing a large explosion, smoke and flames.
We continued up Infirmary Hill towards Landers Monument where we intended to catch a bus home.
Passing the RCI there was smoke and flames pouring out of the building with firefighters and ARP wardens helping people out.
I believe that there were casualties at the station and two nurses killed at the RCI.
These hit and run tactics were employed by the Germans to cause alarm to the general population.

When the Americans came they took over many large country houses, such as Tregye & Tullimar, where large tented camps were built.
They were very generous and gave us children more sweets, which they called candy, than we had seen for years.
They built a new road down to Turnaware and constructed hard standing jetties & slipways in order to load tanks, guns and trucks onto large landing craft called LST's (Landing Ship Tanks).
The Carrick Roads and the River Fal were full of ships of all kinds. Many had AckAck guns on them, which put up a heavy barrage when hostile aircraft came over.
All the beaches were closed off with barbed wire and, at Loe Beach, there was an AckAck battery.
Small landing craft were shipped over from America, flat packed, and assembled at riverside locations such as Malpas.
A few days before D-Day they all disappeared. Of course, later we knew that the landings on the Normandy coast had taken place.

After the war the installations at Turnaware were dismantled. The road down to the beach is still there, but blocked.

The American troops were well paid, smartly dressed and were able to get many goods from their PX store, such as nylon stockings and cosmetics, which made them very attractive to our young ladies, who did very well from them.
Our troops used to complain that there were only 3 things wrong with the Yanks. They were overpaid, oversexed and over here, but it should not be forgotten that they were a long way from home and fought and died to help us rid the world of the Nazis.

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