大象传媒

When I was awakened by my alarm clock at 6am on the morning of Thursday 1st September 1939, it was with some degree of excitement mixed with realisation that my life was about to undergo a big change. It was the first day of my adult working life. My five long years of apprenticeship, which had included practical training in various practical skills - such as French polishing, wood turning and upholstery - [all of which formed part of the stock-in-trade work of a "Joiner" in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham], as well as 4 years of further education [which had required part-time afternoon and evening attendance at the Dockyard's own School as well as homework] had come to an end the previous afternoon.

I had earned my "Indentures", allowing me to earn a tradesman's wages, which at that time were 63 shillings per week as opposed to the 32 shiillings I got as a 5th year apprentice. Alternatively, I was free leave the dockyard - which I was unable to do as an apprentice - and obtain work with anyone willing to employ me.

However I knew I wouldn't be doing anything like that voluntarily, but I had been told that, in the bleak years of the late Twenties and early Thirties, in and following, the great "Depression", many adult workers had been sacked and even apprentices had had been told there was no work for them once their apprenticeship had ended, so they too were forced to find work outside the Dockyard.

I was very fortunate in that respect. During the latter half of 1938 and throughout the months of 1939 to the end of August, the Admiralty had decided that with ever growing signs of the possibility of a war, all the Royal dockyards needed to be brought up to a standard sufficient to provide a nucleus of trained and capable workers of all types who would be called upon to advise private shipyards on Admiralty standards and requirements should War be declared. It was because of this that I was given a unique opportunity to extend the normal 6-month period in the Constructive Drawing Office that I was doing at the time as training in the final year of my apprenticeship

Because of the rapid increase in the number of drawings required I was asked if I would be prepared to try my hand at some real work and of course I jumped at the chance to show what I could do. As my work received approval, my training in the D.O. was extended by the Admiralty to the final day of my apprenticeship on the 31st August. Subsequently I was also invited to be signed on as a full- time "Temporary Draughtsman" as from the 1st September, the day I became an adult worker, and of course I accepted. The temporary status would last tor 6months and was a requirement for all aspiring draughtsmen and I was assured that if I continued to satisfactorily perform the duties of a Draughtsman [as I had shown, by the end of my training period, that I could], I would be included on the drawing office staff list and granted Acting Draughtsman status. I was aware that before anyone could be placed on the Drawing Office staff list as "confirmed" in the grade I would have to pass the "Draughtsman's Examination" and these exams were held only once a year in peacetime for a limited number of vacancies. As it happened "World War 2" intervened, and the next exam. did not take place until 1948, by which time I had departed for pastures new].

It is easy to understand therefore, why I was a somewhat excited when I left home on the morning of Thursday, 1st September to start my first day of adult work, not as a Joiner for a wage of 63-shillings a week as I had been expecting to do for the previous 5years, but as a draughtsman on a salary of 拢16 a month which would increase to 拢24 a month in 6 months time if I proved my ability as a draughtsman.

During that day the Senior Draughtsman in charge of the office addressed the staff and said that contingency plans were being drawn up to form "Passive Defence" groups to protect buildings and, in the case of the D.O., to ensure that essential records would be safeguarded as much as possible against bombs, incendiary devices and poison gas attacks by German bombers, should war begin.

He said that it was feared that the Germans might start hostilities with very little warning as had recently happened to other continental countries such as Czechoslovakia and Poland. He explained that there was particular concern about the total lack of protection to the D.O. during Saturday afternoons, [Saturday mornings were part of the normal working week in those days], Sundays and of course during the night when the building was normally closed.

