大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Jan Moore for Kent Arts and Libraries and Canterbury City Council Museums on behalf of Mr Buckworth and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

We received our equipment when we were in Tetbury and tested it in Okehampton. We should have gone to France but didn't, because of Dunkirk. We went straight to Coast Defence in Dorset and from there made several trips to Iceland, a neutral country. Norway had just fallen, which was why we went over, but we were properly equipped for the cold weather. We were based at a very deep fjord and this was a base for protecting the convoy lines out to sea. I spent nearly two years there, so got to know the country very well. It is very barren with no trees, many volcanoes, permafrost and ice. But the sunsets & the Northern Lights were very dramatic.
We used to wash our vehicles with water from the geysers, but you couldn't drink it, because of the smell of sulphur.
The people live there without any type of naturally grown resource, except for the fishing.
When we left Iceland in early 1942, we left all of our equipment to the American Marines and Churchill was also visiting there at the time. Then, when we came back to Britain, we were re-equipped. We were called the Polar Bear Division,East Kent Yeomanry 143, now defunct.
I left the regiment then and went to the Officer Cadet Training Unit at Catterick. From there I went to a Scottish regiment and was recalled to the OCTU as an instructor. We took in troops of cadets for 5-6 months, deciding whether they should be commissioned or not. I did four courses like that as a captain instructor(IG).
I then joined another regiment, going to France and Germany, finishing up at the Russian border, with Mongolian troops on the other side. I stayed there till I was demobbed (on my birthday).

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