大象传媒

LEN SHELTON

DUNKIRK VETERAN

ROYAL ARTILLERY GNR/O.F.C. 1516039

1939 was a traumatic year for Win an I. Early on I was diagnosed at the Leicester Royal Infirmary with appendicitis and put on the waiting list for surgery and informed that it was a two year wait.

However the Government announced that due to world conditions they would initially call up men aged 20-21 as 鈥淏evin Boys鈥� to serve down the mines, but things changed due to Mr Hitler, most of the 鈥淏evin Boys鈥� would be allocated for Military service and in June 1939 I received my call up papers and instructions to attend an Army Medical Board.

I reported and had my medical, low and behold within a week I was in the Leicester Royal Infirmary having me appendix removed and informed that I had to report for Military training in 1939.

With war looming we decided to get married and tie the knot on October 7th 1939, had my 21st Birthday on 11th October and received my calling up papers to report for duty with the Royal Artillery at Blandford Camp on the 16th leaving my new bride as I later learnt, pregnant.

I was trained to be a driver and fitted into the position very quickly, passing out at the end of training as a driving instructor to be based at Blandford Camp.

However the Army needed every available driver to join an active regiment and I was assigned to the 85th Heavy Anti-aircraft regiment, a Territorial unit from Yorkshire going to France. We were despatched with all haste to Bethune in Northern France with all necessary equipment but not for long.

It appeared Hitler was going to attack the Maginot line and we were soon on the move towards Belgium and of course Hitler went around the Maginot line and cut us all
Off!

We were ordered back to defend Dunkirk and were kept rather busy. Prior to this when moving to Belgium we got caught in the front line ready to repel the expected tank columns, came under enemy shell fire but didn鈥檛 hang about and kept in front of enemy tanks till reaching Dunkirk where we were needed to repel the Stuka dive bombers.

Knowing we were surrounded, instructions were issued to start demolishing first the Radar equipment to prevent Gerry from getting the slightest piece of that as most people didn鈥檛 know of our mobile Generator and Receiver not forgetting our Transmitter and the Matador lorries used to tow them. Everything was destroyed.

When the net tightened around us, we drivers were told to get down to the beaches if possible. We got to the town centre of Dunkirk just as the Dive Bombers threw every thing at us and ended up sheltering in a seamens mission where a lot of wounded were being cared for.
We were unable to move as the mission was the only building left standing, eventually the Dive Bombers stopped and we were left to make our way to the beaches.

The queues were very long so two of us, Sgt Sid Hanslip and myself fought our way to the long jetty where destroyers were picking up. A bomb had hit the jetty just off the sea front, so we had to get in single file and ran towards the destroyer, which was packed full, but they did pull me aboard. Sid, who was behind me, didn鈥檛 make the boat, which I think was HMS WOODFULL. I understand this was sunk on another trip back to the beaches. Sid made it back on another ship.
We were so lucky not to be hit by bombes, which were raining down most of the way back to Dover, from there we returned again to Blandford Camp by train.
How wonderful it was to be back in Blighty!

Our unit reformed at Aberystwyth in Wales, from there we were given 48 hours leave, Saturday and Sunday the 15th & 16th of June. I was a fool to report back on the Sunday night due to half the unit not reporting back on time so the C.O. would not grant compassionate leave for Monday the 17th when my wife gave birth to our daughter. Was I wild, I should have stayed home like most of the others did. She was six weeks old before I saw her! Very beautiful (and still is at 63).

When we wee fully equipped again and ready for action we were sent down to South Wales. Our battery going to Swansea, just off the main Mumbles Road when we actually downed an enemy aircraft, needless to say we were the toast of the Town. We were also very lucky as a bomber rained a string of bombs at us, landing across the road on the University playing fields. They were duds so how lucky can you get?

No time to get comfortable, we were suddenly moved to London, the Blitz!
This was traumatic, as we were unloading the train at night at a station nearest to Clapham Common I remember humping ammunition from the train as bombs were falling around us and dropping boxes of 3.7 inch ammunition flat on the ground. Again our luck held and it wasn鈥檛 long before we started to give them what for in reply, I鈥檓 sure we gave Jerry a surprise, what a time to arrive in London! Needless to say we were there for quite some time.

