大象传媒

(Story donated to The Peace Museum, Bradford, UK, and submitted to the WW2 People鈥檚 War project by The Peace Museum with permission of the author鈥檚 wife).

My own War-time Story by Ronald F. Smith

It was at Glastonbury at 11 am on 3rd September 1939. I was in church at St. Benedict鈥檚 where I was a bell ringer, sidesman, Church Council member and assistant secretary of the Church of England Men鈥檚 Society. We had finished our bell ringing calling the good people of Glastonbury to the morning service. We looked at the rear door and in about three minutes, the Verger appeared, looked across to us and nodded. Now we knew. The Prime Minister had announced that as the German Army had not turned back from Poland by the deadline, Great Britain was at war with Germany. It was very hard to concentrate on the service.
I believe we were thinking of other things. There was a lot of sadness. How long would it last? How many millions of lives would be lost before it all ended? We have now been told over 20 million. How many countries would be affected? The lights were going out all over Europe.

Prebendary Townsend, the Vicar, gave me a book soon afterwards, 鈥淭he Christian as a Soldier鈥� or 鈥淭he Soldier as a Christian鈥� 鈥� I cannot remember. However, I read it carefully and prayerfully, but could not agree with it. To me, it was just not right. How could a Christian go out killing people? That was murder. I could not do that. I believed in Peace, not war. One of the sidesmen, my namesake, Mr. Smith told me how he was a Conscientious Objector in the First World War and how some C.O鈥檚 were shot, not officially of course, but you know how there are 鈥渁ccidents鈥� in war.

The Vicar was preaching Peace the week before it started and then preaching War two weeks later. How could that be? Had GOD suddenly changed HIS mind? What was right and what was wrong? Under the Military Act, men were being called up for service by age groups every few weeks. My age group was the seventh. I was age twenty four. I decided I must register as a Conscientious Objector. Glastonbury was a small town and reports of the cases of a C.O. was reported in the local paper. I was refused chocolate in the local sweet shops although I had the necessary coupons and 2 and a half pence. Families were split up on the issue, for the war and against he war. It was extra hard for me because my father was Major Frank Smith M.B.E., who fought in the South African War 1899-1902, and the First World War 1914-1918. He wrote me a letter saying he could get me an easy, safe job in the Pay Corps at Exeter, with him. I resented this attitude. If I were going to war, I would not want some sort of fiddle into a safe job. Of course, I wrote back thanking him, but declining and I explained what I was doing. I had to appear before Judge Wetherhead and his six helpers at a Tribunal in Bristol. I did not know that I had to have references from anyone, so they adjourned my case and I had to go a second time with my references. They recorded me as a C.O. and directed me into Agriculture, Land drainage work or Forestry.

1940
I duly left my office work at Boltonsborough, after three and a half years and sought work on various farms. I was kicked off one by a very irate farmer. I got work at Publow, Pensford, Somerset, eight miles from Bristol. I was there only eight weeks. It was sixty hours hard work for sixty shillings. I had done six years work on my father鈥檚 farm, so I thought I could cope, but this farmer was terrible. In a field one day, he was about to lash me with a horsewhip, but I stood my ground and told him he dare not do it, and he slowly calmed down. I was ill for two days, but the doctor refused flatly to come and see me. For my lunch in Publow, I had dried bread, a few apples picked off the ground while crossing the orchard and a few dog biscuits, telling the dog I was sorry taking some of his food. There was very little food in the house and the landlady and husband got their food in Bristol. Whilst at Publow, I cycled into Bristol on Saturday evenings to visit friends at Clifton, and cycled back whilst air raids were on and the Luftwaffe were being shot at and shrapnel was pinging down into the road round my bike. I was always thankful to get to my digs without any shrapnel sticking in me.

