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This story has been submitted to the Peoples War site by Anne Wareing on behalf of Charles Warkman and added to the site with his permission…

I volunteered for service the week war broke out, but as I was a draughtsman I was sent away. Undeterred I joined the Home Guard 1940 — 1943, where I learned a lot such as arms drill and how to handle a weapon.

In 43/44 I finally joined the RAF as a radar mechanic and finished my training in Hull, which at the time was constantly under attack and being hammered. People though were wonderful, I cannot say enough about them, I never paid for anything, be it a bus fare or a cinema ticket, we were defending them and they wanted to show their appreciation.

Eventually I went overseas to India. I have a strong memory of the Queen of Bermuda a 35,000 ton cruise liner, on it along with myself were 5000 airmen and 50 WRAF’S. They had cabins, we didn’t. I was in the luggage hold, way below the water line, the vibration from the propellers was tremendous, plates and cups etc. would sort of shimmy there way off the tables. Everyone got seasick, one lad was sick all the way there, I seemed to get my sea-legs after three days, so I was lucky and funnily enough, I have never been sea sick since. But goodness knows what would have happened if we’d been hit by the U boats that chased us on our way to India, being down in the bowels of the ship.

My outstanding memory of India, was that we were on the edge of the Sind Desert, the temperature was around a 100 degrees during the day, the difference at night was remarkable, water would freeze in our containers it was so cold. There were 1000 RAF on the site and 50 Americans. They had their own cinema and were happy for us to use the facility; I liked the yanks they were always very helpful. While we were there we were entertained royally, by the Maharaja of Jodhpur, who was an honorary Air Vice Marshall. Whole pigs on platters, a marvelous feast and he flew in 50 WRAF’S from Delhi.

Part of my job was to work removing IFF sets (identification, friend or foe) from inside the tail of the bombers. We were warned that snakes lived in tail ends of bombers and to be very careful. Luckily I never saw one.

I became very ill and was invalided back home and when I recovered was sent to a unit not far from Hull. From here I volunteered for island service, going to Shetland, the Orkneys and the Outer Hebrides, ending up at RAF Daventry working on using the G navigational aid (form of radar) Finally I came home.

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