大象传媒

Message 1 - Transport

Posted on: 21 February 2004 by Paul Jackson

My father, Allan Jackson, was in the army first at Dunkirk and later stationed in Egypt, Abyssinia and East Africa. He was a Captain by this time, though he joined as Private in 1939. I think in the RASC and not too fond of flying. He was to travel, I think from Abyssinia to Cairo and was given a ride in a Halifax bomber to Cairo. In mid flight when he looked out of the porthole he noticed that bits of the wing were peeling off.A bit alarmed, he told one of the crew. He was advised not to worry too much about it but they were taking the plane to Cairo to be scrapped and this was its last flight!

Message 1 - Collaborative - WWII Transport

Posted on: 22 February 2004 by sandycertacito

In July 1942 a small group of Royal Signals wireless operators were transferred in mid-Atlantic from the troopship Empress of Scotland into a coastal steamer which took them to Lagos.Here we were put on a British Imperial Airways plane with all seating stripped out, and, reverting to civilian status (BIA could not transport military personnel) flown over the next few days via Kano, Fort Lamy and El Fasher to Khartoum. An RAF bomber then completed our journey to Cairo, where we joined various units of the Eighth Army.
We were told that we were the first personnel to use this route, which, starting from Takoradi instead of Lagos, was used to fly newly-assembled Spitfires and Hurricanes. This was called the West African Reinforcement Route.

Message 1 - Transport

Posted on: 29 February 2004 by Wondermum

Lack of it really! Our car, a green and balck Morris 8 was confined to the garage for the war period as we had no petrol, so we relied on buses and bikes and Shanks' pony to get us around.

Message 1 - Friend or enemy truck.

Posted on: 01 March 2004 by Frank Mee Researcher 241911

Opel, Working for Britains War Effort.

My Father Charles Philip Mee was a well known Haulage Contractor and Furniture Remover in our area. He had moved from horse drawn wagon's to trucks by simply going to Stockton and part exchanging the horse the wagon and the harness for a Bedrord Truck. With five minutes instruction he drove the Truck home, the first time he had driven. My mother told me years later as I was only a toddler at the time, she had to help uncle Bob who lived next door to lift Dad out of the cab and into the house, he was in a state of shock.
Coming to my time just before the war Dad had bought and sold several trucks all Bedfords and wanted a better one, things were looking up in the transport world as the country geared up for what could be war.
He was with several other people in the area looking at a new truck on the market, it was a German Opel based on the American Cheverolette chassis. It had a walk through cab, a heater, bigger engine giving more power than the Bedford and an extra cubic yard on the body size. Every thing about it was stronger better built and far more reliable. The man selling the trucks was a Japanese called Mr Sano he had a business in Middlesbrough. He did succeed in selling quite a few Opels to the local Haulage contractors including Dad.
So just before the war started we bought a German truck from a Japanese not exactly the business move of the year but Dad did not regret doing so when he was on the road while others were off it doing repairs to weaker springs and softer engines.
Dad was leading runway making material to all the Aerodromes being built around us and school holidays I spent in the truck learning to move it around on those runways until I could be trusted to drive round the taxi ways while Dad had a walk across the main field. He had a heavy duty catapult and lead shot he would often bag a rabbit out in the open area's. I would be just gone eleven then. The guards on the main gates would make a big thing of it when they saw an Opel coming. Look out lads the Nazi's and they would dive for cover pointing their rifles at us. They had all seen Yankee gangster films so we got the lot. Get out of the cab with your hands above your head, we went with them so far but drew the line at laying down on the road or dropping our trousers to see if we had guns in our stockings.
As the war progressed we had managed to keep the truck on the road though spares were non existant that was until the Canadians arrived at Goosepool Aerodrome just up the road from us and one we often took loads too. They had Cheverolette's so there was some horse trading going on among the haulage contractors and the Canadian transport section.
Dad had a heart attack in late 1942, he came to an agreement with another local Haulage contractor called Bob Durham who later became a millionaire with trucks running all over the country but that was after the war.
Bob used Dads truck and his two "A" licences paying Dad while he was away from work for many months and then giving my Father a light job for life, a bargain which Bob a hard man in many ways stuck to until the day Dad retired. Some of those trucks were still running after the war so I suppose German built still meant well built even back then.

We also had two cars a Ford 8 saloon and an Austin Chummy. I loved the Chummy as it had an open top and a dicky seat as they called them in those days. The Ford was used quite a lot as we had petrol for it and it was to be used by the local police if invasion came (Or so I was led to believe). Mum was working as a war worker at Goosepool Aerodrome and got the train most days from our local station but on the odd occasion she missed the train out came the chummy. I would swing the starting handle as she fiddled with choke and throttle with no idea what she was doing, the second it fired I would leap out of the way as it was dangerous standing in front of anything with my mother in the driving seat. She never took a driving lesson in her life and when Dad tried to show her it nearly ended in divorce, we did not argue with mum over anything.
One night there was a knock on the door and when I went it was out local Bobby. He came in and said "well Glad what have you been up to this time" The story came out. Darlington Back Lane was very narrow so the workmen were tarring the verges to make it slightly wider. Mother batting along in the Chummy had seen the barriers and could not believe any one would dare bar her way so had just driven at them. The men had put up the barrier while the steam roller flattend some of the tar down. The men spreading the tar saw her coming and took the only way out, straight under the boiler of the moving steam roller. Knowing my mother I would have been with them too. They knew who it was as there were not many cars about so the forman reported her to the local Bobby. The conversation was a little stilted. "Lets see your licence Glad" (Gladys) "Whats that" "Your licence to drive" silence. She did not have one. Now look Glad you know I cannot let this go it has to be written up. Dad meanwhile was cutting a large slice off a side of bacon, (we killed and cured our own pigs). Dad coming back with bacon loosely wrapped, Have a whisky with me, "I wont say no to that Phil" a wander round the garden having a look at the animals and they came back with the Bobby saying. "No more driving Glad I will say you did not see them" putting the bacon in his pocket he left. Dad took the distributer off the chummy engine and it stood alone in the truck garage for the rest of the war.

