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Edward Ernest Joseph Fairhall, my father, is 82 now and so just 22 on VE-Day. He is sitting beside me now as I write up his story, to check the details are all correct.

Dad didn’t particularly want to go to war and didn’t think he’d have to do so! He had been an apprentice pump engineer before the war, doing his OND in Engineering at night school. He was called up in Spring 1942 at age 19 in spite of being in a reserved occupation. He didn’t want to go because of his mum, all alone with four other younger sons (one very ill), but he’d done well at his OND and they wanted him on the Mulberry Harbour project. The authorities actually awarded his mum an allowance — as if she was his wife rather than his mum. And he went to Chester to do his basic training — where he played piano in a band when he could. Once he found himself playing alongside Lou Praeger. They wanted him to stay - to play in the band - but he wasn’t allowed. He was sent to Longmoor to do his Royal Engineers training and played cricket! And he was also a good batsman so they also wanted him to stay but again he wasn’t allowed! At this point in his stories we feel no sympathy for him at all — the war seemed like one long cricket game or boozy piano evening! Each time he was sent on, someone seemed to make a special request for him to stay and he was called up in front of his CO and asked who he knew in the MOD who could be asking for him to stay!

And then he went up to the Isle of Whithorne off the West coast of Scotland, to work, as a draughtsman, on the pier heads for the Mulberry Harbours. He was there until D-Day. By then he was 21.

On D-Day itself, as a Warrant Officer, he was with his particular pier on the South coast at Sandwich off the Kent coast and had to travel with it along the coast to Marchwood (across the estuary from Southampton) for modifications before going over to France. However, the weather was bad and the traffic was all going one way — so much so that they were out in the middle of the channel before they knew it, heading for France! They did of course manage in the end to turn around and head in the right direction… He finally ‘landed’ (Dad was stationed on the pier and rarely touched land) at Arromanches on D-Day + 4. The pier was used almost continuously for the next six months, until they captured the ports.

The pier was soon visited by Field Marshal Montgomery himself, and one of Dad’s most vivid memories is an overheard conversation — argument — between Montgomery and Colonel Carline (in charge of operations at Arromanches). It was D-Day + 7 and there was a storm raging. The pier had been shut down because Colonel Carline considered its use much too dangerous in the high seas and gales. Montgomery was desperate for tanks and vehicles — he demanded that the pier be put back into service immediately. Carline refused, and Dad believes he had finally to be backed up by Churchill himself.

The argument was obviously loud, their voices carried from ‘down below’ up to the men above. The anxiety and tension must have been extremely high. Dad says they had bunks down below and a galley, electricity being generated from London bus engines. They worked in three eight-hour shifts and everyone worked extremely hard to keep the piers serviceable. No leave although they could go ashore when they wanted during off-duty periods and the main office for the unit, 969-IWT(Inland Water Transport) company was there.

After the ports were secured Dad stayed at Arromanches doing general duties. On VE day he was on his way home on leave, crossing London and getting to King’s Cross to get a train home. He remembers teaming up with his adjutant, also from from Balderton (near Newark-on-Trent). They had put bottles of whisky etc in a wooden box for safe-keeping and carrying it between them on to the train. Dad sat in the guard’s van with it! When they got out at Newark, they took a taxi to Hawton Lane (where Dad lived), divided the ‘spoils’ and the adjutant took the taxi home (he paid for the taxi). They knew celebrations were happening but were too intent on getting home to join in. There was a street party still going on in Hawton Lane but Dad preferred to go down to the pub at night (his uncle had a pub at the Cock Inn, opposite the church) and have a drink with two of his aunts and an uncle. His brothers were off out doing their own thing. Dad hadn’t been home for about three years until this point.

