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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Donald C. Linder, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

A Potted History of My War Years Part 2

By
Donald C. Linder

The journey to work each day meant a cycle ride of approx. 8 miles each way along the A2. It was quite near to Rochester airfield where, among other things, Short's were building the Short Stirling bombers, which since the war ended, have never been in the news. I had not been working very long before first my grandfather died of old age, followed very shortly by my Aunt from a severe asthma attack.

This left me homeless but my friend George's parents, who lived near Rainham, offered me a place to live which was very kind, but made the journey to work somewhat further.

Eventually, we both attained the age of 18 when we were obliged to volunteer for the Royal Signals. As soon as we signed on, we were transferred to the reserve as our job was considered to be the more important. It did mean however that should one not make the grade, it was straight into uniform.

Having finished our training, we were sent to a station in Leicestershire near Loughborough. It was a large mansion called Beau Manor. It was the largest of the stations in the UK and not only catered for about 300 male civilians, but also 1,000 ATS girls. As two thirds of the men had wives, who were also in the area, the 100 single fellows didn't grumble at all, but the ATS girls did.

I Should back track here and carry through the Home Guard experience in the Medway area. It was a much more trained and disciplined bunch than we had experienced in Wales. It was in a delicate area, likely to be bombed at any time or even invaded. However, even in the best organised concerns, things do go wrong.

I remember an exercise when we spent the whole very cold night guarding a road along which all invading force was going to travel on its way to the Dockyard. We kept in communication with HQ by lamp. The person receiving the messages was on top of the church tower, a mile or two up the hill. On that occasion, it was manned by a good ex school friend called Ray Goodman. All went well until our officer had to inform HQ that he had checked all the Home Guards, to make sure that they had no ball ammunition on them. He got us to send the message: - Prefix `Huntley' - the code word because the Colonel in command of the operation was called Palmer. Do they still make Biscuits? The message then read `No Balls OK'. All we could get back was, `Balls to you too.' In the end, the message went by bicycle.

By eight o'clock the next morning we had heard and seen nothing. Later a message came through that the troops had taken the wrong route and had passed us by and gone on their way. We went home!

Another time, we were given a demonstration of the `Northover Projector'. This was like a drainpipe about four feet in length, mounted on legs. The idea was that you put a bottle containing inflammable liquid 117 in one end, and a charge in the other with a lump of rubber between them. One was supposed to fire them at vehicles including tanks. However after a couple of rounds, the instructor altered the sight on the far end of the pipe and tried again. The projector became a flamethrower due to the fact that unknown to the instructor, the hole into which the sight screwed went right through the pipe and he had left the end of the sight sticking out of the inside surface of the pipe, which burst the bottle as it left. This was a really impressive display.

Back to Beau Manor. I got a place to live with a family in Woodhouse Eaves, a delightful village a couple of miles from the Manor. We had to work on 8-hour shifts, 6am-2pm, 2pm-10pm, l0pm-6am, which could have been a nuisance for the family, but they put up with it and treated me very well.

Sometime later, they had an increase in the family and I moved in with an elderly gentleman and his wife who worked at the Manor.

Outside working hours, we spent a lot of time in sporting pursuits. Tennis courts were available in the working area as was table tennis. We went boating on the River Soar and played hockey for the works team. There was also swimming available in Loughborough and a cinema with a very large coffee lounge where we all used to gather and pass the time.

Beau Manor was an interesting site. It had acres of grounds attached to it and round the main very large field, they had built brick huts to look like cowsheds, stables, etc and it was in there that the work was done. The main building was the administrative centre, and near it was the canteen, a very large building, which was mainly glass, clad and designed to look like a greenhouse. We also used the canteen as a dance hall. We held dances about once a week. As in the beginning, very few of the lads could dance. An ATS corporal called Hilary Fry took it in hand and ran classes of instruction. On VE day, I was on the afternoon shift, so we downed tools and retired to the canteen to socialise in general and dance.

