大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Callington U3A csv story collectors Peter and Judy Foweraker, on behalf of Reg Hawkings, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

Before we went over to France, when we were exercising on a gun site at Beaulieu, there was an American Liberator squadron on the downs, and that鈥檚 where the naming of the vehicles started. The major, he was one of those 鈥渉aw haw鈥� types, said it had got to be done properly; the gun-towing tractors had to be called 鈥淧lanets鈥�; the three ton lorries were 鈥楽tars鈥�, and, I can see him now coming to me and saying 鈥淲hat are you doing Henry (which was my nickname), what are you going to call yours?鈥� I said, 鈥淚鈥檇 thought about Gunga Din, sir鈥�. 鈥淲hat? What? Jolly good idea, haw haw haw!鈥� Of course, we travelled on schemes all over country, but every time we passed another regiment, every water truck was the same - they all had Gunga Din on them!

Once in France, I was working as my own boss for a couple of weeks, driving the water wagon as, of course, there was no fresh water out there.

Whilst we were parked at this big gun site above the landing beaches, we could see Caen and the searchlights, and we saw the planes with the gliders coming over on their way to the Rhine. The sky was just black with them. They didn鈥檛 deviate one inch; they just went across in a straight line, and then after they had done their run, their way back happened to be right over our gun site. Well, they were so low you could see right through the Dakotas, and also the parachute straps dangling out of the doors.

I was out one day looking for water, as I used to do, and I went through a little layby and found I was right out on top of the cliffs over Boulogne. It was a beautiful day, and as I burst out of these woods, there in front of me I could see the white cliffs of Dover, standing out as plain as anything. I said the chap in the lorry with me, 鈥淟et鈥檚 get out of here, I don鈥檛 want to see that鈥�. It was a case of 鈥榮o near, yet so far鈥�!

When we were in Amien, there was a concert by Ivor Novello, and I was amongst the two or three hundred who were in the theatre at the time. At the end of the concert he came out onto the stage and said that he had just written a new song in Rouen and that nobody had heard it yet, not even his publishers. He said that he had got the words here on the screen and he wanted us to sing it so that he could hear what it sounded like. Then he sat down at the piano and we all sang 鈥榃e鈥檒l Gather Lilacs鈥� two or three times!

During the first few weeks after landing we had to find water for the water tanks wherever we could. Sometimes I filled up from a well, which was difficult as there was a bit of gunfire going on at the time, but later on the engineers came over and put in proper water points with fire hoses for us to use. If ever we were near a town when we were on the move I always used to go to the local fire station, where there was no bother at all to fill up. In contrast to that, I stopped at a village once with the old press button 鈥� the village tap. The biggest job then was to keep the youngsters from falling in the tank as they were all over it!

At the back of our water tank, which held only 200 gallons, there were all the small taps and one big tap that could be taken out, and I never had any say in that. All I did was get the water and put in the chlorine tablets, and then the key used to be handed over to the duty sergeant. We were rationed you see and only had a mess tin full of water, and we had to do everything with that 鈥� wash, shave, have a drink, wash out a pair of socks. If we wanted to do a bit of washing we had to shove it all in a bucket, but then they set up a laundry, which was so crude. They took you down to this depot place where you left your clothes, and then the biggest indignity of all was that you had to stand there with your arms out, and then they used this blessed great big gun from which they would pump DDT on you, to delice you! Oh dear! The uniform was bad enough as it was, without that!

Before the end of the war, I drove Gunga Din up through France, Belgium, Holland and finally into Germany.

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