大象传媒

War is Real

I joined up in January 1938, looking forward to an adventure in the Army. I was at the Army Technical School (Boys) at Beachly Camp near Chepstow as a trainee apprentice electrician. In 1940 I got a glimpse of the fact that we really were at war. About one hundred apprentices were doing PT (Physical Training) in a large gymnasium about 9 am and the siren went off and the order given to run out of the gymnasium immediately and disperse over the playing field. A Heinkel 111k swooped over machine-gunning, and one apprentice was killed and about four injured. A few days later, at about 8.30 am, another German plane swooped over on a bombing run and dropped a stick of four bombs. Three of them exploded causing quite large craters in the playing fields. The fourth bomb failed to explode but landed in the workshop area. It bounced on a large concrete slab, passed through the Paint Workshop leaving its tail behind, and landed so that's its nose pointed towards the Beach Patrol Hut. In a very short time, the Beach Patrol that had been on duty overnight and were enjoying a well-earned rest, awoke hastily, took one look at the bomb, and were seen running in the direction of the barracks in their shirts and underpants! A sense of humour is good for morale.

Surprise, surprise!

In February 1943 I was stationed in Edinburgh and while walking along Princes Street I was approached by another soldier and given a warm friendly invitation to attend a 'Christian fellowship meeting'. As I was off duty at the time I accepted. At the same time I was curious as to what I was letting myself in for. To my surprise it was prayer meeting. Unknown to me then, it turned out to be the best thing that could happen because for several months I had had this question in my mind: Is regular church attendance and doing one's best to live a good live enough to be right with God? I have been very thankful ever since for that opportunity to get to know this group of Christians, because they not only had the answer to my question, but their quality of life made such an impression on me that I soon made decisions that changed my whole way of living, including the experience of entering into a new relationship with God. Perhaps the answer to my question can best be explained by the following quotation from the New Testament: "When the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of re-birth and renewal by the Holy Spirit." (Titus 3:4,5)

Behind the Lines

Some time later (about a month after D-Day) I landed with my unit near Caen in the north of France and eventually we were given the task of making the power station fully operational. Having done that, and when enjoying a break, we were presented with a challenge. A steam-powered fire engine at the back of the station almost spoke to us with a request, "How about getting me going?" Sappers always accept a challenge, in fact, sometimes their enthusiasm gets the better of them. We got it going alright, but soon discovered we had forgotten to find out how to stop it, so we had to keep going around the power station area until it ran out of steam. It was embarrassing to have to push it back to its original parking place, but fortunately for us we did not get hauled over the coals for our bit of fun.

Towards the end of the war in Europe, my small unit was moved to Roosendaal in Holland where the dykes had been deliberately opened, flooding the whole area. Our job was to build part of a seven thousand volt overhead line with the view of transmitting power from Belgium into Holland to get the pumps going. The line was to be a temporary one, using untreated wooden poles. It was great fun but frustrating because the ground was shifting sand and the trenches had to be shuttered to enable building to proceed. When it came to stringing (putting the lines up), we did not use ladders to get up the poles to work, but climbing irons with spikes. It was interesting to see the type of climbing irons used by the local Belgian teams that were responsible for the other part of the line. We used to borrow each others irons to get the feel of them, but we came to the conclusion that our own irons were the best.

We did not work in the dark and I and my mate were invited by a local Dutch workman in the building trade to get our feet under his table during the evenings. His young wife was expecting their first child, and their home was a very humble one on the ground floor of a row of tenement type houses. During our evening chats, we were shown the trapdoor in the floor of the living room, underneath the table, which our host had constructed so that he could hide from the Germans when they advanced through Holland. It was only about eighteen inches between the floor and the ground, but it was quite successful, and he was able to spend the duration of the occupation in his own home. When the construction of the line was completed, and before we were moved on to our next electrical job, we were given a break of a week in the UK. Realising the state of the local Hollanders with both lack of food and worn-out bicycles, I thought it would be helpful to my Dutch friend to get some new tyres and inner tubes. The Customs were cooperative, and the tyres fitted. Over the years I had completely forgotten this, but my friend hadn't, and about four years ago, having become the owner of a thriving building business, he wanted to show us his appreciation. So he invited us to visit him at his new location in Belgium (income tax had become half what it was in Holland), accommodation in a private hotel would be provided, and he laid on a taxi to take us wherever we wanted to go. When we got there, our host said, "I was the only person in Roosendaal who had decent tyres on his bike. At the time. we had nothing but you helped us."

Entered on behalf of A Sapper by Petersfield Library

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