大象传媒

In August 1939 our parents took my elder brother and I on a holiday to Belgium. On the last day of the month we visited Dunkirk where we saw the long stretches of beach, which we found to be very impressive.

On our return to Ostend we were very surprised to find soldiers on every street corner, stopping all the cyclists and commandeering their bicycles.

My father made enquiries and was told that war was imminent, and also found that there was a boat at 9am the following morning but that nothing could be guaranteed after that. My parents packed up our bags and we caught the boat back to England.

As our holiday had been cut short we visited one of my uncles who lived in Kent, and stayed overnight in his house, which was bombed the following year, after which my uncle and his family moved up north and came to live with us.

We arrived back home in Manchester on Saturday, and the next morning listened to the radio where we heard the Prime Minister announce that war had been declared.

Evacuation

On the Monday morning we learnt that my school had been evacuated and I was consequently sent to Macclesfield in Cheshire, which was my first experience of being separated from my family.

I was billeted with a family with two sons in a nice house in a pleasant part of the town near to a large country house, which we were using as a school, as well as sharing some facilities such as science laboratories with the local school. I got on very well with my foster family until their eldest son received his call up papers. They showed resentment that my eldest brother, who was a regular serviceman, was serving in Palestine, which they considered to be safe, whereas their son was likely to have to fight the Germans.

Back home

Fortunately from my point of view it was decided to return the school to Manchester in Spring 1940 and we were nicely resettled in time for the war to really start and the British army was evacuated from Dunkirk. We became very much aware of this when we were asked if we could help to provide some home comforts for a party of soldiers who were temporarily billeted in my old Primary School. My parents agreed to do this and in consequence two soldiers spent some evenings sleeping at our house until proper military accommodation was found and they were posted.

We then had a fairly quiet summer and my elder brother was called up in September 1940, shortly before the onset of many nights of Air Raids in the winter of that year, particularly the two really big raids on Manchester in December. We lived quite close to Trafford Park, which was a prime target, and we were extremely lucky to survive when a bomb landed in next door's garden, but fortunately did not detonate.

We received a very pleasant surprise in 1941 when there was a knock on the door and we found my eldest brother standing on the doorstep, as he had not been allowed for security reasons to tell us that he had been posted back to the UK.

We passed the news on to Edward (my elder brother) and he was granted compassionate leave so that the family was briefly united for the first time in five years, which was very nice for the short time that it lasted.

Family in the forces

Both brothers then returned to their units, and shortly afterwards John was posted to Canada to be re-trained as a pilot, and upon his return he did a short tour as a night fighter pilot before becoming an instructor, a task he carried out for the rest of the war, and for some time after. During this same period Edward's battalion had become part of the Guards Armoured Division and Edward was trained as a tank driver, a role which he carried out for the rest of his time.

The war obviously moved away from the UK following the D-Day landings and we began to look forward to the end of the conflict, and the letters we received from Edward were full of confidence and reflected the pride he had for his unit.

In April of 1945 a strange thing occurred at home when my Mother suddenly sat up in bed screaming and shouting, and all she could say was 'It's Ed he's hurt, he's hurt, he's hurt!' My father finally placated her and she went back to sleep.

Three weeks later the war was over, and with the first post came a letter from the War Office to say that Ed was 'missing, known to be wounded, believed to be a prisoner of war'. A further letter a few weeks later reported that his grave had been found and he was now classified as 'killed in action' which was a terrible blow as it all happened after the war was over.

A year later on 2nd May 1946 he was awarded the Victoria Cross (posthumous) and the details given exactly fitted the time of my Mother's premonition and was the last of our wartime experiences. His was the last VC to be awarded in the European campaign, and he is buried in a military cemetery in Germany which overlooks Luneberg Heath, where the peace treaty was signed.

A.C. Charlton

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