大象传媒

This contribution to People鈥檚 War was received by the Action Desk at 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk and submitted to the website with the permission and on behalf Mr Richard Fry.

Our school was requisitioned (but not used) by the Home Office so a friend of my Fathers got me a post in Isleworth, London at one of the London depots of the old G.W.R. I joined the local Air Training Corps as I anticipated joining the RAF. In the event I got called up twice!
I received papers to join the Army, highly incensed I complained to my CO. I don鈥檛 know what strings he pulled or whether it was coincidence, but shortly afterwards I got my papers to report to Cardington, Dec. 1942. From there it was 鈥渟quare-bashing鈥� at Blackpool, but because technical training places were full I went for a while to South Cerney near Cirencester and eventually onto RAF Locking. After passing out I went to 515 Squadron near Ware and then we moved to Little Snoring which was where I met my future Wife Nancy.
Early in 1944 I was selected for further training as an Engine Fitter and was at RAF Halton D Day.
On passing out I and all the other 鈥渄ear little so and so鈥檚鈥� who had done well on the course were told we were going to be Fitter Marines. I went to RAF Corsewall for training on boat engines and life afloat.
At the end of 1944 I served on the 鈥淗ants and Dorset鈥� boats of 24 ASRU - Air / Sea Rescue Unit - Gorleston. Early in 1945 we went to RAF Calshot to be made up into boat crews and later collected our own Ex Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) from Brooke Marine at Oulton Broad. We became launch 02 of 101 LR/ASRU.
We finally left England, destination Okinawa in July 1945. The route was to have been Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said and then across to Colombo where 4 new engines were to be fitted, then onto Singapore and round into the Pacific, eventually to Okinawa to cover the invasion of Japan. If it had been completed it would have been an epic voyage in a 110foot wooden launch.
As it turned out we reached Malta in early August and stayed there until the end of the month, then we were sent to the South of France. Then I stayed on in Malta until December 1946 being demobbed from Egypt in March 1947. Originally 80 launches would have been sent, in the outcome only 16 left the shores of England and of those only 6 returned. The rest finished their days on the Suez Canal I think it is a little known facet of the original plans to conquer Japan, but at what cost?

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.