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ON ACTIVE SERVICE - LONGROOM & GLENHOLT
On our return from leave on August 10th 1943 to the barracks, H.M.S.Drake, some were sent to Glenholt Signal School to await drafting, but most of us were told that we were for immediate draft.
Draft Routine involved one in presenting the three items which the Navy considered the essential components they required — the body, the kitbag, and the hammock, and the securing of various rubber-stamps all over a large card, to signify one had undergone kit-inspection, issue of a life-belt and anti-flash gear, respirator inspection, medical and dental inspection, chest X-ray for T.B., and various listings.
The anti-flash gear was to be worn when in action to give protection against burns from the searing heat of exploding shells. It was of a soft white fluffy material. The hood covered all but the central part of one's face, and there was a separate gauze-like disc which when in place completed the coverage of eyes and nose, and the ample flange of the hood was tucked under the uniform around the neck and shoulders. The long gauntlets had elastic hems around the elbows. Anti-flash gear was always worn by gun-crews inside turrets, but I was never required to wear it in action. I suppose the greatest danger from flash was in the interior of capital ships, where it would travel along corridors and through compartments, whereas crews of small ships without armour-plating were so exposed anyway that small benefit would be derived.
I found myself allocated to Longroom Signal Station, Millbay Docks, Durnford Street, overlooking Plymouth Sound, about 50' above sea-level. The drafting of very young and newly-trained signalmen to shore stations for six months was to allow them time to settle to proper service before sending them to sea, but at Longroom we had little opportunity to practise the skills in which we had been trained, and plenty for our Morse and semaphore to grow rusty, whilst we employed the simpler communication-methods of telephone and loud-hailer. The luckiest man in our draft was Fred Spencer, who was sent to a signal station in the South Sea Islands, and issued with two washable grass skirts and a scythe.
There were about ten of us on the station, and our task was mainly to keep a good look-out, to record and report the movements and presence of any ship or boat entering or leaving the Sound (or going to and fro between any of its many bays and anchorages), and to send four-hourly meteorological reports to H.Q. (temperature, rainfall, visibility, wind direction and velocity).
We had four Canadian Ross rifles, and a Lewis-Gun, which took big circular ammunition-drums in which one bullet in every five was a tracer. (The latter was an incendiary bullet, and in the dark it could be seen glowing on its way). We had air-raids, but no aircraft ever came close enough for me to fire at it. There were 31 bombers in one sharp raid, and we saw 30 incendiaries burning on the Hoe, and when I returned to the Y.M.C.A. in Union Street I found that a big house and part of a theatre opposite had been demolished by an H.E. (High Explosive Bomb).
We were in three watches, on duty for 24 hours and off for 48. Three kept watch in daylight, - an Ordinary Signalman, a Leading Signalman, and a Chief Yeoman. At night the first two kept watch, taking turns to doze. I could have snatched a few hours at home when off watch, if I had had 37/4d to spare for the fare, but I would have had to risk being caught without a leave-pass, being forbidden otherwise to journey further than sixteen miles from Plymouth.
Watch was not kept from under cover, but outside at the telescope behind the wall of sandbags, and in the Plymouth rain, in oilskins and sou'wester, it was not pleasant.
I had 4/6d a day for board and lodging. I slept and ate at the Y.M.C.A. in Union Street, where I paid 1/- per night for a bed and the grub-stakes were cheap. Sometimes I dined at the Y.M.C.A. in Castle Circus. In each six-day period I received 27/-, paid 4/- for my bed, and had 3/10d per day for food. A good dinner cost 1/6d, breakfast and supper 1/0d, and tea 8d. One day in three I took sandwiches for all four meals, which came to less than 3/10d and squared up the deficit on the other days. Later I managed to do some rudimentary cooking, such as the roasting of a potato and an egg in a dish. Two of the lads had a bedroom and sitting-room in a private house at 30/- per week. By the 16th I had been lucky enough to secure a very nice room at the Y.M.C.A., with a wash-basin with hot & cold running water and two chests of drawers, sharing with another Signalman, at 10/6d per week. Later he left, and they asked me to move into a single room, at the same rate of 10/6d instead of the usual 12/6d. By the 24th I was on alternate day-watch only, 12 hours on, (0800-2000), and 36 hours off.