Later in the war Dad would do two runs on a Saturday up to the Armament Factory at Newton Aycliffe. He picked the truck up in Durhams yard loaded with shell casings and drove through all the back lanes. He tipped the casings came back and took a second truck doing the same.
I was quite a competent driver by then though not quite sixteen. Bob said why dont you let Sonny (me) take one of the trucks then it is done. Dad a straight arrow of the first water would not hear of it but we were persuasive. Dad took the short wheel base Bedford and I got the Austin as the Austin was slowest. Wrong it was slowest on the flat but on the hills had more power in lower gears so I passed Dad and got there first. I was too big by then to get my ear clipped but he was not best pleased.
The next week I got the Bedford and passed him on the flat. After the ear pounding I got I stayed behind there after but would lag right back then catch him up again just for the fun of it.
Lots of things went on in our quieter country area's during the war and not too much notice was taken though the local Bobby did let Dad know he had seen me driving. He was exactly that, local, they all socialised together and though I got belted with his glove full of dry peas more than once you took it and said nothing. I drove many kinds of transport though out my life with never one accident. Was that down to my early driving lessons or my being taught by those expert drivers with overloaded underpowered trucks who kept the transport rolling during those war years. To me they were all hero's.
Frank Mee.

Message 1 - World War II

Posted on: 10 March 2004 by wartornchild

I remember the nights of the London Blitz when we slept in our airraid shelter in the Garden. It was called an Anderson shelter after the inventor. My father dug a hole in our back garden and then put in the pre-fabricated pieces of sheltering,covering these up again with the earth he had taken out of the hole. We had bunk beds inside. No luxury, just the two bunk beds. But because I had a lot of Bronchitis as a child we were allowed what we called a Morrison shelter. Now a Morrison shelter was more or less a cage in your living room. It had a large heavy metal table top as a roof and wire caging. We slept all four of us in this.Poor father had to get up early for work next morning so you can imagine how much sleep he had.
Also on the way to school if the air raid sirene went off we had to seek shelter somewhere ourselves. Imagine this responsibility as a child of 9 or 10 years of age. One had never heard of paedophiles or child molesters in those days. We were innocent of any harm of that sort, we had enough problems with bombs falling. Many a time I asked my father the question "is it one of ours" when I heard the drone of a plane overhead. He always answered "yes its one of ours". The times I've heard the explosion of a bomb, and realised father had not told us the truth not wishing us to be afraid.

Message 1 - Touring in Tunisia

Posted on: 22 March 2004 by Helen

Read sandycertacito's WW2 Transport story: A2417799

Message 1 - Sappers' Waterpumps

Posted on: 05 June 2004 by rick_farrar

My father, John Farrar, was s Sapper who worked in a motor vehicle repair workshop. While on duty in Italy his workshop was responsible for the motors of the pumps that pumped water from the river to the areas where the soldiers could gain access to it. When the troop were near the river Po. They ahd an understanding with the Germans on the other side of the river. Their pumps operated during the night and the British pumps would operate during the day. Neither side could understand what when they came back to their pumps after they were supposed to have been idle, the engines were still warm.
They posted sentries nearby to see what was happening, both sides suspecting the other of using thier pupmps. In fact it was the local population that were using both sets of pumps. What a surprise.

Message 1 - sandycertacito's story

Posted on: 14 June 2004 by Helen

Sandy has asked me to direct People's War Members to this story on the theme of transport:
A2417799

Best wishes,

Helen, WW2 Team

Message 1 - Was there a form of transport that saved your life?

Posted on: 17 June 2004 by Ron Goldstein

I will let my reader be the judge.

In July 1944 my regiment (the 49th Light Ack Ack Regt) was in Egypt for re-training and re-equipping.

I had a week's leave in Cairo and decided to try and visit my brother in law, who was then in the RASC and stationed not far from Cairo.
I had found out where his company was supposed to be and thumbed a lift to his unit. S***s law innevitably applied and, to my disgust, when I arrived at his depot, he was away on leave in Palestine.
I immediately tried to get a lift back to Cairo but nothing was going returning that way until later that afternoon. I hung around, got the promised lift but the truck dropped me off at a x-roads with the assurance that 'lots of trucks come this way and you won't have any problems
The short story is that there I was, stuck at this x-road, in the middle of the desert, with nothing to keep me company but first one arab gentleman, then two and finally at least half a dozen.
The all eyed me speculatively, I was on my own, I didn't appear to be armed or even capable of defending myself and it was getting darker by the minute.
I had given up all hope of survival when out of nowhere a huge lorry and trailer pulled up at my side and the driver,a coloured Yankee serviceman called out 'Where you going to Sunshine?'
I could have kissed him !
His load of peanuts provided a bed for me all the way back to Cairo where I offered to buy him a bottle of scotch for his trouble.
He laughed at me, said 'Be seeing you kid' and roared away into the night.
If it's not too late, and if this same US driver is still around, may I offer him a humble "Thank-you!" for saving my life.
Ron

Message 1 - Ford WOA2

Posted on: 13 November 2004 by robertldavey

I am restoring a 1944 British Ford WOA2 utility car (like a large estate car). It was used by the army and RAF as well as Civilian forces during WW2. If any readers have rememberences of these vehicles or have any photographs, I would be very grateful, as I am having problems with some of the details.
Many thanks.
Robert Davey
Reading
robert.davey6@btinternet.com