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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by Callington U3A — Meg Bassett — on behalf of Mr Ralph Hunn, who fully understands the terms and conditions of this site.

My name is Ralph Hunn and I was born in Metherell, Cornwall, in 1927, so I was 12 years old when the Second World War began. My father died during the War when he was working in the Dockyard, of a cerebral haemorrhage, aged probably 49 or 50. I had one sister, seven years old than me.

Just before the War began in September I went from Harrowbarrow Primary School to Delaware in the April. I can remember walking from Metherell to Harrowbarrow School when they were putting in water mains. We had to walk over all the earth and stones, carrying our gas masks so they must have been issued to all us children before the War really started.

I only saw the bombing of Plymouth when we were at Delaware School, which was above the Tamar Valley. One day I saw 50 odd German ‘planes, up very high, going towards Plymouth, on a daylight raid. Another time there was a huge fire in the distance at Cattedown, Plymouth, which seemed to burn for days, lighting up the night sky. One day I found a barrage balloon, all flat, which had fallen into a field. We took the pieces home to make bags out of this sort of rubbery material. I was out walking with my sister, a bomb came screaming through the air and dropped at St Mellion, where it turned over a chicken-house. I know that three bombs dropped at Moss Side, in Callington, all intended for Plymouth.

When I was a bit older, I joined the ATC, Gunnislake Branch, and had a very smart uniform! We did our training on Sand Hill, Gunnislake, where the doctor’s surgery was (now long gone). I remember the Americans in the village, and during that time Sand Hill was widened so that all the all the heavy vehicles and machinery could be moved. The traffic was continuous for practically a whole week or more, all going further down into Cornwall. The place seemed full of tanks! Both black and white Americans were billeted in the village, with the officers being billeted in the Danescombe Hotel, Calstock, on the river. They used the River Tamar for exercises with the DUKWs and one day they did a large manoeuvre: building a Bailey bridge across the river. This was constructed at Cotehele Quay, and once they had taken tanks over to the other side, they moved the whole thing again, carrying it through Cotehele woods to Calstock, further up the river. The soldiers went along all the roads in the area, squeezing through our narrow Cornish lanes, and pulling down the hedges. All this was in preparation for D-Day. One morning I went to work and, much to my surprise, found Americans sleeping in the hay-ricks. They saw me and asked if I could get them some eggs, which I duly did. Not an everyday occurrence! For weeks before D-Day, the road from Callington to Saltash was packed with vehicles, every day and all day. Yet overnight they suddenly disappeared. Later we found out why.

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