One memorable day, although we didn't know it, they brought an enigma message machine in for us to look at. It had been captured in Africa and still had desert sand in its crevices. Later on, we were told that an attempt was made to make these machines but they were never successful.

Practical joking was always part of the job. People often fell asleep whilst chained to their set, and this offered good opportunities for pranks. One regular one was to switch the set off and put the volume up. Then the sleeping one would be woken with urgency and wonder what was going on. Finding it switched off they would switch it back on and blast their ear drums. If the sleeping one was wearing open top sandals, a match was inserted in the side of the shoe and set alight. That woke them up!

I remember being very embarrassed one shift. The morning shift came in and left me sleeping there whilst everyone went home. When I woke, about 30 minutes later, much laughter erupted from the new shift as I crept out.

Our Home Guard members were all working in the station. On one exercise, six of us were trying to cross a field without being seen. There was a largish herd of young cattle in the field and by the time we got half way across, they decided to investigate us. We began to move at an increasing rate towards the gate, which was some distance away, and so did the cattle. We just made it but secrecy was no longer possible.

Another time, we trained hard for a relay race at Loughboro College against top class teams - so we were told - from other areas. When we lined up at the start, there was only one other team - a crack RAF team of PTI's. They won the race by about half an hour. Our commanding officer was attending a high-powered dinner that night and gave a short speech. He mentioned the race and how proud he was that his men had come in second. Fortunately nobody asked how many teams took part.

Another interesting weapon we used was the Bombard. This was a metal spike mounted on legs which had a firing pin in it. The bomb looked like an ordinary bomb dropped by planes, but its spine was a tube with a charge in it. It was slotted over the spike and fired. It went a great distance and exploded with great force.

Another time, we were introduced to the Tommy gun of gangster fame. We were in a quarry firing at a rock wall. The squad grouped behind the fellow firing the gun. The officer said something to one of the lads just as he was about to fire. Without thinking, he swung round. The squad hit the deck, including the officer.

Hand grenade practice with live grenades was also somewhat tense, as some of the lads couldn't get the hang of the method of throwing and the grenade tended to go up rather than out. Fortunately the cover was adequate.

Often, when the Germans were being beaten out of an area, for example North Africa, they had no time to encode their messages, so they sent them in plain language which made the job interesting, but in the main it was not.

VE day, and I was on afternoons. We spent most of the shift in the canteen, dancing with the ATS to two old records on a wind up gramophone.

Immediately after that, new target stations became more easterly orientated. All the lads who were in the reserve were informed that they would be enlisted and sent to the Far East to relieve troops out there. Before they had time to do this it was VJ day.

In between VE & VJ day a group of about ten of us decided to camp out instead of living in lodgings. We had a largish tent and put it up in a field, adjacent to our workplace.
The first day we were on afternoons, so we set the camp up in the morning, climbed over the fence and went to work. When we got back after ten at night, the camp was completely squashed. We hadn't noticed a herd of cattle at the far end of the field and they had been over to investigate.

We moved fields and all went well thereafter. Some Italian POW's were working each day in a small wood nearby, and they were piling up logs for burning as part of their work. This saved us a lot of work and kept our campfire burning well throughout the day and night. As it was summer, we dammed a small stream, which ran past the camp, and used it for washing and bathing. We cooked a lot of our own food, but also used the works canteen a lot to save time. The ATS girls on night duty used to come over and cook our breakfast before waking us up. Many visited us for all sorts of reasons. When VJ day came, we deserted our posts and made our way to London and spent the day and night celebrating. Then I went home and reported in sick. My friend George, being an honest lad, just went home and got reprimanded for leaving his post.

We all went into the army at the same time - about 40 of us. We went to Huddersfield and spent the first night in an old blanket factory. We were expected to keep it clean and with a bit of luck, the floorboards had gaps between them. You could see the next floor down through them so sweeping the floor was a simple task.

We were then sent to another old factory in Otley, and after a few days, sent on to Wellington Barracks near Lichfield for initial training.

That began my army career which is yet another chapter in this fascinating saga.

WAKE UP AT THE BACK!

Pr-BR

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