He was therefore setting up a roster of staff - volunteers in the beginning - to keep watch during the "silent" hours ready to report quickly to the emergency workers - such as the dockyard's own fire brigade - who would then be able to deal with any danger much sooner. He suggested that the older, more experienced, draughtsmen, as well as those who were married and had children, should be excluded at first until things were clearer as to what was likely to happen. Being just short of my 22nd birthday, and wanting to create a good impression to those who would determine whether or not I would continue to serve in the drawing office, I felt obliged to volunteer to join those who were ready to put in extra hours on "Passive Defence Duty". I was given instructions to be in the office by 0700 hrs on Sunday 3rd September to relieve the person who would have been on duty from 1900hrs on Saturday night. I was told that my "post" was inside Dockyard's main electricity power station which was approx. half a mile away from the drawing office where I would be stationed. If an air raid alert sounded I was to proceed to the power station as quickly as possible where I would be directed to my post. There I would find a number of sand buckets and long-handled scoops that could be utilised to cover any incendiary bombs that had been dropped, and that I could reach, with sufficient sand to prevent them setting their surroundings alight. I was also issued with a full oilskin outfit of hat, long coat, trousers, Wellington boots and a forces type gas mask for protection against any poison gas that may also be dropped. I was also advised to don this entire outfit before I went to the power station.

On Sunday morning I found there was another individual on duty in the drawing office as well but his instructions were to stay in the D.O. We listened to the Prime Minister's speech on the radio at 11-am in which he said that Great Britain was now at war with Germany. At 10 minutes past 11 the air-raid warning siren sounded and fearing all kinds of nasties dropping out of the skies we went into a blind panic. I guess I made a real comic-cuts figure, running as fast as I could manage while wearing all my oilskins clobber, down to the Power Station. I arrived there absolutely exhausted and was conducted to my post which I remember was tucked away at the far end of the huge building out of sight of anyone else. I sat on the floor there and awaited I knew not what. After 10minutes or so the all-clear siren sounded and I trudged back to the office. We were told later it was a false alarm and that the aircraft that caused the warning to be sounded was British. The rest of the day passed quietly so that was how World War 2 started for me - no heroics I'm afraid, and I have to admit that, waiting alone at my post for something evil to descend from the skies, I was just plain scared! Although that day is now more than 66years ago I still have a vivid memory of it.

The early days following the declaration of war left us in a state of uncertainty. The effects on home life resulted in having to do some hard work to provide some means of protection in the house from the aerial onslaught we had been told to expect. A priority was to erect the "Anderson" shelter that most householders had received from the Government. These consisted of sheets of very heavy gauge corrugated steel, curved at one end which, with the curved ends bolted together, formed a very strong arched-roof shelter about 7feet long x 6feet wide and 7feet high inside. Flat end sheets were added at the ends to provide a solid end and a doorway. You were advised to dig a hole in the garden to a depth of at least 3-to feet and erect the shelter inside it with all the spoil placed around the outside of the walls, on the roof and to form a suitable "blast wall" outside the entrance. I had bought a house just before the end of my apprenticeship and my fianc茅 and I got married and moved into it at the end of 1940. We could only afford to furnish the ground floor but we didn't mind that as we felt that the empty rooms upstairs offered more protection against incendiary bombs, but before the war ended we did put some second-hand furnishing up there with a bed somebody gave us. Our "Anderson" shelter was delivered shortly after we moved in and, finding the garden was of solid chalk with about 18inches of soil on the top, I dug down deep enough to have the top of the shelter level with the ground. I thought would give us much better protection. My neighbours were so impressed with it they asked if we would allow them to shelter in it with us, rather than in their own which had been erected in only in the normal 3-feet depth of hole, we agreed and we all came to spend many hours together in it, becoming lifelong friends as a result. I can vouch for the protection qualities of these shelters as 3-houses near to where my mother lived, took a direct hit from a large bomb that left a crater 3 gardens wide and fully 45feet deep. There were Andersons on both sides of the rim that belonged to the houses on either side These shelters were completely undamaged but all the soil covering was completely blown away. Unfortunately all the people in the houses were killed but whether they were in their houses or in their shelters was never able to be ascertained.