He had two weeks at home before going back to Sandwich and prepared to go the Far East. He didn’t know what he was going to be doing there. Rumour had it was that they were going to build another Mulberry Harbour but that was all speculation. The same unit was soon shipped to Bombay and then went on to Calcutta. At Howrah Bridge they were caught up in a skirmish between the Muslims on one side of the river, and Hindus on the other. He thinks it was Ramadan. He wondered why they had been asked to try and keep them apart, when both sides had guns! Bullets were flying so quickly that the British soldiers could all have been massacred easily (there were only about 20 soldiers he thinks). And eventually the CO agreed with him and withdrew his men. Apparently the skirmish was almost an annual event. A bit like the Orange parade troubles. It happened when a Muslim festival was a bit too up-close for the other side to tolerate.

From India he went to Rangoon in Burma, and got aboard a ‘Liberty ship’ to Singapore. In Singapore he was immediately told to take two sappers and another sergeant (Dad was a sergeant) and report to the railway station. At the station they were joined by two signallers and he found they had a vehicle waiting: a jeep with train wheels fitted, steering locked, ready to be driven up the railway line to Alor Setar in Thailand. He remembers Alor Setar as a very small village — it is now a large town. From Alor Setar he continued with the railway ‘truck’ to the village of Surat Thani. Here there was the infamous prisoner of war camp which contained the prisoners forced to build the bridge over the River Kwai. The liberated British and Dutch and Australian prisoners were mostly in a very bad condition, their state shocking to any new eyes.

Several thousand Japanese had surrendered to a handful of soldiers, including a company of Gurkhas. There he met the remarkable Captain Graham who had ‘gone native’ and had guided the British planes in to bomb the bridge over the River Kwai. Captain Graham was in charge of the whole operation and told everyone what to do. Dad remembers him as not being a very tall man - very, very thin and looked more Malayan than English. He was impressive — authoratitive and calm.

Dad didn’t have a lot of personal contact with the ex-prisoners because he was getting the rolling stock over from the other side of the river. They had train engines on the Malaysian side of the river but the rolling stock had ended up stranded on the other side. In order to transport the British and Dutch prisoners of war, they had to get the carriages back to the other side of the river. They did this with lines across the river and floating the carriages across on pontoons. The Japanese were incredibly cooperative (they had to be, of course) and after a couple of meetings, he formed an impression of the former Camp Commander as an extremely reasonable chap! However, when he got back to Singapore this same Commander had been already been hanged for war crimes in Changhi prison.

After a few weeks in Surat Thani, Dad’s group was due to go back to Singapore to join the main company, when he caught typhus and amoebic dysentry. The other three men from the REs, sent him by ambulance to Alor Setar. He was in hospital there for three weeks and in the meantime he was posted as absent without leave! No-one had heard anything about him since his men had sent him in the ambulance and they didn’t reckon they’d have kept him for three weeks! So he made his way back to Singapore, turned up at his CO’s office and was asked where he’d been! ‘Well thanks very much’, is what he said. His papers arrived from the hospital just after he did.

Now he was in Singapore for about 18 months, where he became Quartermaster in charge of company stores. He liked Singapore because it was lively, the climate was good and the city attractive in spite of its post-war state.

(Of course, he played cricket again. He played for the combined services side and played with D.B Carr. C.J. Barnett was head of the Combined Forces cricket team in Singapore. And they played against England who were on their way to Australia for the first Australian post-war tour. He played against the team led by F. Brown, including Len Hutton, Godfrey Evans, Parkinson, Doug Wright. He remembers Godfrey Evans as being a bit of a loudmouth! ) This paragraph is in brackets because Dad thinks it’s a bit too frivolous to record...

In 1947 he came home and was demobbed. At the demob camp (he thinks it was in Sandwich), they were given their demob suits and told to apply for their service medals. A group of them said that if they had to apply, and couldn’t be given their medals, they didn’t want to have them. Under pressure from his family, Dad has only just applied for his — and is waiting for whatever they might offer him! He has, meanwhile, got an MBE — and would rather like the other medals to accompany it, to pass on to future generations.

Anne Barnes (née Fairhall)
8th May 2005

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