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SCHOOLBOYS’ MEMORIES OF WORLD WAR II — PART FIVE

GENERAL RECOLLECTIONS

JOHN DRIVER

There was a lot of churchgoing in those war years; 1943 was a grim year of hard fighting and tightening belts. The RAF were thundering over the heart of Germany giving them hell, the losses in the Atlantic were still terrible. A huge loss of life both in the air and at sea. My brother 7 years older was soon to return from a tour of duty with 104 squadron in North Africa. He flew Wellington bombers, whilst my eldest brother, now with the Airborne troops, was busy preparing and training for the ‘second front’.

My brother Donald was back in the country in the early summer of '44. He was doing his instructor bit for the RAF and would like to slip home at weekends whenever he could in his trusty Vauxhall 10. May 31st was a Saturday and a sunny day. He had phoned up in the morning and spoken to Mother. Presumably to check there was sufficient food and to advise that he had to take nine airgunners up for an exercise with a Spitfire, then he would head for home. So when later that afternoon a telegraph boy arrived with a telegram from his station in Chipping Norton to advise with much sorrow and regret that he had been killed in an air accident, my mother folded it up and gave it back to the boy and told him it must be for a Mrs Dyer who lived round the corner in Popes Grove. She was wrong of course.

I can recall that afternoon as though it was yesterday. We had a gas fired refrigerator in the kitchen and it was necessary to clean up the burner and the flu on a regular basis. A job I enjoyed doing and had done that morning. I was a great modeller and the kitchen table was strewn with bits of balsa wood from my latest creation. Tears running down my cheeks, he had been such a super brother to me. My father making one ‘trunk call’ after another to various RAF stations. It was all chaos and through it my mother sailed on quite unbelieving. Hadn’t she just spoken to him that very morning ?

So the homework wasn’t touched that weekend and I trotted off to the College that Monday morning full of mixed emotions and foreboding. Well, what would one expect of a 12 year old in 1944 !! It was Mr. Strachan - Jesuit novice - who rescued me from disgrace. What - why did you fail to do your homework ? Blub, blub, my brother’s been killed. Whipped out of the classroom, first to the sanctuary of the Chapel, hence to his room for tea I think? Then escorted home, Masses said, school assembly solemnly informed and prayers requested, although to be honest, my memories of the immediate aftermath are very hazy. I think it was a few days leave of absence. I know he was buried at Banbury on D-Day 6th June, a service deemed unsuitable for me, and I do recall being in chapel that morning with Strachan and possibly others praying for the family and ‘the repose of his soul’. Didn’t mean much to me then. But the Jesuits were very kind and thoughtful, I realise now. One of the first contacts my Father had with them was that occasion. I’m not sure what Dad made of Strachan and vice versa!

Food never seemed to be a problem - unless that is you had a hatred of spam fritters, corned beef and boiled fish! Can’t recall his name, but come lunch time and the Grace, the rotund and enveloped in an off-white apron smiling figure complete with round specs would supervise the serving out, table by table. His sponge puddings were superb, always a queue for seconds ! We may have had malt and cod liver oil supplements but I can’t say I remember. I do remember we sat under portraits of V.C. winners from the First World War Army Class and the distinguished portrait of Lt. Cdr Esmonde V.C. who was lost leading an unsuccessful Swordfish attack against the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau dashing up the Channel in 1941.

1944 saw an increase in enemy action, the advent of the V.1. The ‘doodlebug’. Soon after May/June they came over in increasing numbers, severely interrupting lessons. We hid under desks and awaited the dreaded silence following the cut out of its pulse¬jet engine and the glide and eventual explosion. I recall we had a longer than usual summer holiday - so at home now, and generally messing about (I don’t think we had work to do at home) and when the sirens went I would do ‘listening’ service from the garden and blow upon a police whistle if I heard a ‘doodlebug’ approaching. The immediate neighbours would then dive into their Morrison shelters, or under the stairs, whatever. One day, not only did one bomb approach, but its engine cut soon after I had blown my warning.

I dived for shelter next to our brick coal bunker, next thing I knew was a swish of the device gliding low over-head followed by an almighty explosion seemingly just across the road. The air was just full of dust and quite blackened. I ran towards the scene which happened to be a pub - The Grotto along Popes Grove. It had taken a direct hit and was obliterated. Shards of glass, tiles, wood, material and rubbish all over the place and lots of people milling around, some bleeding profusely from dreadful cuts. Somewhat terrified I fled for home and safety and was very soon packed off to my Uncle's farm in Cambridgeshire.

