大象传媒

This story was entered onto the People's War website by Rod Sutton on behalf of Kenneth Alan Ellery, the author who understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was born on 2nd February 1932 so when war broke out in 1939 I was seven years old. St Merryn was a quiet little place at that time but it soon got very busy. An airfield was built which became RNAS HMS Vulture. A few miles away was RAF St Eval, two fields away was Kerkith Army Camp, Harlyn Bay was full of Americans both white and black.

In 1944 the Americans seem to have disappeared over night. I was now twelve years old and attended Padstow School, my father worked at RNAS St Merrryn and was also sexton at St Merryn Church. It was at this time the airfield was in training flying. I used to watch the planes they used the island Gulland Rock at Harlyn Bay for bombing practice. Unfortunately there were quite a lot of crash landings and people got killed, they were nearly all buried in St Merryn Churchyard as my father used to dig the graves I would be allowed to take time off school to help. HMS Warwick had been torpedoed by a German U-boat off Trevose Head February 20th 1944 half the crew were lost some of the bodies were picked up by trawlers operating out of Padstow, and the bodies were brought back to St Merryn Camp and graves had to be dug and they were buried at St Merryn Churchyard. All the bodies were buried with full military honour (the Last Post still brings a lump to my throat).

A couple of years before an RAF Hudson from St Eval had crashed into a field behind our house at Higher Horlyn - the pilot had problems he had set the plane towards the sea and all the crew bailed out, but the plane was not high enough. That had been a close call.

Friday evenings and Saturdays I used to work for the local butcher all ration a few ounces of meat and two ounces of corned beef. The butchers wife used to drive the van, Mrs. Stephens, we used to get to St Eval and Perrose at about 7 pm wintertime which was very close to RAF St Eval and if it had an attack it was very frightening with bombs going off.

A lot of people left to fight in the war and sometimes we heard that someone from the parish had been killed in some far off place that I had never heard of.

Of course quite a lot of people came to the area either stationed at HMS Vulture or working in one of the places of which we knew nothing about. I remember Mr. Churchill saying that the war would soon be over and that we would win and that our soldiers and sailors would return. What stories they would have to tell I thought but of course not all of them.

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