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Introduction

This account about service life in Britain while training for overseas service with the Royal Army Medical Corps during World War Two is submitted on behalf of one of my uncles, Private Ronald Ritson, RAMC. Ronald gave me this testimony in 2000 to assist me with a university project I was doing about World War Two.

Ronald agreed that I could write about these memories, that they could be donated to an archive and that others could read them if they wished. He signed a form assigning copyright to me. I am pleased to submit this account on his behalf.

Obtaining leave while stationed in Britain

“Early on in the war, before we went overseas, we were granted leave regularly. As a matter of fact, I was very lucky. Because, while I was in this country, you used to get leave every three months. So I could usually come home to Scilly Banks, near Whitehaven then. So it was pretty good, that.

There was this one time I was going on leave, I just forget when, but it stands out in my mind. I travelled up on the train with this Scots lad, he was travelling up to Inverness. That’s where he lived at So, we were both travelling together.

We got to Euston Station no problem. Then the German bombers came across. It was of a Sunday night, if I’m not mistaken, and it was when they set London alight. Obviously, all the trains were cancelled from leaving then. Our train should have left at ten o’clock. I think we eventually left about maybe one o’clock in the morning. However, when we were going outside of London, you could see all the red glares of the fires. That was London burning, it was a terrible sight.

A chance meeting

Another occasion I remember was before D-Day and I think we had just moved a few miles near Portsmouth. Anyway, on one day off we went into Portsmouth. Then to my surprise, I bumped into a local lad from back home in Cumberland. From what you might say my home village, Scilly Banks, where I lived at then. But he lived on a farm. It was Round Close Farm, Scilly Banks just across from where we lived.

They called him Carruthers, Colin Carruthers and we happened to bump into each other. Of course we had a good old chat. I said to him, “ What do you think, Colin? Where do you think we’re going to go be sent to from here?” He said to me, “Well, it looks as if they’ve got us down here and they’re going to send us over the Channel!.” We didn’t know where we would be sent to then. However, I never saw him again after that. That was the way it was.

Scottish manoeuvres

Before that, they had moved us from there up to Scotland. We had moved up to a place near Dumfries, not far from home really. I just forget what they called the place. It was near Dalbeattie somewhere. It was a big house we were in and we stayed there for a while. We used to do a lot of night exercises, night marches and in the daytime as well.

Now, I remember one march we were on. It wasn’t a night march but in the daytime and I think we were out for about four days. There was a sergeant in charge of us and I think there were about four of us in this group. We were going across country and we had to meet a lorry at a certain point, at a certain time of day to pick up our day’s ration. This was how we used to survive and we used to sleep anywhere we could find. I think we’d had a few bad nights out. Then, on our last night, the sergeant said, “ We’ll break rule and regulations if you’ll keep your mouths shut!”

We saw a farmhouse. The sergeant went to the farmhouse and introduced himself. They thought that we were German paratroopers. However, when they did get to know us, the sergeant asked, “ Could we sleep in the barn please?” And they wouldn’t hear about it! When they knew we were British troops, they took us in the house and gave us beds to sleep in and give us a good breakfast to send us on our way!

Then after some further training there, we left and went up to Inverness. Now this would be about late in 1942 I think. We went up to Inverness and they moved the Division up there. We’d been posted to the Third British Infantry Division. Apparently, but we didn’t know it at the time, they were preparing the Division for the invasion of Normandy.

They did quite a lot of winter training up there. It was bitterly cold. I remember we went out one night, along the road, and you could hardly stand. The snow had frozen that hard, you had a job to keep your feet. Then suddenly, there was something small coming towards us. We didn’t know what it was. It looked like a big black bear! But when we got to it, this ‘big black bear’ it turned out it was a sailor! He was that drunk, he couldn’t stand up. So he was crawling on his hands and knees. I don’t know where he finished up.

Training for a sea-borne invasion

Anyway what they used to do up there in Scotland was to take the infantry out into these invasion barges, and then land them on the beaches as if they were making an invasion. Now, all the lorries and that, what they used to do with them, they used to waterproof them. All the engines were waterproofed with some compound. Coming out from the exhaust there was an extended exhaust, which would be above the water line.

They used to drive these lorries into the tide, above the engine height, to see if they were waterproof. However, I’m afraid there were one or two that broke down because they got full of water. They then had to be more or less stripped out again and cleaned up.

Anyway, I think we spent some months up there. It was cold and that I just did not like! The cold was really bad. But we had a great companionship together, all the men. Then when all the training had stopped up there in Scotland, they sent all the invasion barges back down the coast and all the infantry travelled down South by train. That was when we moved down by road from Inverness to just outside Portsmouth.”

Conclusion

Both Ronald and Colin Carruthers subsequently took part in the Normandy landings. Although they must have been close by each other during this period, they did not meet up while in Normandy. Both of them have now passed away.

Before and immediately after the war, Ronald worked as a miner at Walkmill Colliery, Moresby Parks. The footpath between where Ronald’s family lived and the pit went past Round Close Farm. Although Ronald’s former home is still standing, Round Close farm was demolished some years ago when open cast coal workings took place in the area. After that, a small number of new houses were built on the site and called Round Close Park. The footpath from Scilly Banks to Moresby Parks still takes the same route.

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