It was hot weather, and Ernie Jones & I used to swim from the beach. More than once I swam out around the Mallard Buoy and back, which according to our chart made a trip of ¾ mile, and once I was reprimanded for doing so.
I went to Glenholt to sit my examination for Signalman, and passed in everything except an oral test on International procedures which I had never been taught. Thinking that as I had to be in the Navy I might as well see more of the world than Devonshire, I submitted a request for Foreign sea draft. I and my oppo were relieved by two Wrens and discharged to Barracks on September 13th.
To await draft, we were sent to Glenholt, and my address was Mess 20, (hut) Hawkins 8, Glenholt Signal School, Crownhill. It was a very dismal place. It had been a Naturist Club, as evidenced by the small swimming-pool with some chalets around it, but the Navy had built various administration buildings on the site, and numbers of Nissen Huts, strewed about amongst thick woods, of semi-circular sections of corrugated iron, with concrete floors and coal-stoves, as dormitories. In rainy Plymouth it was most unpleasant, with no proper roads, - only muddy tracks between gorse, brambles, and small trees. I noted one day's menu. Breakfast was half a cup of tea, one slice of bread-and-butter, and two sausages. Dinner was two spoonfuls of potatoes, greens and meat, and half an apple with custard. Tea was one slice of bread, four radishes and half a cup of tea. Supper was one small herring, one spoonful of potato, one slice of bread & butter, and half a cup of cocoa. One had to fight to secure even this, and if one was three minutes late one went without. The washing-place and lavatory was a mess. Several of the pans were full up, and no paper provided. There was always hot water, the colour of rust, and the floor was ½" of mud on uneven concrete. However, there were several Poles, Norwegians, and Belgians there, and their hardships made ours seem trivial.
It was so unpleasant that I went ashore on every possible occasion, which was on alternate evenings. Returning late at night, walking along the muddy lane from the bus in the pitch-darkness of the black-out and peering through the gloom to discover the gate, one would be suddenly blinded by the beam of a torch and startled by a rough shout of HALT! WHO GOES THERE?' and find oneself looking down the barrel of a loaded rifle. Desperately hoping that one's presence-of-mind had returned in time to forestall the pulling of the trigger, one would remember, and shout, FRIEND! The sentry would then continue, ADVANCE, FRIEND, TO BE RECOGNIZED! (or, if one was in company with others, ADVANCE, ONE, TO BE RECOGNIZED! and one would approach and display one's pay-book, though what joy or benefit an enemy might derive from capturing the place was beyond imagination. I was allocated a guard duty myself once, not on the gate, but on the Rum Store, which was perhaps the only installation there worthy of defence.
The one saving grace at Glenholt, of which I became aware only on my second short stay there, when I had just returned from China, was that one could draw from the loan stores two gorgeously fluffy blankets, and be assured of a good sleep.
There were officers of course, but the essential management seemed to be in the hands of an ill-favoured three-badge Leading Signalman, known as Jock, and on the 17th, summoned by loudspeaker announcement, I was informed by him that I had been drafted to ER 7416, which was a Home Service draft, possibly a destroyer or bigger, and next day I went home on seven days' draft leave. On the 27th I returned to Glenholt with a carbuncle on my neck, and was put into the Sick Bay, where the food and general conditions were very much better. I was discharged fit for duty on the 30th, and on October 1st I travelled all night from Plymouth to Liverpool in quest of my mysterious ER 7416.

(A copy of this chapter was deposited amongst the archives of the Department of Documents in the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ, in 1995.)

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