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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 Joe James. His story was given to the Trebah WW2 Video Archive, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2004. The Trebah Garden Trust understands the terms and conditions of the site.

At the outbreak of war I was living at Tregathanen, Sithney and was about 11 yrs old. I remember Chamberlains broadcast and sensed my parents concern.

Prior to the war the only airfield in Cornwall was at Lands End, which was constructed in 1937 when the air service to the Isles of Scilly began.
Once the Germans occupied Western Europe there was a rapid programme of airfield building — St. Eval; St. Merryn; Portreath & Predannack amongst others. The planes from there would patrol out over the sea to watch for enemy planes.

On the Isles of Scilly was a flight of Hurricanes who were involved in a lot of dogfights. Predannack had Beaufighters (night fighters) and American Havocs, which were fitted with searchlights. They’d go up alongside the Hurricanes and the idea was that they’d illuminate the enemy aircraft for the Hurricanes to attack, but it didn’t work very well.

I can remember, in 1941, Westland Whirlwinds flying locally. They were very advanced looking, but under powered. It was one of those that I saw crash at Dodson’s Gap.
On Christmas Day 1943 I was feeding the poultry and heard aircraft coming up from the South — 40 Beaufighters — flying North with some Mosquitos landing at Predannack.

One day I saw a white Swordfish with black stripes and had no idea why it was like that. It turned out they were the markings for D-Day forces to protect them from friendly fire. They were known as invasion stripes.

In 1944 there was the sound of a large number of planes to the Northwest of my house and I looked up to see over 150 Lancasters flying low. Next day a similar thing happened. It was a very impressive sight. It turned out they were going across to western France for D-Day. Years later I read a book by a WW2 pilot and he mentioned this very exercise when they’d gone to attack fuel depots etc.

I often saw large groups of American Fortresses and Liberators flying over. I once saw 110 Bostons and, on another occasion, a large number of Thunderbolts.

Just prior to the Allies invading North Africa there were a lot of transport planes around. Dakotas particularly flew from Predannack and Portreath to land forces in North Africa. Fighters also flew out via Portugal. Some, which ran out of fuel, landed in Portugal and were later absorbed into the Portuguese Air Force. Aero Cobras were a particularly unusual looking fighter planes.

The Americans were billeted around Helston and would march through the streets to go for their meals. They also had a lot of military vehicles, which each seemed to have a pet name painted on it.
The Americans were friendly to us, but were segregated amongst themselves due to colour.

Farming was hard work and we had to grow certain crops e.g. potatoes, even if your land wasn’t suited to it. We had poultry to eat and father caught rabbits so we didn’t starve. I had to help on the farm before and after school.

Many different nationalities flew with the Allies — Czech Liberators flew from Predannack and one crashed at Bonython whilst loaded with depth charges etc — a terrible mess. There was a Polish squadron and an Australian one, but they all flew under the colours of the RAF. Sometimes you could tell the nationality by taking down the registration numbers.

I joined the Royal Observer Corps in August 1944 — I was under age at 16, but got in and served as a part-time member until stand down in May 1945. I was paid the magnificent sum of 7d an hour.

VE Day was also Flora Day and I was on the bowling green in Helston when a Sunderland flying boat came over. It was from the Australian Squadron based at Mountbatten.

CWS110804 15:32:14 to 15:57:20

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