Trying to help others in similar situations as I was in, I joined the Peace Pledge Union. In an advert, I read about the Christian Pacifist Forestry and Land Units, an organisation started by Rev. Henry Carter, a great Methodist Pacifist at the time. I applied to join and was accepted. I was found Forestry work in Bruton Forest, which had eight woods. There were four of us in the Unit 鈥� a Roman Catholic, Methodist, Congregationalist and me, Church of England. The Catholic 鈥� Raymond Victor Cornelius told us how he was the first C.O. of the Second World War, having been called up in the Militia ( they were seventeen year olds), about a year before the war. They took his clothes away and gave him military uniform, which he refused to put on (that would have put him in the Army), therefore he nearly froze to death. At my suggestion, we all attended each others鈥� churches together as a unit and we learned a lot about our differences. The work in the forest was very hard, working with some eight or ten local workers. Thick undergrowth had to be cut down with staff hooks and burned to clear the ground for planting. We used to keep the fires going for a week or more, banking up with earth each night and uncovering them each morning. We had no shelter from the rain and often got very wet. Eventually the Ganger and I built a hut for shelter and put a fence round the wood.

1941
Then we had to plant 400 Norway Spruce trees, each person, each day. No easy job! We often talked to the next person to us and arguments arose sometimes. One day, Reg smacked my face really hard in some disagreement. I stood still and told him if it made him feel better to smack the other cheek as well. Slowly he dropped his hands and even said he was sorry. He said, 鈥淚鈥檒l never understand you Christians.鈥� These men were tough Home Guards and one threatened to bring his gun next day and shoot me. He thought I was a German and my name was Rudolph Schmidt. Someone convinced him that the name was Ronald Smith and I was English. Another time, in another wood a different Reg, knocked me to the ground 鈥� and twisted my neck. It made a loud click and we all thought it was broken. It was about an hour later before I could continue work. The very next day our whole gang was split in two and worked in different woods. I think it was about two months before we were all together again. We had to cut bracken between rows of trees on a long up hill slope. It was terribly hot, the sun beating down on our backs. We kept drinking from our water bottles and we had very little left. This second Reg shouted out he was desperate for water and was about to drop to the ground. I rushed over with my bottle and offered it. He looked up and said,鈥� Oh no, not you I can鈥檛 take water from your bottle after nearly breaking your neck.鈥� I insisted and he took it. Then he said sorry for what he had done and there was no more trouble between us. One day we had to go to a new wood most of us had never seen. The Ganger knew about it. We had to spend all day killing the adders before we went into the wood to work. I believe we killed about sixteen between us and I managed to kill four. They are really poisonous and no one fancied having a bite from one.

Whilst we were living at Brewham, we four C.O鈥檚 formed the Brewham First Aid Stretcher Party and I always seemed to be the volunteer for the dangerous jobs. With the villagers all present for the demonstrations I had to lay in a shed on straw and then they set it alight, doused me with water and dragged me out just in time. The rescuers said they did it very quickly but it seemed a very long time to me and it was good that I was in my old clothes, not my Sunday best. By about this time, besides the Peace Pledge Union and the Christian Pacifist Forestry and Land Units, I had also joined The War Resisters International, The International Voluntary Service for Peace, The Central Board for Conscientious Objectors, The Anglican Pacifist Fellowship and The Fellowship of Reconciliation. It was years later when I became a Methodist in 1951 (although I had been a Sunday School Teacher for nearly six years before), I also joined the Methodist Peace Fellowship.

1942
The Bruton Unit broke up and I moved to Mere, Wiltshire. That Unit had twenty 鈥� eight C.O鈥檚. We worked again with local labourers, Land Army girls and Italian Prisoners, quite a mixture, sometimes forty people working in one harvest field together. At Mere the Unit was rather divided, as a number of political C.O.鈥檚 had got into our CPFLU movement whilst the Secretary, Mr. Mitchell was very ill. They sat up one end of the common room in the evenings whilst our Christian group were having our Prayers at the other end. I took my turn leading Prayers. On 6th November 1942, Margaret came to Mere from Harrogate to visit her brother, David. We met that evening and the next day went cycling together. I took her to Bruton and just had enough money for a cup of tea and a bun each. We visited the caf茅 again forty years later, and the proprietor told all his customers and they clapped us.
It was about 1942 that my Father transferred from the Army to the R.A.F. as a Flight Lieutenant and was in charge of the R.A.F. training camp at Melksham. When I visited my parents at Melksham, I was not allowed to go out with my Father because I was not in uniform. I could go out with my mother. My brother was in the Admiralty Police stationed at Bath. He was also a City of Bath despatch rider. He had dangerous work including flying over Germany at night as a photographer. If he had been captured he would have been shot as a plain clothes spy. He was once gashed down the arm with a razor by a defector from the Navy he had been sent to arrest. He held him until help came.

