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THE U.S. NAVY at PLYMOUTH, DEVON by Ken Roberts - PART TWO

Although the USN had its own self-built laundry at Shapter鈥檚 Field, complete with an ironing service, several Julian Street mothers supplemented their cash by providing a laundry service for the officers and men on a pay as you go basis. The dirty laundry would be sent along in a jeep, and the driver would add his own items to those of the officer. Whether or not he paid separately for his own laundry items I shall never know.

The dull green trousers were rather more narrow in the leg than the dungarees, and were fairly orthodox generally in appearance, with normal, lined side pockets. The blue dungarees were made with square, patch-type pockets all round; this was the type favoured by most of us. The rear pockets were ideal for books or magazines and seamen with a mind for reading could often be seen with a 鈥減ocket鈥� book available in the hip pocket. 鈥淧ocket Books鈥�, I believe, were invariably printed in horizontal format.

As teenagers, only three or four years younger than most of the American sailors, we were very often mistaken for crew members and on one occasion two of us were stopped near the Plaza cinema in Exeter Street and taken back to QAB by the SPs in their jeep. On arrival there we didn't stop to argue the point but quickly disappeared from the scene of the MA (Master-at-Arms) Shack. We apparently were not supposed to be so far away from base in our working rig. The big advantage of the working uniforms was that we could wander freely around the bases without being challenged (except by those who knew our faces and they either told us to disappear or keep quiet because we could be very useful in more ways than one).

On a very similar occasion, the MA staff telephoned the Plymouth Police, who turned up in their black-painted Humber 4 X 4 and put the two of us into the back seat. They thanked the Americans for their assistance and then drove off towards Greenbank Police station. As soon as the Humber was out of sight of the MA Shack the driver brought it to a halt and he and his colleague proceeded to ask us whether we could get them a fur-lined jacket each (similar to the ones we were wearing) for the winter. When we expressed our regrets about not having any fur-lined jackets to spare the two cops turned us out of the car and told us to walk home.

By now, our Cattedown dialects had been modified to something approaching American, besides which, the Americans themselves had dozens of different dialects - some almost European. So there was every chance of being mistaken for Americans - no one in the USN ever seemed to ask for any kind of documentation to be produced by anyone on any occasion.

There was never any need to steal anything from the Americans and I don't remember anybody doing so. Everything we needed from the USN was either discarded, thrown out into the bins, left in the rain or bartered; bottled beer was the main commodity for bartering because the seamen had no access to alcohol within their own base. Sailors, knowing they would be kept busy all day, would very often appreciate a bottle or two being fetched from one of the local public houses or off-licences in town (and keep the change, son !)

I remember the sailors being so highly paid by British standards that they would literally throw money around. We would often watch their lunchtime poker games. This was played inside their Quonset huts and on whatever piece of furniture or packing case which happened to be around. Only silver coins and paper money were used; they didn't bother with copper and would throw any copper coins to us (sometimes at us if they lost the hand !). Paper money would be stacked in a loose heap in the middle of the table, sometimes reaching three or four inches in height, not being very neatly piled. British money - even fivers - would sometimes be brought into play, usually indicating a full house or four of a kind; black and white fivers were readily distinguishable by their large format and lack of colour. Some of our lads had their very first sight of a five pound note whilst watching a USN poker game. Those of us who worked part-time on a milk round or paper round were familiar with the rare "Bradburys" (among the boss's takings, of course, customers rarely saw one !)

The Seabees also staged dice games during short intervals of time within the working day when there wasn't enough time to set up a poker game. Here again, there were scenes of elation, disappointment, frustration and thoroughly bad temper. The typical American reaction to losing at dice was to throw the dice violently in any unpredictable direction. This was dangerous to players and spectators alike, especially as the dice were much bigger than the British domestic snakes 'n' ladders type dice. None of us even knew that dice existed in a bigger size than that, not until the USN arrived. Then we found that they could be more than an inch square; not only that but they came in a variety of colours, some being transparent as well. I never did get to understand the rules of dice-playing, not even when it became legal in this country, thanks to the Betting and Gaming Acts of the early nineteen sixties.

American bicycles also differed from the home-produced article, mainly because the only brake was applied by treading backwards on either of the pedals. Again, it was surprising to discover that bicycles could be other than black in colour. Also, a degree of streamlining was achieved by building the frame from curved tubes instead of straight ones. British manufacturers had not yet noticed this effect. On the subject of streamlining, of course, the American military or naval staff cars represented futuristic vehicles compared with the British ones. They even had the gearstick on the steering column and a front seat the entire width of the car. (Only a matter of four or five years later I would find myself in a position (National Service in the Royal Army Service Corps) to drive the same models of Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Chevrolet, as well as trucks from the same era.

When off-duty the Americans, as well as the men of the other allies, found themselves intermingled with the civilian population of Plymouth. They joined in whatever social events were available, they frequented public houses, cinemas, shops, churches, dance halls, even sporting events, although very few attended the professional soccer matches. Locally, Astor Playing Field was often made available for baseball or softball knockabout games played by the USN, with some of us teenagers also taking part.

