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George Johnston’s attachment to Instructor in Gunnery Training Unit in Leeds and ammo demonstration with an Instructor of Gunnery (I.G.) came about through a field check, a test of efficiency. Just before this there had been a notice round asking for suitable candidates for Instructors in Gunnery. Parry said to George "Do you feel like taking this up", because he knew George was getting fed up - so was Parry. "You might just manage it, the Major is on a course and the Colonel is on leave." So they put it in. Just after that, they got this I.G. and he tested George in his role as a GPO Ack, and asked a lot of questions in a long session. By this time George had realised the scope of this job: if the Officer was killed, the GPO Ack took over whole site, and so had to know not only the ordinary instrument and gun control, but also the tactical role of the GPO, his relation with the Gun Control Ops. and anything else that went on. Having done these various other things like running that little school at Derby Racecourse, etc., George was pretty competent — he knew that he was a lot more competent to do it than a lot of the Junior Officers they got. He knew two cases where batteries would never have operated if the GPO Acks - one in George's own case and one on another site - had not given the orders without waiting for the GPO who did not know what he was doing. It was not their fault really because they were new on site: at that time they were only doing a 3 month training which was not sufficient to cover all they were expected to know.

This I.G. at end of interview said that he understood that George would like to go to Manorbier on the Gunnery Course. "Well" he said "I think you'll probably get there". George had got the right man on his side. So he then said "I've had a word with your Site Commander. Would you be interested in coming with me to do a training session round the sites in Leeds - I'm short of one of my Ack Is Gs". So George went to do a job equivalent to a Warrant Officer Instructor in Gunnery. He said "First I would like you to go to the School of Gunnery Firing Camp at Hornsea, on the coast".

Seconded to Firing Camp at Hornsea (Yorks) for a spell of training.

On the training circuit on the sites in Leeds we were treated extremely well because although we were a routine training party purely to bring up the standard of training, we looked exactly like the composition of one of these field checks for efficiency. So every Battery we went to couldn't do enough for us: got the best accommodation etc.

The Instructor in Gunnery had been accustomed to explosives for a long time. He used to give demonstrations of explosives in the mess hall on a table. He littered the table with explosives and primers, some were propellants, some explosives proper, some detonators, some just burn. He would give George a stick of cordite, used to propel shells into the air. Then he would say, "Well Sergeant, will you set it on fire". George would light it with a match and it would just burn. This caused consternation in the hall. At the end of the demonstration he would throw all the explosives into an old ammo box, all rattling about in it, and bung it into the back of this little truck we were using and off we went with the box bouncing up and down in the back. He threw explosives about like confetti.

Preparing for a wartime marriage

After that George went on leave - he was due for it - it was an interesting journey. Having a real holiday was difficult. Mavis Richards (his fiancee) had arranged for them to go and stay where her mother and father had stayed in Ilfracombe. The idea was that George would go to Derby thence to Ilfracombe. George started off from Camp in an army truck and got to Hull. George was able to get this transport officially, as he was officially accompanying some gunners going to Leeds. George got on train at Hull, and dropped them off in Leeds (London NE Railway). Then onto the Midland Railway to Derby, then a taxi to his parent’s home in Littleover. George collected his fiancee Mavis from Osmaston Park Road Derby and went to Derby Station, and hence to Bristol. They changed at Bristol to go to Taunton. They had been on the LMS and a bit of GWR. Then they changed at Taunton and went to Barnstaple, and changed at Barnstaple to go to Ilfracombe on the Southern railway. From Hornsea to Ilfracombe took 27 hours - a wartime journey. At Ilfracombe Mavis wedding ring was bought.

From there George went to Manorbier R.A. A.A. School of Artillery for 3 months ending in Sept 1942 (George married during the leave at the end of the course). George did 6 weeks and had a weekend short leave, then another 6 weeks, with a week's leave at the end. As it was so difficult to know when you were going to have leave, during the short leave George and Mavis decided they would get married - as this was about the only time they would know when George was going to be on leave, because it was recuperative leave, a week at the end of the course. This gave just 6 weeks for marriage preparations. That is why their Banns were called at Manorbier, as well as at two Derby churches, as they had decided to marry while I was there.

They married at the church in George’s parish, as Mavis’s church was in the middle of the factories doing war work and she did not want to be reminded of this. The wedding day was gorgeous weather. The wedding car was a Daimler, which took the bride and groom across the street between the photographer and the reception: the bride could not be allowed to walk across a street.

After this he became a gunnery instructor at No 1 Plotting School, Park Hall Camp Oswestry (described separately)

(as told to his son in 1990)

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