- Contributed byÌý
- A7431347
- People in story:Ìý
- William Edmed
- Location of story:Ìý
- London Docks
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A4556342
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 26 July 2005
In 1943 I joined up for service and completed my basic training. They decided that my eyesight was too bad to shoot so they enrolled me on the driving course instead despite the fact that before then I’d never learnt. The next 6 weeks saw me spending half the day learning maintenance and the other half driving. At the end of the course there was no proper test or anything like that, our instructor used to simply say ‘if you can find the gears and drive it straight you pass!’
Having ‘passed’ as such we were all sent off to pick up brand new American lorries and told to waterproof them. This involved smearing the engine with grease and extending the exhaust and air intakes so that they’d have a chance of reaching above any water we found ourselves in. We then took the trucks and picked up 25lb shells before being directed to London docks. We pulled into the compound, parked up and were then paraded for an officer to come and brief us. He told us all that we were now confined to the compound and not allowed to leave! We hadn’t been told exactly what we were in for when we set off and this was a bit of an unwelcome surprise to say the least! The situation was that they were unsure exactly when the ships we were supposed to be loading onto would arrive, and when they did they didn’t want to find that we were all down the pub or something! We stood around the compound for a week just waiting for something to do, kicking our tyres and feeling generally bored and almost like prisoners of war!
Finally the ships arrived and we were loaded onto American tank landing craft. We set sail and ended up landing at Sword Beach after a short stay outside Sheerness. In France we soon found out that our lorries were too big for the French roads and we were forced to stop in a field for another 3 weeks! Unlike in London we were kept very busy throughout all that time, I think at that stage of the war there was plenty of work to go around!
This story was submitted to the People’s War site by James Barton and has been added to the website on behalf of William Edmed with his/her permission and they fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.
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