大象传媒

It all really started in late August 1939. I had been posted to RAF Andover on completion of the Boy Entrant's Wireless Operator (W/OP) course in May 1939. I had joined the R.A.F. a year earlier at the age of 16 and spent a year at the Electrical and Wireless School at Cranwell in Lincolnshire.
Andover was used for Army Co-operation (a/c) training and also had a Communication
Flight. Being only just 17, I was still classed as a Boy and the pay was 10 shillings per week. I now had to master the intricacies of Teleprinter operating (Mk machine).
The only previous sighting of this machine was at Cranwell, doing W/Op training. Our
class was told to report to a room where there were rows of brand new teleprinters. We had to sit at a machine looking as if we were working when in walked a lot of top brass including the Secretary for Air (forget his name, think it was Sinclair!). We were supposed to be learning to touch type, but after the visiting officers departed we went back to our usual routine.
Not long after arriving at Andover, the Sergeant I/C Signals gave me a small portable typewriter, a Pitman's book on touch typing and sent me to an empty room and told me not to come back until I could touch type! After about two weeks I was quite good at it. By this time it was nearing September 3 1939 and the start of the War.
Andover was a station to which a lot of reservists had to report and many were W/OPs, who seemed very old to me. Some were old enough to be my grandfather, or so it
seemed, with stories about W/T in the First World War, operating with airships etc.
By the time they were all dispatched it was September 3rd. I was on duty that Sunday
morning and received the teleprinter signal from Air Ministry saying that war was declared, a "most immediate" signal, the highest priory, was rarely used. Of course nothing happened that day but on the Monday things started to move in the signals section.
Most of the airmen were posted to a unit going to France, leaving a couple of older men, two of us "boys" and some civilian operators to work the signals section, or so we thought!
During the afternoon, 5 or 6 WAAFs walked in. They were the first we had seen and
apparently they were all ex secretaries in civilian life so could type but did not know the procedure for sending messages etc. That's where I came in! I was given the job of teaching them in record time and it turned out to be the start of a long association with training in various forms that was to last throughout my working life.
Andover was the home of HQ Maintenance Command; the command responsible for all
supplies ranging from aeroplanes to sausages. The four Maintenance Command groups were in the area and all the signals traffic (messages) came through our section. Also at Andover was the RAF Staff College which was another important unit with plenty of highranking officers in evidence.
Because the RAF was expanding rapidly this was a very busy period. There was a large
increase in the volume of traffic with myself working as a Watch superintendent in charge of about 8 operators. It was like being thrown in at the deep end! We were working a 24 hour-three watch system, which meant no days off, coming off watch at midday and going on again at midnight. The first six months of WW2 has been described as the phony war but for anyone at RAF Station Signals Andover it was far from it.
By the summer of 1940 things were different. More staff, a four watch system, meant days off and, as I was now 18, I was on full pay as an AC1 promoted to LAC (Leading aircraftsman) and looking for a change. This was achieved by volunteering and I had three choices - 1. Aircrew (the favourite), 2. High speed telegraphist or 3.Y Service, (intercepting enemy messages etc.). No.2 came through first so on 13th September 1940 I was on my way to Air Ministry Unit London for a four-month's course at Cable and Wireless.
Before leaving Andover the station was bombed by three Heinkel 111. Caught in the open,I saw the bombs leave the enemy aircraft and did the fastest sprint of my life to the nearest air raid shelter. A lot of damage was done to the station headquarters buildings but the signals section was able to carry on when the dust settled. A WAAF telephone operator
got the Military Medal for carrying on at the switchboard.
London 1940
London was my first taste of the blitz, just as the bombing was switched from airfields to the cities. I should have got to Waterloo Station from Andover but it was out of action by bombing so the train finished up at Victoria Station. I was standing outside the station and looking lost when a man standing near me hailed a taxi and asked me where I was going and took me there. Such was the spirit in those days.
Home was Staffordshire house in Store Street off Tottenham Court Road and very near the West End. We had to make our way from there to the embankment for the course at Electra House, one day starting at 0800hrs then the next at 1500hrs. The blitz was at it's height and on the 1500hrs start we would finish at 2200hrs, going back via the Underground where the platforms would be crowded with people sleeping the night to
avoid the bombing. It was quite a sight with sadness and humour all around. Being on the fourth floor at Electra House overlooking the Thames we had a good view of any activity on the water. Occasionally the bombing would be so bad we had to stay at Cable & Wireless for the night.
I was promoted to Corporal while still only 18 and had to take my turn as observer at night on the roof of Staffordshire House when there was a raid on. It was my duty to warn everybody in the building to take cover when I thought the aircraft where getting too close for safety, quite a sight from the roof - seeing the explosions and fires started in that part of London.
A memorable occasion was on December 29th 1940 when the city of London was ablaze. I
was travelling back by train from Farnborough (my home town) on Sunday night and could see the light of the fires in the sky 32 miles away. The train couldn't get to Waterloo, only as far as Vauxhall where all the passengers made for the Underground but with the weight of numbers going down the escalator and crowds at the bottom trying to get up the other side people were piling on top of one another. Some were killed in this disaster. I managed to get on an Underground train and got as far as Trafalgar Square, (2 miles away
from Store Street). It was a very eerie sight with fire engines dashing about everywhere, troops being marched to the city and others coming back to the crypt of St Martins-in-the-Field church which was used as a canteen and rest centre, a very welcome haven on a terrible night.
I visited the City the following day and the whole place was in ruins, or so it seemed. There were hundreds of fire engines and crews everywhere. On the lighter side one got used to the raids after a while and tried to carry on as normal. On one occasion when, walking with a friend, on hearing a bomb screaming down we dashed into the shelter of a house porch but as we hit the front door it was forced open. We fell into the living room and there was
a couple sitting comfortably by the fire, not expecting visitors!
With the Course successfully completed, I was now a High Speed Telegraphist. This was a
Group One trade, which meant being familiar with automatic Morse sending and receiving
equipment (up to 250 words per min). I also had to use a keyboard at a minimum speed of
60 wpm, (80 was a normal speed for producing a Morse punched tape) and then type from
a moving tape converting Morse into a typed message. It also included maintaining the
radio (wireless) equipment etc. Early February 1941, I was posted to the Air Ministry
Central Signal Centre (CSC) at Leighton Buzzard - but not for long.
to be continued....

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