So I had a splendid summer helping with the harvest - sitting atop a binder and checking the sheaves were tying up nicely. Stooking the sheaves to dry, before a horse and cart were laden to take them into the yard and ‘stacked’. I even learnt how to drive the spud wheel Fordson tractor and was set to plough a field ! They must have been very hard up for labour - I was thrilled to bits as you can imagine.

I have a particularly vivid memory of watching the USAF Flying Fortresses coming back from their daylight missions to land at Mildenhall which was not so very far away. On one occasion, one came over unusually low, one of its engines out and the prop feathered, firing off red Verey flares. We stood in the fields and wondered how many casualties were on board. Sombre thoughts of the dreadful punishment our airforces were now inflicting on German civilians were never considered. In any case, had I not recently witnessed an appalling bombing at home ? (I didn’t know at the time, but there were many killed in that pub).

So what of the war years ? To small boys, periods of extreme excitement, occasional exposure to tragedy, shortages and deprivations, but still a lot of fun to be had. We still had our bent pins to catch sticklebacks in Bushey Park. Obviously a lot of the ebb and flow of warfare washed over us. I'm sure that the 17-plus boys grew up pretty quickly, especially when conscription loomed. To think my brother Donald had done a tour with a bomber squadron and had command of an aircraft (Wellington) and five crew dependent on his decisions - a skipper at the age of 20 ! And my oldest brother, now a Captain Gunner in the First Airborne Regiment and a survivor of Arnhem, prisoner of war and surviving on potato peel soup. Yes, people grew up pretty quickly in those days.

GEOFFREY TIGAR

September 1939 brought the war to us. It started with the ‘Phoney War’ when nothing much seemed to happen, so much so that I recall walking home with Michael D'Albuquerque and having an earnest and worried conversation with him, bemoaning the fact that the War might end before we had had a chance to ‘do our bit’. We need not have worried - there was still plenty of time.

MICHAEL DAVIS

The year 1939/40 saw the start of the War, although there was no disruption from bombing until the following year - though casualties began to appear. A boy called Burns trod on a landmine during the summer holidays in Norfolk and was killed - he had sisters, Sheila and Rita (later Lady Smallpeace). Alexis Myers (left in the early 30's) was badly wounded at Dunkirk but his first words on recovering consciousness were reported to be ‘Mine's a pint’ and he scarcely looked back thereafter. The start of term in September 1940 saw the College down to its lowest numbers - below 100, I think. Families went to Ireland and boys went to Beaumont, anything to get away from the now serious risks of bombing. We stayed and on bad nights went down to the cellar. Once I remember a knock on the door at about 10 pm and a family of 5 outside seeking shelter; their house off Worple Road had been demolished without any of them suffering a scratch.

BRIAN PRICHARD

A lifelong memory was the long row of photographs round the old Hall of old boys who had died in the First World War. How pleased we all were to learn that Eugene Esmonde had been awarded the V.C. for leading the attack on the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in the Channel (alas posthumously). Of course we learned of the deaths of many other boys whom we had known at a great distance in the last years at the College (several in the class of my elder brother Hugh).

I have read with interest the accounts of other boys of their experiences in the Blitz and earlier of the hours spent in the College cellars. I remember that one of our class knocked a large stone jar of jam off a shelf and it broke on the floor, leaving a great mass of jam wobbling like a jelly. We armed ourselves with spoons and were busy gorging ourselves when one of the Brothers on the kitchen staff rushed in to stop us, complaining that we had eaten the entire School's jam ration for a week !

PETER WELLS

Not recorded in the magazine is that the Dark Room was situated in a turret at the top of the school which gave direct access to a roof level view. Paul and I, privileged as officers of the Camera Club, spent much time there during the Summer vacation of 1940 when the Battle of Britain was being fought overhead. I think that we spent as much time watching events in the sky above as working in darkness below.

When we returned to school after declaration of War in 1939 air raid warnings were as frequent as they were false. To begin with we all trooped down to the cellars with a view to continuing lessons ‘under cover’. This soon proved to be unproductive and we continued above ground at least until there was a ‘Red Alert’. Enemy action in the air ceased during the so-called ‘Phony War’ before the German offensive in May 1940. After the Fall of France air raids became a reality and a system was set up whereby we continued with classes until given a warning of imminent danger.

I had a card signed by my parents to give permission for me to travel during air raid alerts. On one occasion when we were in the Syntax classroom on the first floor there was noise of a low flying aircraft. The self appointed class aircraft recognition expert declared that it was a Blenheim — followed at once by the sound of machine gun fire as a Junkers 88 flew along Wimbledon Broadway at low level.

