大象传媒

This story has been written by the widow of Bill Gordon, Bill died in September 2000.

We were married in 1935 and Bill enlisted on the 2nd July, 1940 at the age of 26. He went to Cardington in Shropshire for his basic training. The injections he had to have made him ill - he was allergic to the tetanus injection - he developed pneumonia and was taken to Morecambe in Lancashire to recuperate.

After he came back home he was sent to Kidbrook Camp in Blackheath and was there until 1941. He worked on the Barrage balloons; the ballons were designed to stop the enemy planes from being able to fly into the cities on bombing missions. The idea was that that the planes got entangled with the balloon cables causing them to crash.

Bill was then sent to Scotland and from there he was sent to North Africa. He had a terrible time in Africa as it was awfully rough there. In Africa if nobody else was available he helped out as a dispatch rider. One night whilst on Night Duty he saw a shadow and called out "HALT" three times, when nobody stopped he fired his gun. He found out he had shot a DONKEY! He was court marshalled but he was found innocent of the charge.

In February 1943 he was with APO; he was with 113MU (Maintenance Unit)in March 1944 and in April 1944 he was with 2860 Squadron. Before and after the War Bill was a mechanical engineer.

From North Africa he was sent to Naples in Italy. We didn't see each other for 3 years and 2 months; it was very lonely. He lost a lot of his friends.

On the 26th November, 1945 Bill sent me a telegram to let me know he was back in England - wonderful news. In 1946 after he was demobilised he went to work for Lucas Engineering and was there until he retired in 1965.

In 1997 when he became very ill he had terrible dreams. As his illness was a result of his War Service he was granted a pension of 拢93.00 per week until he died on the 17 September 2000. He lost his sight and hearing; he also had skin cancer. They operated three times but with no success.

My stories "Evacuees come to Evenwood" can be found at A4051072 & "My Daughter's Message from King George VI" can be found at A4086570.

Story: This story has been submitted to the People's War Site by Muriel Palmer (volunteer) of Age Concern Telford & Wrekin on behalf of DM GORDON (author) widow of William Tod GORDON and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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