大象传媒

This story has been written onto the 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War site by CSV Storygatherer Lucy Thomas and Pam Barnett of Callington U3A on behalf of Ray Moxley. They fully understand the terms and conditions of the site.

Part 2
JOINING THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS

In 1942 when I鈥檇 done my two years at the Oxford School of Architecture, I was about to embark on my third, the inter-year, the most important year in a student鈥檚 life, the five-year course plus two years before qualifying. After the second year, His Majesty sent me a letter and said 鈥淵ou鈥檙e required in the Army.鈥�. So, I joined up and I was called in to the Royal Horse Guards, Combermere Barracks in Windsor, which was a great privilege, actually. It was a wonderful unit, terrific discipline, marvellous people, great esprit-de-corps. Quite amazing how a highly-disciplined unit like that can be so cheerful and so jolly and supportive working, good team work.

In the Horse Guards, we didn鈥檛 have horses of course, we had marvellous Daimler scout cars but no horses. All horse troughs were filled with geraniums. There was a lot of training, signals, semaphore and Morse particularly, and drill 鈥� terrific drill, of course, very smart lot. There was not much speech on the radios between us just a very elementary form of radio communication.

MY FIRST WEEKEND LEAVE

After six weeks I was let loose and given my first weekend leave. So, with a hat down right over my eyes 鈥� you could hardly peer out under the brim of it 鈥� and a very upright posture, and high-polished boots, blanco鈥檇 equipment, shining brass, I hitched a lift from Windsor to Oxford. I remember going into the kitchen, where my mother was cooking the Sunday lunch, and when she saw me she burst into tears, because her little curly-headed boy had now become a great big soldier. It was a terrible shock for her. Poor thing! This quite upset me and I felt I wasn't really wanted at home. Anyway, it was soon all right. And then, of course, I had to get back to Barracks by 2359 hours, that鈥檚 a minute to midnight, at Combermere Barracks, otherwise I鈥檇 have been on a charge.

Part 3
LIFE AS A SAPPER IN THE ROYAL ENGINEERS

Well, I enjoyed the Horse Guards and I would have gone on 鈥� they had me earmarked for a special class and it was looking very exciting 鈥� when the War Office decided, because of my "extensive architectural training" , to call me into the Sappers, the Royal Engineers.

The rations to the soldiers weren鈥檛 too bad at all. The food was plain and fairly starchy and not brilliantly presented but it was adequate and kept us going. Of course we were monstrously hungry all the time because as a sapper you鈥檙e learning to bridge build, you鈥檙e learning demolitions, you鈥檙e learning to road build, you鈥檙e learning to construct water towers and water supply and all manner of engineering things. Repair and construction and even to assault work and dangerous stuff for frontline troops. So, all that was being done and I, having done my course, became an instructor. First of all, I was a sapper and did that for six months and then I was posted to another training company on the east coast where we retrained soldiers that had been through some of the war in the south east Asia and had to be retrained to become competent engineers in modern terms for those days. So, I did some of that 鈥� a youngster of twenty training men in their forties. It was quite a bizarre situation.

PROMOTION, TRAINING, PROMOTION

The biggest change in my army life was when I was promoted lance corporal 鈥� an unloved, unwanted, acting lance corporal. Then, of course, you鈥檙e commanding men. You鈥檙e telling men to come to attention, to march here and there and do what the sergeant wants you to do or the captain wants you to do. So, that was a complete change of my style. I shared a room with another soldier and that鈥檚 all, instead of 120 other soldiers in a mill room on the banks of the River Ribble, with tobacco smoke filling the acrid, stale air, 120 men on triple-height bunks. These were the coldest winters on the banks of the damp Ribble river, but I got through that.

Eventually, I got to a War Office selection board and became an officer training cadet at Newark. That was quite good. We worked jolly hard. We had to go through the whole engineering performance at a much higher level and I think we got through the whole thing in about seven months. In peace time it would take about three or four years, but in wartime it was very quick and very hard which meant you worked morning, evening and night, sometimes all night, and started again at 7 o鈥檆lock in the morning. So it was tough, tough stuff but it was wonderful and I got commissioned and then after another six months鈥� training people in a training battalion, I was called to the colonel鈥檚 office. He said 鈥淚鈥檇 like you 鈥︹��, there were two of us, 鈥淚鈥檇 like you two chaps鈥�, he said, 鈥渢o do a job I鈥檝e been doing for the most of my life. I鈥檓 going to send you off to West Africa because that鈥檚 where I鈥檝e been serving as a West African engineer and I think you two chaps would be absolutely splendid and you鈥檒l love it!鈥�. So, we thanked him very much and wondered what the hell was going to happen to us.

So, we found ourselves on a troop ship going to West Africa. I was so lucky because I was posted to a battalion and a sapper unit up in Kaduna, north of Nigeria to start with and then after I鈥檇 been there for a while, Ghana on the Gold Coast. I became very fond of the Ghanaians who were lovely people with a wonderful sense of humour. When you got their confidence, you got a terrific rapport and they would do anything for you and you would do anything for them.

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