Before the War started we had a German boy in Grammar I called Hans Hafels. He caused some amusement, if not consternation, by producing the Hitler Youth material which included a vicious knife inscribed ‘Blood and Iron’. I have often wondered if he was lucky enough to be interned or if he returned to Germany and ended up on the Eastern Front. He certainly disappeared without a trace.

PETER WOLLEN

The beginning of the War brought problems and changes to College, which Father Sinnott deftly dealt with.

The following year, in the uniform of an Army Chaplain, Father Barber returned to College, via the beaches of northern France. Standing at the blackboard, he gave us a lesson in the geography of Belgium and the unfolding history of the War. We now knew where flowed the Rivers Dyle, Escaut and Meuse.

Father Sinnott lost some pupils who transferred to boarding schools, but new boys soon arrived from Belgium. In spite of the valiant efforts of Father Burns to teach us conversational French, some of us relied on bilingual Dominic Cardozo to interpret for the Belgian boys until they, in turn, quickly became bilingual.

We tried to make them feel at home and introduced them to French-speaking families. Willie Maeckelberghe lost no time merging into the new school routine and soon became a useful player on the Rugby and cricket fields. Others, with Emile Veevaete at their head, moved on to Derbyshire, where a Belgian College had been opened at The Park in Buxton. This gave us the chance to correspond in written French. We were apparently successful in describing the sliding on the frozen ponds on Wimbledon Common and Bobby Beer breaking through the ice, fortunately at the side of the pond. Our Belgian pen pals equally well, in English, described their efforts in dealing with the Derbyshire snows.

A boy from Czechoslovakia attended lessons when he felt so inclined. Father Burns eventually desisted in his enquiries as to the whereabouts of the absentee.

Two Italian brothers arrived from north America, their journey home interrupted by events on the Continent. They were with us for a short while only, and disappeared from the school scene unaccountably. But the next day, 10th June 1940, brought news of Italy’s entry into the War, on the other side. We were not too interested to know whether they managed to get to Italy in time, or if they had to spend time on the Isle of Man.

ALAN WATERS

In September 1939 it was into Grammar I above Figures gallery, with practice alerts into the cellars in case of air raids. It was a quiet war to start with. However, in June 1940, for two or three days I saw the unloading of hospital trains in the then platform siding beside the railway cinder path near Wimbledon Station. The wounded were from the Dunkirk evacuation of the B.E.F. and were being taken by ambulance to the several hospitals in the Epsom area.

In Grammar we frequently had to retire to the cellars during daylight raids. Although shored up, the cellars were not over-salubrious. There were attempts to hold lessons down there but mostly we played bridge, solo and poker — all important, even invaluable, facets of my Jesuit education.

In 1940 and 1941 my mother in the W.V.S. occasionally escorted parties of evacuee school children from the London area to supposedly safer places like North Wales and Macclesfield. At such times, my parents arranged for me to stay at Oakhill (just below Donhead Lodge) in Edge Hill, which the College rented to provide weekly boarding.

In May 1941 I was privileged to attend with mother an investiture at Buckingham Palace, when King George VI conferred the George Medal on my father George Waters. Unbeknownst to us, father, a highways engineer with Surrey County Council and Engineer to Group 9, London Civil Defence Region, had on numerous occasions investigated the fall of unexploded bombs in the Malden, Merton and Wimbledon areas, often defusing them without the assistance of the Royal Engineers. In the 1914-18 War he had been a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and was accustomed to handling shells and fuses. He also had unofficial lessons from the Sappers on dealing with UXBs (unexploded bombs) — somewhat unusual for a civilian !

As a final thought: at a recent OW Dinner, I saw that the WWII Memorial carried the names of some 58 boys of the College who lost their lives 1939-45. I could remember 26 of them; at least 9 were classmates. How did it happen that my name was not on that memorial ?

MICHAEL PRICHARD

In contrast to Maths, I got virtually nothing out of Physics and Chemistry, though in fairness to the masters who taught those subjects the almost complete absence of laboratory materials in the war years must have made it nigh-on impossible to teach either subject; in Chemistry in particular it was virtually impossible to do any experiments.

Father Brannigan stands out as a French master, not for instilling in us any great love of French literature, but for his enthusiastic exposition of the geography of Paris: it would have stood us in good stead if we had had to serve in the S.O.E. there during the War, but not in the examination room when it came to School Certificate.

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