Later on we started training on Landing Craft and we were moved to Scotland. We guessed we were due for another move but where to? Eventually we boarded ship and joined a huge convoy in the Atlantic Ocean, losing a couple of ships to submarines before arriving in Algiers, North Africa.
The First Army had already completed the initial occupation and were well on the way towards Tunisia.
We found most of the fighting in North Africa had finished and Monty鈥檚 lads were finishing of Rommel鈥檚 forces in an allied trap. In no time at all, our regiment had re-formed as the 1st Heavy Anti-Aircraft Regiment and was back off to Algiers.

It was very hot in Algiers but I got even hotter still when rushed to hospital and diagnosed with malaria. I鈥檝e never sweated so much in my life, my palias was saturated with sweat, that was nothing compared to the injection I received in my backside. The bloke in the next bed told me the needle was 6鈥� long, the nurse must have struck bone because a huge lump came up! In the meantime my unit left Algiers bound for Italy without me.

I think it was about a month before I left Hospital and was sent to Naples, to a transit camp on the foot slopes of Mount Vesuvious, which from the strange tremors my canvas bed performed in the night was not far from erupting. I鈥檓 glad my stay in the camp was limited to a few days of loading ammunition urgently required by the lads in the front line at Casino before being despatched to Bari where I caught up with my regiment.

We saw plenty of action as Bari was a busy port and we shot down several planes, Germans of course.

I the received training as a Radar Operative, which consisted of a mobile receiver, a unit with 4 operatives, which covered a 360 degree area. The results of which were transmitted to the Predictor unit, which produced accurate electronic signals to the four 3.7inch guns in our battery. The battery also had a transmitter unit and a diesel generator set for electric power. All of this was hauled by Matador AEC lorries, of which we were also the drivers.

The loading of ammunition for Casino had caused a Hernia and I was sent to Bari hospital for an operation.
Again I was about to suffer at the hands of the nurses.
There were two of us waiting for operations, a sailor who was operated on the day before me, who when he came round after his operation complained his feet were painful but the nurses found nothing wrong with him.
After I came round the next day I also complained about my feet. Eventually the doctor who had used sinew from my legs to repair me hernia discovered I had been left unconscious with a stone hot water bottle (used for bed warming) against my feet causing third degree burns to both feet.
The burns required skin grafts, small bits of skin called 鈥減inch grafts鈥� that left the back of my heels rough and tender, they still are. A cage was used to keep the sheets off my feet, when the C.O. came around on his regular ward visits the nurses removed the cage and then replaced it after the inspection. This went on for a couple of months until he got suspicious and demanded to know why I was still in hospital when I was only admitted for a hernia operation.
The truth came to light by which time it was too late for me to be sent home, I was in hospital for 17 weeks in all, my heels were the worst and my army boots were a problem.

I was on radar and doing shifts because the G L receiver was manned all day every day. I was fortunate it was a sit down job monitoring the screen. I think I broke my feet in sitting at the screen with my boots on, good job I didn鈥檛 have to do marching. We were there until the war ended.

I did get a weeks leave in Rome during that period as my name and a colleagues were the first two drawn out of the hat, it was brilliant!

We were posted to a prisoner of war camp at Taranto on the toe of Italy for guard duties, that was a very hot job, the temperature was sky high, but it didn鈥檛 last too long.
Because I was in group 25 for Demob we were soon on the long journey through Italy by train to Milan for transit home.
Fortunately I was on the first train through Switzerland, where we were made a fuss of at every stop we made in that beautiful country.
It was great to know we were now on the way home, the train carriages had slatted seats, the floor and roof racks turned out to be more comfortable.
Another long journey through France, then by boat to Dover where trains were waiting to take us to our transit camp, which turned out to be Bandford.
That completed the round trip!

We didn鈥檛 hang about and were sent to Aldershot for Demob, kitted out with a grey striped utility Demob suit, which was ok with me, and sent home to Leicester having been away for 6 陆 years, by now I was getting on for 30.

It was an unbelievable homecoming, as my daughter couldn鈥檛 understand who I was and used to run away from me, she was 6 years old.
My wife鈥檚 sister met me off the train and almost didn鈥檛 recognise me, sun tanned with bleached eyebrows and hair she said I looked an old man!

It was so lovely to get into a nice soft bed, it didn鈥檛 feel right to hold and cuddle someone, I felt an intruder but the feeling didn鈥檛 last, as this was really my honeymoon!

We鈥檝e been married now for almost 65 years and living happily in our retirement apartment only a stones throw from where we were married, St Johns Church Clarendon Park, just around the corner from us.

Another completed round trip! A.L.Shelton.

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