The Wilts Agricultural War Committee decided it wanted our hostel for Land Army girls and bit by bit we all had to split up and go elsewhere. I was transferred to Downton, Wilts. Eight of us had to live in one old railway carriage in a wood. We had four double bunks. We were the area threshing machine unit and travelled round various farms thrashing corn. I was in charge of the elevator, having to clean it, oil it, raise it and lower it every day. This also meant being straw rick builder with the help of two land army girls. It was really hard dirty, dusty work. We even worked all day one Sunday getting in an urgent field of rye. The harvest mice used to get in our clothing and quite unknown to us we took them back to the railway carriage with us and at night they would just run about in and out of our beds and didn鈥檛 they tickle!

I was quite ill for a few days and sent a message for a doctor, but once again he refused to come to see a C.O. It was at Downton I attended the Church of England each Sunday but was just ignored until the sixth week. No one spoke to me. Then the District Nurse who spoke to me asked a lot of personal and embarrassing questions and I never went there again. Each week after that I walked past the Church on to the Methodist, where I was straightway made welcome and even attended my first ever Prayer meeting in a Church afterwards.

Margaret came to see me, all the way from Yorkshire, 238 miles and we cycled to Salisbury and visited the Cathedral. At a later date I visited Margaret and her people at Goodmays. Then I was suddenly taken ill on the last night before returning to Downton. I soon found myself in Oldchurch Hospital, Romford to have my appendix out.

1944
I had a long slow recovery and lost my job. The Tribunal revised my C.O. papers as I could no longer do heavy work. Then I had to get office work with a food firm. The answer was a few miles away, J. Lyons & Co., Cadby Hall where I started on 1st April 1944 and worked with them about ten and a half years, leaving in 1955.
I had eighteen different jobs in my fifty years working life, with three spells of unemployment, always getting my own jobs. I remember well seeing my first 鈥渄oodlebug鈥� come over Cadby Hall whilst I was on fire duty there. The one that came west turned round and went east again.
I remember attending a Communion Service with my uncle and cousin at Tooting Methodist Church, when a bomb dropped nearby and the windows smashed. Calmly, we continued the service, and I remember the two shops making my wedding suit both being smashed by V2鈥檚 in1945. I never thought that Margaret and her mother were worrying about me when they saw the smoke of the explosion where I had gone, whilst I was going round the shops trying to buy Margaret some chocolate.

1945
We arranged with our Minister that even if the windows of Goodmays Methodist Church did blow out we should continue our Wedding Service. We were not going to let Hitler stop us getting married, on 2nd April 1945.

And since the war, has my Pacifism continued? Yes, I took part in ten of the twelve Aldermaston Ban the Bomb marches, joining them as the marches passed Rivercourt each Easter Monday. On a number of times, I helped carry the Methodist banner, at the head of hundreds of Methodists and having my photo taken in Hyde Park for an American magazine. One year, the Christian contingent branched off and held a service in Westminster Abbey. Nothing had been planned for afterwards, but I managed to get them to agree to march on to Hyde Park. The police escort told us it was the most peaceful march they had ever accompanied. They said it was a joy to march with Christians.

These peace marches were often misunderstood by people because they were judged by the trouble caused by Communists and the Committee of 100 who sat in the roads and stopped traffic and got arrested. There were only a few who caused trouble compared with the thousands who marched. One year, the police gave their figure as 62,000. I believe it was in 1962, There were other peace marches besides the Aldermaston Ban the Bomb ones 鈥� I remember one from the South Bank, to Hyde Park, thousands of us were singing hymns through the streets and finishing with a big service in Hyde Park and I remember wondering how many of the 79,500 Registered Conscientious Objectors of the Second World War were still with us and were, like me, kneeling with thousands more in the park, praying for peace.
Ronald Smith
10th November,1991

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