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This contribution to 大象传媒 People鈥檚 War website was provided to Tracey Grey a Volunteer Story Gatherer from the 大象传媒 Radio Norfolk Action Desk at the Event attended by the Norwich, Norfolk and Suffolk Pensioner鈥檚 Association. The story has been written and submitted to the website with the permission and on behalf of Mr Searle

In September 1939 I was eighteen and nearing the end of my apprenticeship as an Aircraft fitter in the Royal Air Force at Number 1 School of Technical Training, Halton.

On Sunday September 3rd when the Prime Minister, Mr Neville Chamberlain made the historic announcement that we were at war with Germany, all the lads were excited. We were trained, young, fit and raring to go. Our fathers and uncles had fought in the last war which ended twenty one years before, now it was our turn and we'd show the Germans. We were young and ignorant of what lay ahead of us. We would find out all in good time. Our parents knew what to expect with air raids on our cities as well.

I was posted to Number 8 Flying Training School at Montrose Scotland between Arbroath and Aberdeen with two other lads. We were disappointed as we thought we were going in the wrong direction- the war was not going to be fought in Scotland.

We soon settled in, servicing the aircraft being used to train pilots to fly bombers. I liked it because ever since I was ten years old it was my ambition to join the RAF and eventually become a pilot and here I was in the middle of flying training every day.

That first winter of the war was very cold, especially in Scotland. When we arrived at Montrose there was no proper accommodation for us so for a few nights we had to sleep in a huge aircraft hanger- it was impossible to keep warm.

Early in January we had a bit of excitement- three aircraft crashed in less than a quarter of an hour whilst trying to take off. Luckily no one was killed. We found out afterwards that because the aircraft had been standing out in the cold so long they had frost on their wings which prevented them from getting in the air.

In February I was posted to RAF Old Sarum near Salisbury to be part of a group to go to France with Army Officers flying the aircraft so that they could radio back to the artillery to tell them whether or not their shells were hitting the target. Our group was called ' D ' Flight and consisted of clerks, cooks, motor mechanics, a medical orderly and us aircraft fitters whose job it would be to keep the aircraft serviceable to fly even though we would be away from home base and workshops, just the spares we had with us and our technical ability.

The aircraft were two-seater Austers with the two seats side by side in an enclosed cabin. The idea was that being light and small they could land and take off in a small field. There was no room to wear a parachute and the only gun carried was the revolver in the pilot's pocket.

After getting to know each other and the aircraft, and getting all our spares together we set off for Southampton with a staff car, Lorries and trailers carrying spares and tents plus a bowser holding 450 gallons of drinking water. Three NCOs accompanied us because the officers stayed behind to fly the aircraft over once we had settled in France.

I palled up with one of the cooks called George Barnard, a few years older than I. He was an ex stevedor from the Surrey Docks in London and a useful lad to have around in a fight as I found out in spots of bother we had with Canadian soldiers in Salisbury. I suppose I also stuck with him and the food for obvious reasons.

We sailed from Southampton after dark and picked up our escort off Portsmouth. We landed at Le Havre on Sunday morning. That night we spent in tents at a transit camp outside Le Havre and the next day set off for Arras near the Belgian boarder. We were to spend a few days there billeted in an empty shop. We slept on canvas bags filled with straw on the shop floor.

One afternoon our CO Major Charles Bazeley thought that as things were quiet he would take us to the First World War battlefield at Vimy Ridge where the Canadians fought, suffered and many died a quarter of a century before. The first thing we saw was the massive monument erected in memory of those who died there. The trenches and area was left exactly as it had been, including many tunnels dug into the hillside with little areas off like rooms with a table and a box to sit on - there were still candles in bottles on the tables and gas masks hanging on the walls with steel helmets. In one of the tunnels we saw where someone had carved the wall back to leave a regimental badge standing proud and further along a miniature headstone bearing a soldiers name and number and the letters RIP.

That visit to Vimy Ridge brought home to me the realities of war - what it was really like. After our brief stay in Arras we went to a French Air Force Aerodrome and set up our tents nearby.

Every day our aircraft flew several times while the pilots and the ground radio operators tested and adjusted their equipment. We dug trenches in readiness for air raids and mounted guard on our own aircraft and equipment. As we were only a small unit night guard came round about every three nights. It comprised two hours on guard and four hours off to sleep if you could- we still had our bags filled with straw on the ground.

There was no enemy action but every day German planes flew over very high - no doubt taking photographs and observing any changes going on different from the day before.

Our CO decided we would be better off leaving the aerodrome and operating on our own in small fields which our aircraft were quite capable of. It was only a matter of time, when the Germans were ready they would attack, and the aerodromes would be prime targets.

