大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Jan Moore for Kent Libraries and Archives and Canterbury City Council Museums on behalf of Mr Ken Webb and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

In the summer of 1939 I was on holiday at our seaside bungalow, which was situated on top of the cliffs between Herne Bay and Whitstable facing the Thames estuary, with a vast view across to Southend and the Isle of Sheppey. This was very busy with shipping heading up to the docks at London. Coming up to the age of 13, I was well aware of the international situation with Germany and like all boys of my age, knew all about the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force.

On September 3rd, we all listened to Mr. Chamberlain's speech and about 15 minutes later heard the air raid sirens go, then a roar of planes heading towards Sheppey where the RAF base of Eastchurch was situated. At that instance, the anti-aircraft guns opened up on the planes, which were in fact a flight of our own Bristol Blenheims. We heard much later that some of the Hurricane fighters had been shot down by our own people.

From then on, at night there was a lot of activity out to sea which was very loud, the water carrying the exploding noise very clearly to us.This was the time when the Germans were dropping the new magnetic mines on the coastal waters. Some of the Wellington bombers were modified to have anti-magnetic rings fitted to them underneath the fuselage; the planes flew low over the sea, causing the mines to blow up.

With the coming of Dunkirk, our school, which was situated alongside the main railway line to London, saw a lot of troop trains go by, with the survivors going through to London. Luckily, there were no air raids then, that was to come later. The weather from then on was one of the best summers I can remember, sunshine every day.

We now had a blockhouse near us, which was built about 100 yards from our bungalow; this was manned by Czechs who had escaped from their homeland. The cliff top had barbed wire all along and if you were out after dark you got stopped, to see what you were doing...

When the Battle of Britain started, the German bombers came over in their hundreds every day. We used to count them every morning, when our fighters attacked we used to shelter in a blockhouse. This went on for the rest of the summer and the German air force was forced to switch to night bombing because of their casualties. We would hear the planes pass overhead on their way to bomb London. We had four bombs dropped very near us, but because of the muddy soil they went right in and we never heard them and only found the holes some days later. About that time the Regal Cinema in Canterbury was damaged in a daylight raid, when a few bombs were dropped.
However, there was constant activity in the Thames estuary, as all of the ships that were coming ang going from London were being attacked.
One evening, a friend and I decided to go to a Gordon Harker film in nearby Whitstable, going by bike. We had just ridden down the hill opposite the harbour when I looked up and saw a twin engine aircraft flying above us. It was recognised at once as being a Dornier 217 bomber, we could see about six bombs dropping from it. We dropped our bikes and ran for shelter to a house (a silly thing to do!). It took out about four houses in the street behind us. We went home frightened.

As our house in London had been severely damaged, we salvaged some of our furniture and moved to a house in Herne village on top of the hill next to the windmill and had an even better view of the Thames.
Some time later I left school, as I had felt unsettled with the constant air raid alarms interrupting my school work. I went to work in an office in Canterbury, in the Dover Road. We were awakened one night by the sound of low flying bombers and went outside to check for incendiary bombs. We saw the red glare coming from the direction of Canterbury. I went to work at the usual time and the devastation was unbelievable. The bus only got to the edge of the city, where Sainsburys is now and I had to walk the rest of the way because of the devastation everywhere. One thing I cannot understand is why some of the buildings were pulled down, which could have been saved; for example, the church at the top of the High Street where the walls were still standing to where the roof was. It has all gone now except for the tower.

Moving on, an event of interest was that the Lancaster bombers were active over the Reculver district, flying very low over the sea. We found out later they were testing out the dam busters bombs in the sea and dropping them in it, where they were recovered at low tide. About that time I applied to join the Royal Observers Corps and was successful in passing the exam. I had to commit to memory the description of thirty aircraft, at various angles, to get through the test.
While on duty at the Reculver lookout some months later, we had to look out for the German Focker Wolf 190 fighters, which used to come in low and fast, drop their bombs and get out quick. I observed the Mosquito bombers testing out a new kind of bomb, which was able to be shied into the submarine pens in France. I was forbidden to report any of this at the time.
Also at that time, I loved dancing at the Kings Hall and liked the music so much I bought myself a drum to go on a job at the British Legion Hall, was paid six shillings for that...I was asked to join the Herne Bay Entertainers. We used to go out all over East Kent to where the troops were stationed, with a concert party. I did this till I was called up.

Some time on, I joined the RAF and went through the joining routine at the A building opposite London Zoo, then on to Bridgenorth for square bashing (drill). Before long, I found out I was not able to master the morse code and radio, by then I was at Yatesbury on the Salisbury Plain, where it was very cold.
I then went on to 21 M.U. at a place called Tutbury. Nearby at Scrockton, there was a bomb dump; the bombs were stored in an alabaster mine deep into the hills, which had a small railway line for access where we used to load and unload the bombs as required. Some months later, I was transferred into the Fleet Air Arm stationed at Southampton Airport and spent a happy time there.
One incident that occurred there was at the time of the buzz bombs. I had seen these when I went home on leave every other weekend. I was in bed one night and heard one of these and the moter stopped, about six seconds later there was a big bang and a load of stuff landed on the roof. I left there some months later and went up to Scotland, where I was waiting to be posted overseas.

