大象传媒

My grandfather Len worked as a farm labourer in the Furness area of Lancashire until he joined the Army in 1940. He got his papers to report in a fortnight to Blackdown, Surrey on the 15th May 1940. His uncle had served in the Lancashire Fusiliers during WW1 and been at Passchendaele. He told my grandfather to try and join the Royal Artillery so at to avoid the horrors he had experienced. The time before leaving for initial training was used for farewells and explaining why he wasn't going to stay and farm. He was entitled to use an exemption given to people working in agriculture. although he did return a year later for agricultural leave.

When Len entered artillery training he weighed 10st and in that first year he gained 2st. Training camp days were short and sweet with few interruptions except to beat out gorse fires on the local moors. After six weeks the recruits were marched down to the local railway station by the band as their barracks were to be used for wounded soldiers coming back from the evacuation at Dunkirk. They were destined for a transit camp a few miles out of Worksop where they were to be sent as replacements to the regiments returning from France. Len was sent to Yorkshire with the 6th Field Regiment living under canvas with the Welsh veterans. As a fresh recruit surrounded by veterans he felt in awe of them as he heard the stories of the retreat to the coast. They had lost most of their equipment and a lot of their friends. The regiment's immediate priority was to be on the look out for enemy parachutists and then to join the batteries defending the coast. They were posted in Hull Docks and also enjoyed a greater deal of comfort at RAF Driffield and RAF Leconfield. In the summer of 1940 a lot of time was spent waiting for the imminent invasion feeling less than prepared to mount a serious defence. As new equipment eventually arrived Len was moved away from the coast to join the 10th Field Regiment and train on the 25lb gun. Again he heard many tales of France from the veterans and only felt part of the regiment after training on the new equipment with the veterans.

Len decided to become a driver as he had passed the test in training, although any of us who rode with him later in life questioned the difficulty of this examination. The regiment moved around a lot at this time, occupying drill halls or empty property in Bridlington, Wakefield and Knottingly. Len found the requirements of being in a senior Royal Artillery regiment very demanding and a long haul. The 10th Field Regiment was now one of many regiments that made up the 2nd Division whose sign of identification was the Cross Keys. They moved south to be nearer the division's infantry batallions of the Worcestershires, Dorsets and Camerons and also the Royal Engineers signallers, machine gunners and the Recci regiment. They were based in 'Nissen huts' at Wycham Manor just outside Banbury where along with the men in Len's third brigade he saw soldiers from the Welsh Fusiliers, Durham Light Infantry and the Yorkshire Light Infantry who belonged to other brigades.

That winter was a cold one and life in the huts consisted of heating the stove in the centre of the concrete floor to produce a bucket of warm water for all sixty men to wash and shave each morning. The daily routine of warming up the engines of their vehicles in batteries A and B would sometimes be broken by journeys into Banbury. Apart from the petrol they were supposed to be collecting, the trip was used for cigarettes which were scarce at the time. On one such trip Len saw the roads lined with every type of vehicle and the troops lined up for King George VI to inspect. At this time the guns were overhauled at Oxford which increased the feeling that the 2nd Division was being made ready for action. This was confirmed when the Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited and spoke to the gathered troops on a box, informing them that they would soon go to a place where British troops had never been before. The men conducted several rehearsals of embarkation in the Manor grounds before being given their kit and going on an overnight train journey.

In April 1942 very early in the morning Len found himself with thousands of other men marching on to the Reina del Pacifico at Liverpool docks. On the short journey to Glasgow one chap who had only been home a short time after four years in India decided he couldn't go back tried to take his own life in the toilets. He was stopped and instead of being taken off in Glasgow was held by the Military Police on board and would remain there for the whole of the voyage. The Reina del Pacifico then headed towards Canada to join up with the rest of the convoy out in the Atlantic Ocean. They formed up into position and remained there for the whole of the journey in a line of ships that stretched as far as the eye could see. They had a destroyer close by which used an aircraft catapulted from the deck to search the surrounding ocean before landing on the seas and then winched back on board. The journey was extremely slow which was compounded by the constant change of direction intended to shake off enemy submarines. This tactic was not entirely successfull and some boats carrying equipment towards the rear of the convoy were lost to submarines.

It took six weeks to get to Cape Town and ships that needed supplies went in to Dakar. There was no shore leave at Dakar and the men were forced to spend a number of days suffering the intense heat. This was intensified beneath decks as the men were packed in like sardines and many chose to sleep on the decks being awoken each morning at 05.30 as the decks were swilled down.

