大象传媒

In Jan 1942 the battery (366th) went up to Hull, George Johnston went in advance as GPO Ack, because they were 4.5 guns, others were 3.7's and were using Vickers Predictors which worked on different principle. That was the British predictor. This worked on graphs: the operators had a window with graphs that turned round and they followed a height line. George went there to Hull, his troop were at Sunk Island for a time, which was below river level so there was a fear of being deluged in water if a bomb dropped in the wrong place. This was 2 guns for the section - they were a bit under manned for 2 guns, especially for 4.5s as they had 15 men per gun instead of 11 on the others. We only had one set of people really: One Section Officer (still Tom Parry), One GPO Ack. We were there 3 weeks, and were on duty every night: after the first 3-4 days he said "Gets a bit boring, you can be GPO tonight and I'll be GPO Ack". George knew him well by then - in fact he married a girl that George introduced him to in Derby. They then took those 2 guns out and took them up to make a 4 gun battery (there were 4 sections to a battery) and joined up with the other section which was north of Hull. We were there not for very long - George does not know quite why the Battery Commander did this - maybe he thought people had been together too long, but section 1 and 2 had been together from foundation of the Battery (always worked in half batteries), and section 3 and 4 together (we were section 3). He put sections 2 and 4 together on one site. Sections 1 and 3 did the 2 gun Section Battery sites. George knew the other Sergeant, from the Sergeants' Mess, various friendships had been made and the men didn't like it either. George did not object but it seemed unnecessary - as all had worked together a long time. And section 3 had not been on Battery HQ site either - it quite a good thing to be off site.

Eventually they became established with their old mates but on the Battery HQ site near Preston (east of Hull, between Hull and Spurn Point) and that was where they saw a lot of action. We had radar, and were slightly North-east of Hull, on the line from Flamborough Head which the German Bombers were taking, either straight over the top for Immingham docks and also the oil storage. Slightly to the east, they were going down for Grimsby and those ports. Slightly to the west, they went straight in for Hull docks and Hull. The expenditure of Ammo while there was considerable, they were firing 100 rounds for every other sites one. The lads were happy as it was less boring. You could not walk more than couple of hundred yards from the Command Post without falling into a bomb crater round the site. And it was low boggy ground so we could not dig down to have dug outs, you could only dig about 2 foot down - so we had 5 foot high shelters above ground.

The bombers came in so low over the sea that sometimes there was no warning. Once George heard some bombs, so he came out as he was on duty and ran to Command Post. On the way he could see mushrooms from a stick of bombs just away over the field. He got to the command post, but could see no evidence of the night spotter who was supposed to give the alarm. George called "Spotter, Spotter". There was a scrambling and scraping and little bloke was climbing up the wall. "I'm here Serg, I've just been blown off the top." The blast had blown him off. "Did you see anything?" "No, I didn't see anything". By this time George was going down the steps and could hear the telephonist saying "What no raid - we've just had a stick of bombs across the site", and with that the alarm went!

While at Hull they had to move the guns and ammunition through Hull, and they had two lorries to take the boxed 4.5 ammunition to another site. A regulation provided that if an air raid was in progress they had to stop outside the built-up area. They had got 3/4 mile into Hull when the siren went. The driver, who was green to driving ammunition, asked what he should do. George told him to drive on: the time taken to turn would take as long as continuing. They heard guns firing. The driver asked what would happen if a bomb dropped. George said "Just carry on driving. If one drops near enough to set this lot off we won't know a thing about it.". George was quite accustomed to this risk by then.

(as told to his son 1990)

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.