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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Cornwall CSV Storygatherer, Martine Knight, on behalf of Grenville Goldsworthy. They both fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

A school boy in WW2

I was born in 1933 and on Good Friday 1940 moved from our home in Nancegollan to a house at Poldown in Breage parish.

I attended Sithney School where we practised fire drill with stirrup pumps. Gas mask drill was also carried out. Sometimes we practised evacuating the school building and went down Buller Lane, opposite the school, to shelter under some trees in a big pit we called our air raid shelter.

Around our school, in the fork of the roads to Hayle and Camborne, were tank traps of concrete and things that could be moved into the road to block it off. In the centre there was a pillbox disguised as a building. It was manned by soldiers and was there for several years after the war. Bren gun carriers were stationed there at times. After the war several rifles were found in the school attic.

Life at Poldown soon began to change, as, in 1941, my father Leonard was called up for war service in the Royal Marines. After his training at Deal he was stationed at HMS Prosperine, in the Orkney Islands.

Being the eldest of 3 boys and 2 girls I had to do most jobs around the house with Mother and keep the veg gardens going.
By night we used to stand out in a nearby lane and watch shellfire flashes and aeroplanes involved in dogfights with enemy aircraft attacking Falmouth Docks etc.

I can remember three aeroplanes crashing — one at nearby Breage from which I had a piece of Perspex. I made it into a ring and some girlfriend had it later.

One evening when I was nearly at the top of our stairs there was a terrible noise above our house. The shock made me stumble down the stairs. It was caused by a whistling bomb, which had landed nearby on Carnmeal Downs and left a crater not far from two caravans in which a man named Mr. Langam lived. Some people thought he was a spy.

When the American troops arrived in the area life became more exciting because there was, on Carnmeal Downs, an obstacle course with trenchs where the Yanks trained. They also held night exercises and we boys had pumpkin pie and food in tins that heated themselves and plenty of different coloured chewing gum. The troops were part of the 29th Infantry Division and sometimes we ran errands to Mrs. Gilberts shop (now long gone) for them. There was also a sandpit at Wheal Fortune for hand grenade practice. We used to collect the segments and firing pin clips after the soldiers had gone back to camp.

Sometimes my brother, Marshall, and I were kept home from school to go down the Yankie dump at Wheal Fortune when the big American lorries were dumping tinned food etc from their camps. If the lorries were filled with bread (which was white by the way — not brown like we had) I was told by Mum to take them up the road to my Granda Moyle, at Wheal Vor, for his pigs. I must say that I found the coloured troops more helpful that the whites. My Granda had some lovely coats from the troops (Granny Moyle always seemed to have whisky for the troops!) and the strong waxed cardboard boxes that the Americans had their meat in were used to send our flowers to London markets for years after the war.

Another item we boys had aplenty were what we now know as condoms, but were balloons to us then. As such they were soon flying in the school field etc. During the time that the troops were in our area I was fitted out with most of a uniform complete with two-part helmet with the 29th Inf. Div. Insignia on it. The only things I now have left from those days are a tin mug and a dog tag from an American soldier 33051417 t41 William Cantwell. Phila PA.

After the American troops left for D-Day we kids still used to go down their dump and dig out tins of fruit and sweets etc. Live bullets, which we found, we put in a vice in Mr. Gilberts carthouse and set them off by hitting the bottom with a pin hammer. Looking back on it now I think we were very lucky we didn’t hurt anyone.

In 1943 my father had been discharged from the Royal Marines as below physical standard for the RM. I cannot remember much about him after this, as he was a sick man. He spent time in the Mental Hospital at Bodmin from where he escaped a couple of times and, sadly, the last time he did it he committed suicide. That was in March 1945 — two months before the end of the war so VE Day didn’t seem so joyful to me.

I have tried, over the years, to locate boxes of grenades that were buried by the Yanks. Someone will find them one day I expect.

As the war was nearing its end German and Italian PoWs were beginning to appear in our area, from the PoW camp at Nansloe Manor, Helston, but that’s another story.

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