There were many such tragic happenings of course. On that same night the town's main bus station, situated only about 500 yards away from the bombed houses, also suffered a direct hit and was badly damaged. Many buses were lost as well In the same local area a popular department store my mother used to visit regularly was completely destroyed by a bomb delivered by what must have been a Stuka dive bomber - the only time I heard a "screaming" bomb in the entire war. I went into my mother's rear garden one night to watch events after the warning sirens had sounded as she had the indoor "Morrison" type of shelter in which you could not stand up, and I heard the scream of the bomb and felt the ground shake which was a kind of relief because as it was coming down it sounded as if it was heading straight for me. Actually it hit Hewitt's store which was about half a mile away. The screaming was a really terrifying sound as you really did feel the bomb had your name on it. I suppose that a distance of half a mile on the ground in those days would have been regarded by the bomber pilot as a near miss.

On another occasion, when I was on night shift at work, I was relaxing in the local park when I heard the distinctive and unmistakable sound of a German Junkers 88 bomber flying low immediately overhead. It was not visible at first due to the low clouds that day, but while I looked the plane dropped below the clouds and it was low enough to see every rivet on it. I saw the bomb doors open and a stick of bombs drop away after which the plane immediately went back above the cloud cover. I heard afterwards that the bombs hit the Dockyard Smithery, killing a number of workmen.

Perhaps the luckiest escape for members of my family was the night my brother's life - and that of his fianc茅鈥檚 as well - was almost certainly saved simply because they changed their minds at the last moment about whether to seek shelter on their way home when the warning siren had sounded. Like most people sometimes did during the long months of the war, they had decided to visit the cinema that evening and were faced with a long walk home when the film finished. The warning siren sounded when they were about half-way home and within minutes they could hear bombs going off. Looking around for somewhere to take shelter, they saw they were outside the Liberal Club Hall where there was a large underground shelter, and debated whether to ask if they could shelter there. However they thought things seemed to have quietened down so they changed their minds and made a dash for home. The next day revealed that soon after their decision, the shelter received a direct hit and the 40 or so people sheltering in it were all killed.

The V1 Flying Bombs were fortunately not used until the latter months of the war. They were very dangerous to those who worked in London buildings because they fell in complete silence in spite of their very noisy approach up to some miles before they reached their target area, due to their built-in devices which stopped their engine and allowed them to glide for some miles before they fell vertically and exploded on contact with the ground. If you lucky enough to either see or hear them at the very last seconds of their fall, as I did on one occasion, and you fell as flat as possible to the ground, you stood a fair chance that the deadly shrapnel would pass over you but the first sign you got, if you were in a building that got hit, was when the building collapsed on top of you. The V2 missiles started later than the V1's and there was absolutely nothing you could do to protect yourself from them. They arrived completely unheralded because they fell faster than the speed of sound and you only heard them falling after they had hit the ground and exploded. I remember seeing an article in the newspapers that one fell on a tradesman with his horse and cart and all that were left was a huge hole in the ground. No trace of the tradesman, or his horse or his cart was ever found. One afternoon, when I was on my allotment, I felt the ground shudder quite violently. When I looked around for the cause I could see a column of smoke somewhere on the Isle of Grain I and then heard a loud noise similar to an express train racing through a tunnel. It was the first V2 I knew of but fortunately it didn't do much damage or cause any casualties.

Our house had a clear view across the North Sea and we could stand at our back door and watch the vapour trails going up from the V2's being launched. We were unable to do anything about them except hope our name was not on them. They were of course mainly aimed to fall on London.

Dockyard officers had been given several lectures to inform them about what we might expect the Germans to be preparing for our "benefit" and included such things as poisons added to our reservoirs, as well as incendiary bombs that contained poison or mustard gas and/or explosives and shrapnel. The fact that these sort of things [apart from incendiaries with explosives] were not used as far as I know, was probably due to the fact that the Germans were well aware that allied bombers were fully capable of returning like for like, but this is just guesswork on my part.

Gillingham, Chatham and the City of Rochester, [the main areas of what is now known as The Medway Towns] was a military town and was "home" to every branch of the Armed Forces of every description, with the largest areas covering the requirements of the Dockyard, the Naval Barracks, the Royal Engineers and the Marines so it was expected that the area would attract much attention from German bombers. And it did!

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