While I was on a troopship bound for Ceylon, I found out that the bomb dump I had worked at a year earlier had blown up. I arrived safely at Colombo and was sent to a camp some miles from Mount Lavinia. I spent a few weeks there going to the beach every day enjoying myself. However, a draft came through and I was on my way to Trincomelee to join 1839, a Fighter squadron which had Hell Cat fighters (F 6F) and was on a large fleet aircraft carrier called the HMS Indomitable. We were to operate out of Trincomelee in the Indian Ocean, raiding targets in Sumatra and Java.
While we were on one of these raids, I was up on the flight deck waiting for our aircraft to return. I saw one of our aircraft which was about to land, miss the arrester cables and fly straight for me. I dived into a storage space and the plane flew straight into the aft pom pom gun turret, knocking it off its bearings and the aircraft blew up. Luckily for me, it did not catch fire and nobody was injured.

We had finished our time in the Indian Ocean and proceeded to Sydney, making two final raids bombing the oil refineries for two days at Palembang, cutting off most of the oil production for Japan for the rest of the war. We were attacked by enemy aircraft during the process; I watched in horror as one of our ships kept firing at a Japanese plane when it flew behind one of our aircraft carriers. After this, we headed for Fremantle to land some of the casualties. We then headed for Sydney via the Great Australian Bight, which was fairly cold and rough.

On the morning of arrival I got up early, dressed in my best uniform so as to be lined up on deck to see this beautiful harbour I had heard so much about. As we steamed up the harbour first, being the flagship of the fleet at that time, all the girls on the ferries which passed us were waving. It made us feel great, as most of the crew had not seen a white woman for a year or more. However, our squadron went down to Nowra where they did flying training for two weeks, then we returned to our ship. I had about three trips ashore in Sydney for the two weeks before we left to go back to war.

We left Sydney with the fleet and proceeded north up towards Japan. On the way we went to Manus for refuelling, then on to the island of Guam, Headquarters of the American fleet. We learnt that we were to operate off some islands near the island of Okinawa where the Americans had landed, to bomb the airfields and stop the Japanese using them to get re-inforcements. This went on for several weeks. One particular incident I can recall where I was lucky, came when I was standing on the deck (port side aft) when I heard a lone aircraft approaching us from the rear. Some sixth sense warned me that it was a Japanese plane. I ran to take cover, by then it started to fire its guns across the deck. There had been no alarm sounded and it went over us and crashed onto the deck of the Indefatigable, doing a lot of damage. It was a kamikazi. To this day, I do not think anyone on our ship knew what happened (this had happend before in the Mediterranean Sea, when the ship got torpedoed by an Italian plane that nobody noticed). Some days later, the fleet was attacked by a lot of kamikazis. One of them came straight down on the deck and blew up. We, however, had armour plating on the deck and no damage was done to the ship. What was left of the plane was pushed over the side. The noise from all this was extremely loud, when you know that there are 16 4.5 inch guns all firing, plus many smaller guns, in all at least 100.

We were making our way back to Formosa after raiding the Japanese airfields, to rejoin the fleet early one morning, when I felt a shudder in the ship. An Australian destroyer had rammed us on the port side, just about where I usually slept on deck. As it had been colder as we had gone south, I was not in my usual place.
We returned to our original task of raiding the airfields again, which was three days on, two off, refuelling etc.
It was not unknown for our fighters, when landing, to forget to set their guns to safe after returning from an operation. If they were not set to safe, the jerk of being stopped by the arrester wires caused a burst of gunfire to go up the deck to the bow of the ship. To my knowledge, nobody was hit, it happened to me about three times, I dropped straight onto the deck each time!

At the end of the Okinawa affair, we headed back for our home base Sydney. Our ship was to go in dock for a while and the fighter squadrons were to fly down to Nowra aerodrome, where the pilots were to be replaced by new ones. We had been on board ship from the middle of February to the middle of June without going ashore, all supplies coming from ships of the fleet train that came with us and were nearby.

We rejoined our ship at Jervis Bay and sailed to Sydney. We went ashore to go dancing and came back to the ship on 15 August 1945, that is the day that war ended for us in Australia. However, we were to sail that day for Hong Kong, so no celebrations for us ashore, but a big crowd watched us go.

Once we were underway, I was given a rifle and told that I was to become part of the landing party, as there were no troops available. As it happened, I had practice in firing nearly all weapons when in the army cadets, so it was nothing new to me. Hong Kong had not surrendered at this time and was still occupied by the Japanese. We arrived some days later off Hong Kong and went to action stations. Our planes shot up the kamikazi boats that attacked us and the fleet went in. At about 1am, a party of us were put ashore to go to the Hong Kong hotel and guard property. I have actually seen a whole house being stolen, taken away in bits by the Chinese. We used to go out and try to stop them day and night. I got very tired and while on guard duty fell asleep.My relief turned up 30 minutes late with the Duty Officer. I was put on a charge which went right up to the Captain. Punishment was ten days, number elevens, which meant I was confined to the ship. Up at 6am for an hours work. In the afternoon, I had to hump sides of beef up to the galley; after a short break I fell in up on deck with a rifle and did an hours drill in the sun. One of the exercises was to hold the rifle up above me and run around the deck. At night, I also did some work sweeping the decks.

We sailed for Sydney, then the ship was sailing for Portsmouth, its home base. I was landed ashore as I had not done two years service overseas. I was disappointed, but I went out to Warwick Farm racecourse, to live under canvas in the centre of the course. I got myself a cushy job, went out most nights, had egg and chips and went dancing. I sold my duty free cigarettes to make money and I was better off than being back in the UK. I was later drafted to an aerodrome at Schofield, just outside Sydney. I could still go out every night from there and I sold my accordian to keep me going for cash. Five months later, I was returned to the UK and after a spell in Scotland, demobbed at Lee on Solent.

In conclusion, I returned to Aussie, still going dancing and met my wife at the Trocodero Ballroom. We got married and live looking out at the Pacific Ocean on the northern beaches of Sydney. I have four children and so far, eight grandchildren.

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