Evenings in Plymouth city centre, particularly the Union Street area, became more crowded than ever before and it was fortunate that no more air raids took place after the end of April 1944. By that time, the USNavy provided Shore Patrols equipped with jeeps and based in one of the adjacent streets. They did a marvellous job in keeping order, together with the more experienced Royal Navy patrols based at the R N Barracks and, of course, the Plymouth City Police.

A very sad accident took place one day at Sutton Harbour when a USNavy seaman kindly took a very young child out for a ride across the harbour in a rowing boat; somehow the child fell overboard and the seaman deliberately jumped in to save it. This he succeeded in doing, but was unable to save himself. The unmanned boat continued drifting about the harbour and a search party of USNavy and civilian fishermen kept looking until they found the seaman鈥檚 body just before nightfall. It was later discovered that the man had been a non-swimmer. For several years he was the subject of an 鈥淚n Memoriam鈥� announcement placed in one of the local newspapers on the anniversary of his untimely death.

Plymouth鈥檚 final German air raid took place at the end of April 1944 and the US troops - Army and Navy - used their far bigger heavy plant, machinery and trucks to assist the ARP with clearing up the resultant damage. In the early days of the Blitz many tons of the stones, bricks and rubble had been taken out to Dartmoor in order to build an airfield, later known as Harrowbeer. The same procedure took place on this occasion, except that the Americans used the material to start building a hospital at Manadon, closer to the City Centre.

As a fifteen-year-old who had commenced full-time employment in the Naval Dockyard just twelve weeks previously, I set off for a day's work by catching the No 3 bus at the top of Julian Street,. The weather was normal for May/June and I settled down for the twenty-minute ride to Devonport Dockyard. The top deck of the bus was, as usual, full of tobacco smoke with all the windows closed; the normal amount of coughing and spluttering soon established itself. Cancer was not a subject spoken about in normal conversation - the top-deck topics would usually be the weather and the progress of the War.

Most of the Dockyard passengers (all civilians) were in the "over fifty" age group, the younger ones mainly having commitments in the armed services elsewhere in the world. A lot of the conversation swivelled around the Great War, (not at that time referred to as World War One). With Plymouth being a naval town throughout its history, there was always a yarn to be spun about being torpedoed in mid-Atlantic or the German fleet being scuttled in Scotland twenty-odd years ago. Or, on a more current level, how the house repairs to the bomb damage were coming along.

For several days now, however, there had been a noticeably big increase of U.S. Army traffic along the road leading to the commercial docks area of Plymouth. Everybody knew, of course, that the "Second Front" was being organised. In Devonport Dockyard the workers were even running sweepstakes based on the date and time of the impending invasion of Europe.

The city police were giving a clear run for the American convoys from their camps and barracks, through the outskirts of the city and along to the wharves at Cattedown. A clear run did not take much arranging because the amount of civilian traffic on the roads was almost negligible, thanks to fuel rationing. I arrived home about 5.30 pm in time to witness the passage of half a dozen such convoys.

Led by one or two jeeps, each convoy would swing around the corner past the butcher's shop and along Julian Street on the last mile to the embarkation point. The vehicles would be mainly "deuce and a half" (2.5 tonners), Dodge and GMC "weapons carriers", Diamond T tank transporters (loaded with Sherman tanks), more jeeps and trailers.

Cries of "Convoy ! ! !" would be heard from the younger children as they dashed in or out of their front doors, and showers of no-longer-needed British coins would be scattered along the road by the GIs of the 29th Infantry Division en route to Omaha Beach. Any time a slight hold-up occurred some GIs would jump out of their vehicles and pass around Hershey bars, Lifesavers, chewing gum, chocolate and other goodies to the youngsters; again, rationing was the main reason for the overwhelming enthusiasm. More than one driver was seen to open his toolbox and remove handfuls of candies for passing around during the short break in the journey; if I guess correctly, there were no tools in the box to start with 鈥� they were probably and deliberately left behind at Raglan Barracks on the outskirts of Plymouth !

There was a most surprising event taking place at QAB shortly after D-Day: a German naval craft (some said it was an E-boat, others a U-boat) had been captured on the west coast of France and the German crew members had been landed at QAB. We saw them being marched along by a group of armed seamen and they were moved in to one of the Quonsets. After a few minutes we heard music and one of the spectators identified it as being the sound track of 鈥淕one With The Wind鈥�; obviously the Germans were being entertained !

Towards the end of the war in Europe the US Navy and the City of Plymouth were honoured by the arrival of H.M. King George VI and President Harry S. Truman. They met aboard H.M.S. 鈥淩enown鈥� and again aboard U.S.S.鈥滱ugusta鈥�. The actual Victory in Europe (VE-Day) was celebrated over the whole of the United Kingdom. Plymouth held street parties everywhere and at Julian Street music was provided by the 5th Plymouth Boys鈥� Brigade Band. Dozens of Allied flags were displayed from house to house and the merrymaking went on until the early hours of next morning.

The End.

Any questions or comments, please email ken@shpr.fsnet.co.uk

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