大象传媒

As a small boy, I was evacuated with my elder brother from Southampton to Poole, just a few miles along the coast, from a place of high danger to one of only marginally less danger. By 1944, we were moving back and forth between the two towns, both crammed full of troops, Poole with British troops and Southampton with American. Southampton, as D-Day neared, was under American government. We had to have special passes to enter the city: General Eisenhower was our boss. Southampton Common was a huge transit camp packed with American soldiers. The surrounding barbed wire was hung with 鈥淣O FRATERNIZATION鈥� notices. Yet, through a hole in the wire, numbers of 鈥測oung ladies鈥� entered with impunity. American military police patrolled the streets and dealt very severely with any drunken American soldier. They stood no nonsense: any trouble and it was out with their long truncheons, a quick bang on the head, and the offender was loaded horizontally into the back of the truck. I seem to recall that black American police were used to control white soldiers, and white to control the black ones. Local people could do little wrong, even in a fight with Americans.

The streets of Southampton were packed with columns of American and British troops training for D-Day. Each night, at 3 am, a column would pull out and drive to the docks for loading. At 4 am, the next unit would arrive for its 23-hour stop. One day, it was heavy artillery; then infantry; the next tanks, vibrating the bomb-damaged houses and bringing down the loose plaster and the odd brick. The petrol bowsers parked nose-to-tail outside our house were the most worrying even though each house was provided with a couple of large fire extinguishers, in case. . . All the units were shipped down the coast, to be landed under live fire on Studland Beach. As a small boy, I remember educating American soldiers about pounds, shillings and pence, and that the 鈥淨ueen Mary鈥� was a British ship. In response, I often received unobtainable treasures such as fruit bars, oranges, tins of biscuits and, on lucky days, tins of stewing steak much appreciated by my mother in those days of strict rationing. The contents of American kitbags came up with some surprises 鈥� footballs (I was given a new laceless one once) and even dogs and cats!

In Poole, I went to school half days in a building shared with a local school, which clearly resented our presence. Such were the realities of war. One day, Poole Park was packed with British Army vehicles parked side-by-side under the trees. To the soldiers鈥� surprise, that day they were handed buckets of white paint and big stencils and told to paint large white stars on the tops of their vehicles for all to see. All wondered what this portended. Some evenings, as the days lengthened, I and two or three other boys would secretly cycle down to Sandbanks, where we would slip through the scaffolding coastal defences and the barbed wire for a quick swim. We always posted one of our number to watch the sky over the sea off Bournemouth for German hit-and-run raiders who occasionally flew in low over the sea and swung low along the beach, looking for targets to machine-gun. One evening, after swimming, we stood by the chain ferry in the evening light when, to our astonishment, we saw a long line of ships snaking its way out of Poole Harbour, one close behind the other. Out they came, rocket ships, tank landing craft, ships of all kinds. We had seen nothing of them before. Now they came from their many hiding places around the vast harbour. We then knew instinctively what all this meant. No one said a word but each kept his own thoughts. We knew that this was for real and recalled 鈥淐areless talk costs lives鈥�. The ships continued to pass quietly out to sea day after day, a steady and mighty column, covering the sea to the horizon. For many weeks past, we had watched the American paratroops training for battle on the surrounding heaths. We had watched the Dakota troop transports trailing paratroopers whose parachutes had jammed, flying up and down the harbour, towing the poor men through the water while the aircrew cut the parachutes clear. We were young, but we were familiar with death and the turn of Fate. We had seen men accidentally shoot their best friend when cleaning their rifles, only to break down and be carried away screaming in a straitjacket. Such was life, and we accepted it for what it was and what it had in store for us.

In Southampton, I had watched the great concrete caissons of Marlborough Harbour being built across the estuary, then towed to sea by their attendant tugs; also the great drums of the Pluto petrol lines, each with a gaggle of tugs on either side. Along the town quay, lines of huge landing ships, their bow doors wide open, loaded tanks, guns, lorries, half-tracks and all the vast paraphernalia of war. The centre of Southampton was a rubble-strewn wasteland, lined with American Nissen huts, a veritable American city. The tension increased. The roads were patrolled by American jeeps with mounted machine guns and the hours when we could leave our houses were restricted. But still the 鈥測oung ladies鈥� went through the gap in the barbed wire at the end of our road! Later, when the American soldiers abandoned the camp on the Common and set fire to it as they left, we found the ground white with condoms and the accompanying packets of tubes of cream. Thus the Americans advanced our education.

Then, one night back in Poole, our family was woken by a mighty roar. We looked out and saw the sky was filled with the lights of aircraft, each towing a glider. We knew the Day had come. All night long the roar of the aircraft went on and sleep was impossible. In the morning, formations of planes, newly painted with black and white stripes, flew out to sea and singletons, some clearly damaged and some trailing smoke, came back. The battle was on.

A few days later, back in Southampton, the relentless loading of the American army continued, but now, every few hours, a white-painted hospital ship docked. Down Hill Lane, a continuous stream of ambulances slowly moved to the Docks while a similar but faster-moving column flowed up The Avenue on their way to the hospitals. Past these ambulances marched battalions of apprehensive American troops on their way to the battlefront. To us it seemed as if a great gloom had lifted: victory would clearly be ours sometime in the future.

Everywhere one was surrounded by organisation on a stupendous scale: floating harbours; petrol pipes across the Channel; thousands of ships, planes and tanks all flowing in ordered formations; ammunition; food; and the evacuation of the wounded to the waiting hospitals. I learned then that if a nation devoted everything to a single objective, almost anything was possible. This was a lesson I was never to forget.