During the voyage each regiment was responsible for the safety of the area that they occupied. This resulted in Len being posted on fire duty in the officers sleeping deck during their stay in Dakar. He was posted with a man called Paddy from Ohara and they sat inside the doorways at the end of a corridor which ran from port to starboard. They were ordered not to leave their posts for any reason. After a while Len noticed that Paddy was nodding off and decided he would give him some rest and wake him in a few minutes. This was a decision he lived to regret as within a short period he had succumbed to the heat and had also fallen asleep. The orderly officer had found them both asleep and fetched the orderly sergeant to wake them and charge them with what would have been a Court Marshall offence if it had been guard duty on land. They found themselves behind bars on wooden bunks serving three weeks confinement. The punishment however was not as harsh as it could be as the conditions in the cells were not as intolerable as other parts of the ship. They were also able to see their friends quite regularly as boat stations would be called for the men to stand by their respective lifeboats. On these occasions the other men would give them words of encouragement and slip them a few fags. The Worcestershire battalion were in charge of security for the whole ship on the voyage. The cells were near to their offices and the galley down a deep iron stairwell. Len and Paddy felt degraded and ashamed with all the discipline and slight bullying they received. Even the Military Police guarding them took pity on them and even passed them cigarettes through the bars during the night. The other source of comfort was the regular visits from the Roman Catholic Padre who Len had got to know well and would come to respect greatly later in the war. The two of them were told to report to the chef who was a high ranking officer from Liverpool. They were well looked after by this man who gave everyone cigarettes before they began their work. This involved sorting and peeling thousands of potatoes in the hold of the boat. Another very different character they encountered around the galley was the Sergeant Major of the Police, who would stand over them and shout obscenities while they were scrubbing the floor. He would also make surprise inspections of their cells checking every inch for fag ends, giving the men PT at 06.00 every morning and emptying the whole days swill down the shute. The three weeks went relatively quickly and coincided with the time it took to get from Dakar to Cape Town.

After two days shore leave in Cape Town the island of Madagascar fell which had been the place many men felt they were headed for after the visit of Winston Churchill. The Reina del Pacifico headed out alone at full steam headed for India. After two weeks they anchored briefly off Durban harbour the distance covered each day being the subject of a daily draw. After sitting on deck in the heat watching flying fish in the clear sea air the atmosphere changed greatly as they approached Bombay.

The smell of the city hit them whilst still offshore and when they reached the quayside the hustle and bustle was something to behold. After they left the decks of the Reina del Pacifico for the final time they began the journey by train to Poona. It was a shock for Len to see so many people from a different ethnic background with many soldiers not feeling much respect for the Indian people. It soon became apparent that the feeling was mutual as all along the journey there were signs saying 'Quit India'. There were some casualties suffered as grenades were exploded in queues for the cinema and stones thrown in car windows. The feeling between the British and Indians improved somewhat when a few months later Gandhi approved the mobilisation of the Indian Army. Poona was a small town but Kirkee a large arsenal nearby provided work for the local people ensuring that the equipment was in first class order. It was in Poona that Len first encountered the Indian Bazaars. The people being very keen to sell the soldiers walking boots, tropical clothing and portrait photographs to send back home. Once the equipment had been finally assembled the regiment moved out into open country for manouvres and firing the guns on newly made ranges. They were moved out of the more comfortable stone barracks so that they could be made into hospitals for the men fighting the Japanese on their way out of Burma. Len never met these men but learned since of the many brave acts on the longest retreat.

The next move took Len to the state of Hyderabad for a large scale manouvre which would last a week. He was placed in the advance party and would depart at night travelling along dirt roads in the dark. The only way to know whether they were on the road was if there was a cloud of dust coming from the vehicle in front. The conditions proved to be somewhat hazardous as his quad moved from third in the convoy to second as the vehicle in front veered off down a banking. They now had to catch the rest of the convoy ahead of them which proved to be difficult when travelling under strict blackout conditions. The crew in the carrier were suddenly awoken when Len had to slam on the brakes as out of the dark and dust came the muzzle of the gun on the leading vehicle. They amazingly managed to stop quickly enought so that it was only their radiator that was damaged. The convoy had been halted by a convoy of cattle carts that had been parked up for the night on the road. The Light Aid Department of the regiment had a lot of work to do that night as there were many accidents and repairs to carry out. Len's vehicle ended up being stopped and spairs taken off to fix other vehicles. It was a whole day before he could move off again the next night for a rendevous in the dark with an auxillary party bound for Ahmednagar.

After six months in India Len had a change in duty as he was chosen to become Colonel Barrington's driver. The man he replaced wanted to return as a signaller in 30 Battery to improve his rank. Colonel Barrington was a veteran of the First World War with medals and a half wing which denoted he had flown spotter planes acting as a forward Observer in the artillery. The routine of being a driver was completely different and somewhat easier as he was exempt from all other duties. The usual day involved driving him to meetings and dropping him off at midnight at his quarters and being told "8 o'clock in the morning Sharp". The first long trip was back to Poona where the Colonel attended a week long course. As he did not need a driver for that time Colonel Barrington organised for Len to stay with the Recci Regiment and learn how to drive a Bren-Gun Carrier.

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