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I was born in West Ham, the second eldest of nine children. My father being in the fire brigade and stationed in the Victoria docks before and during the London Blitz. I worked in the electrical industry. My story starts in July 1940 when I was sent to Dover to assist in the installation of degaussing for the submarine supply ship the Sandhurst, lying alongside the western arm at Dover dock.

I remember observing a convoy in the channel being dive bombed and many sunk — this was my first introduction to total war. The next was seeing a German Plane flying low and firing a torpedo which sank the destroyer Dodrington and set the water alight in Dover harbour.

Returning to home in the East End brought further air raids at night until Saturday 7th September 1940 when the blitz started. Conditions got so bad that along with my mother and three brothers, we up’d sticks and went to the Kent hop fields. Then rest of my brothers and sisters were evacuated. On Sunday 15 September we had a grandstand view of the Battle of Britain with planes flying tree tops. It was very exciting until a plane crashed quite near to us and exploded. On returning home I then worked in London. There was more bombing until I was sent to Bristol, installing electrical heaters in tobacco warehouses in Bristol Docks — more air raid attacks — back home for Christmas 1940 — slap bang into the fire raid on the city of London . I could not escape the enemy air raids as they seem to follow me. In August 1941 I joined the Royal Air Force as an electrician. After training and posting to Shawbury, I was posted abroad, leaving Scotland , the Clyde in December 1942 on the Britannic, a 27,000 ton troopship carrying 7,500 troops. The convoy was slow and sailed into Freetown on December 31st. Then onto Durban, stayed at Clariwood Transit Camp. Then sailed to Bombay — Posted to repair and salvage a unit in Bengal, it was very hot and humid and I worked on aircraft in all weather for two years. Then I was posted to No.3 R.S.U in Burma. The weather was still very hot and the aircraft varied. Luckily no contact with the Japanese, only the prisoners and dead ones when I arrived at Meikela. When the war ended in Europe we had no idea our war would end so soon. Thankfully it did. I eventually arrived home in July 1946.

This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Essex on behalf of Alfred Frappell and has been added to the site with his permission. He understands the sites terms and conditions

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