I was evacuated with my elder brother from Southampton to Poole, just a few miles along the coast, from a place of high danger to one of only marginally less danger. By 1944, we were moving back and forth between the two towns, both crammed full of troops, Poole with British troops and Southampton with American. Southampton, as D-Day neared, was under American government. We had to have special passes to enter the city: General Eisenhower was our boss. Southampton Common was a huge transit camp packed with American soldiers. The surrounding barbed wire was hung with 鈥淣O FRATERNIZATION鈥� notices. Yet, through a hole in the wire, numbers of 鈥測oung ladies鈥� entered with impunity. American military police patrolled the streets and dealt very severely with any drunken American soldier. They stood no nonsense: any trouble and it was out with their long truncheons, a quick bang on the head, and the offender was loaded horizontally into the back of the truck. I seem to recall that black American police were used to control white soldiers, and white to control the black ones. Local people could do little wrong, even in a fight with Americans.

The streets of Southampton were packed with columns of American and British troops training for D-Day. Each night, at 3 am, a column would pull out and drive to the docks for loading. At 4 am, the next unit would arrive for its 23-hour stop. One day, it was heavy artillery; then infantry; the next tanks, vibrating the bomb-damaged houses and bringing down the loose plaster and the odd brick. The petrol bowsers parked nose-to-tail outside our house were the most worrying even though each house was provided with a couple of large fire extinguishers, in case. . . All the units were shipped down the coast, to be landed under live fire on Studland Beach. As a small boy, I remember educating American soldiers about pounds, shillings and pence, and that the 鈥淨ueen Mary鈥� was a British ship. In response, I often received unobtainable treasures such as fruit bars, oranges, tins of biscuits and, on lucky days, tins of stewing steak much appreciated by my mother in those days of strict rationing. The contents of American kitbags came up with some surprises 鈥� footballs (I was given a new laceless one once) and even dogs and cats!

In Poole, I went to school half days in a building shared with a local school, which clearly resented our presence. Such were the realities of war. One day, Poole Park was packed with British Army vehicles parked side-by-side under the trees. To the soldiers鈥� surprise, that day they were handed buckets of white paint and big stencils and told to paint large white stars on the tops of their vehicles for all to see. All wondered what this portended. Some evenings, as the days lengthened, I and two or three other boys would secretly cycle down to Sandbanks, where we would slip through the scaffolding coastal defences and the barbed wire for a quick swim. We always posted one of our number to watch the sky over the sea off Bournemouth for German hit-and-run raiders who occasionally flew in low over the sea and swung low along the beach, looking for targets to machine-gun. One evening, after swimming, we stood by the chain ferry in the evening light when, to our astonishment, we saw a long line of ships snaking its way out of Poole Harbour, one close behind the other. Out they came, rocket ships, tank landing craft, ships of all kinds. We had seen nothing of them before. Now they came from their many hiding places around the vast harbour. We then knew instinctively what all this meant. No one said a word but each kept his own thoughts. We knew that this was for real and recalled 鈥淐areless talk costs lives鈥�. The ships continued to pass quietly out to sea day after day, a steady and mighty column, covering the sea to the horizon. For many weeks past, we had watched the American paratroops training for battle on the surrounding heaths. We had watched the Dakota troop transports trailing paratroopers whose parachutes had jammed, flying up and down the harbour, towing the poor men through the water while the aircrew cut the parachutes clear. We were young, but we were familiar with death and the turn of Fate. We had seen men accidentally shoot their best friend when cleaning their rifles, only to break down and be carried away screaming in a straitjacket. Such was life, and we accepted it for what it was and what it had in store for us.

In Southampton, I had watched the great concrete caissons of Marlborough Harbour being built across the estuary, then towed to sea by their attendant tugs; also the great drums of the Pluto petrol lines, each with a gaggle of tugs on either side. Along the town quay, lines of huge landing ships, their bow doors wide open, loaded tanks, guns, lorries, half-tracks and all the vast paraphernalia of war. The centre of Southampton was a rubble-strewn wasteland, lined with American Nissen huts, a veritable American city. The tension increased. The roads were patrolled by American jeeps with mounted machine guns and the hours when we could leave our houses were restricted. But still the 鈥測oung ladies鈥� went through the gap in the barbed wire at the end of our road! Later, when the American soldiers abandoned the camp on the Common and set fire to it as they left, we found the ground white with condoms and the accompanying packets of tubes of cream. Thus the Americans advanced our education.

Then, one night back in Poole, our family was woken by a mighty roar. We looked out and saw the sky was filled with the lights of aircraft, each towing a glider. We knew the Day had come. All night long the roar of the aircraft went on and sleep was impossible. In the morning, formations of planes, newly painted with black and white stripes, flew out to sea and singletons, some clearly damaged and some trailing smoke, came back. The battle was on.

A few days later, back in Southampton, the relentless loading of the American army continued, but now, every few hours, a white-painted hospital ship docked. Down Hill Lane, a continuous stream of ambulances slowly moved to the Docks while a similar but faster-moving column flowed up The Avenue on their way to the hospitals. Past these ambulances marched battalions of apprehensive American troops on their way to the battlefront. To us it seemed as if a great gloom had lifted: victory would clearly be ours sometime in the future.

Everywhere one was surrounded by organisation on a stupendous scale: floating harbours; petrol pipes across the Channel; thousands of ships, planes and tanks all flowing in ordered formations; ammunition; food; and the evacuation of the wounded to the waiting hospitals. I learned then that if a nation devoted everything to a single objective, almost anything was possible. This was a lesson I was never to forget.

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