Our next base was near Chalons-sur-Marne. We erected our tents in the woods and parked our Lorries and trailers in a lane shielded by the trees. We hacked away bushes at the edge of the field where the aircraft were so they could be backed in and covered with branches when not being used and at night. This was quite a way from the main camp and very lonely when on guard at night. One such night I was patrolling along the line of aircraft at about 1.30am with my loaded rifle cocked and held at the ready. I stopped at each end of the line and listened for any sound -sometimes a wild animal would scurry away in the dark. After straining my ears for a couple of minutes I started to patrol again in the other direction. After a few paces I sensed that I wasn't alone - that someone was behind me. I had read about the hairs at the back of the neck rising up - I felt mine do just that. I expected to feel a knife go into my back. I stopped and swung round with my rifle pointing at the chest of whoever it was. I could just make out the shape of a man a few feet from me. I shouted my challenge 鈥淗alt. Who goes there?鈥� It was my CO. 鈥淚t鈥檚 alright Searle,鈥� he said, 鈥淚 just thought that I would check that all was well before turning in." At that moment I hated him as much as I hated the Germans. He had obviously come out to spy on me, to see if I was doing my duty. While I was at one end of my beat he had hidden in the bushes at the other end and waited quietly until I arrived, stopped and listened. As I moved off he had emerged from hiding and followed me. It is a wonder I didn鈥檛 shoot him, it would have only taken a split second. I was glad when my two hours was over and I heard the guard commander approaching with my relief.

The days came and went, as did the odd German high flyer. We just got on with our work, waiting for the war to start.
Our next move was to be somewhere near Saarbrucken but it never happened - on May 10th 1940 the Germans invaded Holland, Belgium and Denmark with paratroops and land forces. They struck when they were ready, any plans the Allies had were of no use - they just had to defend as best they could with what they had.

Our own ideas were not going to be used because everything was moving so fast - there were no static lines as in the previous war. We were told to load up what we could, fill the planes with petrol and head for the Channel Ports. The pilots flew the planes back to England. We arrived at Dieppe dirty, weary and hungry, but before we got some hot food at a Red Cross hut, an air raid started. We couldn't get a boat from there because the docks were being attacked.

We had two young Royal Air Force officers in charge of us - they were both about 21 or 22. We headed for Le Havre. No boat there either but we did manage to take on more tins of food.

It wasn't long before we caught up with a stream of refugees fleeing South with whatever they could carry. Prams and carts or anything with wheels were being used to carry their pathetic belongings. I felt sorry for them - the children couldn't understand what it was all about.

The roads, blocked with refugees, suited the Germans as it prevented our troops and supplies getting through. They added to the panic by strafing and bombing the roads from the air.

As night fell we all came to a stop. We found out that up ahead was a river with a flat top ferry for getting cars and Lorries across- it couldn't carry many at a time. A Captain in the Royal Engineers was in charge of the ferry. He said that as soon as any Germans came he would get across the river and blow up the ferry. We hoped it wouldn't be before we were across.

We had arrived in the evening and didn't get across until early the next afternoon. When we eventually got across the river I saw something that I will never forget - even now sixty years later it still upsets me thinking about it. Parents were making up labels and tying them on their children and handing them to people on Lorries or trucks so that they could be carried South to safety quicker - they were all crying. I often wonder how many met up with their children again.

The next night we pulled into a farm near Flers where the farmer spread fresh straw over the floor in a barn so that we could sleep under cover. We slept like logs!
Eventually we arrived outside Nantes and set up camp again in a field. I don't know how long we stayed there but we had nothing to do as we had no aircraft - luckily the weather was fine and the Germans were busy in the North giving our troops a hard time.

Our young officers must have been in contact with higher command because eventually we were on the road again headed North to Cherbourg. A lot of strays were there from different units. In time we were on boat bound for England - three weeks had passed since we left Chalons-sur-Marne on May 10th.

We knew things were bad but we didn't know how desperate things were at Dunkerque at that time. We thought ourselves lucky. If we had gone North after leaving Dieppe instead of South we might have been in the thick of it.

We landed at Newhaven, a sorry looking bunch. What I had endured and witnessed in France had changed me. I had left England as a teenage boy and returned as a teenage man.

We knew that to beat the Germans we would have to return to France and that wouldn't be easy. We had no idea that we would have another five years before we could live in peace.

I still love my country but it is nothing like the country I fought for and would have died for sixty years ago. I feel sad that things have turned out as they have and no real lessons have been learnt about the futility of war. There are no winners in war.

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