- Contributed by听
- Essex Action Desk
- People in story:听
- Norman Brand
- Location of story:听
- Southern Rhodesia
- Background to story:听
- Royal Air Force
- Article ID:听
- A4142143
- Contributed on:听
- 01 June 2005
This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Essex on behalf of Norman Brand and has been added to the site with his permission. Norman fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.
I was 14 years old when the War began and I left school that Summer. I worked for a local Butcher and joined the Air Training Corps 鈥 I later joined the Home Guard. I volunteered for military service when I was 18 and because of my involvement and train ing with the ATC and Home Guard I got my wish to join the RAF. Basic training was undertaken in Skegness where we were accommodated in holiday Guest Houses. I remember having to scrounge wood for heating fuel it was so cold.
As the War drew to a close I was sent to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to help maintain training aircraft. A mate had suggested we would travel by ship from Liverpool, but in fact we left from Tilbury, in Essex nearer my home near Colchester. We left the ship at Port Said and had a two day train journey to our base at Bulawayo. Our first question on arrival was 鈥淲hen do we go home for demob?鈥 I worked on maintaining the old biplanes used by the 鈥渨hite hat brigade鈥 as we called the trainee pilots. This was quite a change from working on Stirlings and Halifaxes as I had in England.
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited Southern Rhodesia during my time there and we had to put on a Royal Guard 鈥 our reward was a week鈥檚 leave spent at Victoria Falls!!!
When my number came up for demob, it was back onto the train for the journey to Cape Town this time and to board ship for the journey home. No Troop Ship for us this time, we travelled as Third Class passengers onboard the SS Carnarvan Castle. Some people had thought it unnecessary for us to go to Rhodesia with the War pretty obviously ending soon. I enjoyed the experience but was pleased to get home, get my demob suit and hat and start work using the skills I鈥檇 learned in the RAF with a Colchester engineering firm.
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