大象传媒

MY HISTORY OF WORLD WAR 2

(AS WRITTEN FOR A TALK TO PUPILS AT A CITY TECHNOLOGY COLLEGE)

I was born on the 12th June 1909 in Falkirk, Scotland. At the age of four I went to the Central School where I first learned to write on a slate board. When the First World War started the school was taken over and used as a school to teach youths between 14 and 18 to learn the craft of ironmoulding, so that they could make shell cases for the war. Other schools were taken over for other purposes and we were only able to go to school for half a day instead of a full day and we went to the High School for our lessons.

During the war we saw all the Scottish soldiers in their kilts and followed the pipers sometimes for two or three miles.

After the war ended. my father got a job in England and our family moved to Aston, where my father worked at John Wrights Foundry in Thimble Mill Lane. I went to Vicarage Road school in Aston for nine months, during which time my Father and Mother, two sisters, my brother and myself lived in one room in one of Birmingham鈥檚 well known back to back houses. I was almost eleven years old.

Unable to get a house of our own we then moved to Burton-on-Trent where the foundry where my father secured a job found a house for us and we resumed a normal family life.

I went to Victoria Road school until 1923. I left school in 1923 aged 14 and went to work at Burton-0n-Trent Gas Works as a gas-fitters boy.

I learnt to use the copper bit (soldering iron) when connecting gas pipes in houses, fixing meters, stoves and fires. The pipes were known as compo pipe, which came in coils and were a composition of lead and tin. After 2 years I left to become an apprentice plumber and glazier.

I worked as a plumber and heating engineer until 1939 when I started in business on my own. The start of the war in September 1939 put a stop to that, as all house building came to a stop. I then worked in decontamination centres to deal with anyone who was affected by chemical gas in the war, after that I worked on pipework in factories being prepared for war work. I then applied to the Daimler works as an acetylene welder and worked components for Beaufort Bombers (Gun Turrets).

In 1939 a call was made for anyone who was a building worker to volunteer for rescue and demolition work in the event of there being a war. I enrolled for this but was never called upon, whether they thought a plumber wasn鈥檛 what they wanted or it was a lost application form I shall never know, but rescue and demolition during Coventry blitz wasn鈥檛 exactly a healthy job.

During this period we were working 7 days a week from 8 o鈥檆lock until 6.30 producing as much as we possibly could whilst our soldiers were fighting in France and eventually scrambling back from Dunkirk. Night after night during this period we got home only to have our meal interrupted by the Air Raid siren and we hurried down the shelter with our plate of food. This happened as regularly as clockwork, it was a toss up whether we had a wash and brush up on returning home or had our tea, as often as not we lost on both counts. We used to say that you could set your watch by the time the bombers came over. We got to know the hum of their engines and we could tell whether it was one of theirs or one of ours.

When we went to work we almost had a roll call and were all anxious to know if any bombs had fallen. The district of Hillfields seemed to catch it owing to the proximity of the ordnance works which made naval guns. One man used to say that the belief that bombs never dropped in the same place twice was a load of rubbish for they seemed to do it every other night.

I should tell you that together with our next-door neighbour we purchased a sectional concrete air-raid shelter and dug a hole in the back garden about 8ft x 5ft x 6ft deep into which we put the shelter and then covered it with soil on which we grew some very good marrows.

Some bombs did drop near where we lived. The one which dropped about 250 yards away demolished 3 houses and killed 2 persons. This bomb actually dropped after the all-clear had gone and we always assumed that they were dropped by a plane unloading before crashing about 3 miles further on.

Another bomb fell about 150 yards away and slanted beneath a house but never went off. The other one, which was a parachuted land mine which was intended to explode on the surface of the ground and cause extensive damage, actually never reached the ground as the parachute cord got fastened on the chimney of the house. That one was 150 yards away and it was our luckiest escape.

We had a barrage balloon and a mobile anti-aircraft gun near to where we lived and on occasion a single plane would come and try to hit the balloon and sometimes bullets would fly across the pavement, as they did near the shops just over 150 yards away.

At this time the air-raid wardens and firewatchers were formed and at various points in the road there were sandbags, buckets of water and stirrup pumps to use in putting out incendiary bombs before they could start a big fire. The enemy liked nothing better than a good fire to show them the target.

During the night of the Coventry blitz we were in our shelter from about 7 o鈥檆lock at night until 6.30 the next morning. Luckily we ourselves only suffered one window and a few roof tiles broken, mainly from the blast.

I continued working at the Daimler until April 1941 when the factory was bombed and the area where the welders worked was totally destroyed, our gas and acetylene cylinders were ripped wide open and were just flat pieces of metal. We worked under temporary cover for some time, but eventually they decided to move us to a former needle producing factory in Coalville, Leicestershire about 25 miles away and after travelling morning and night we were found lodgings and we were there from Monday morning until Saturday afternoon when we returned to Coventry for Sunday.

It was in Coalville that I joined the Home Guard. After teaching us how to look after and fire a rifle they put me in the signals section. Here we were taught semaphore signalling with flags and we learnt Morse code. We went out and sent messages from various high points to each other tapping them out on buzzers. Occasionally we went out on night patrol in Charnwood Forest and matched our wits against other sections of Home Guards from other districts. Sometimes we won and other times we finished up officially dead.

After being in lodgings for some time I managed to travel to and from Coventry every day so my lodging days were over. I managed to do this because a new welder joined us who lived in Nuneaton and for some reason or another he was able to run his car from Nuneaton to Coalville everyday. He must have had a good reason because petrol was only obtainable with ration cards which were difficult to get. It may have been that his wife didn鈥檛 enjoy the best of health and his presence at home was essential.

This is how I managed to get to and from work 鈥� I left home after getting up at 5 o鈥檆lock and went to Foleshill Railway Station where I got a train to Nuneaton (Trent Valley Station) there I and two other pals were picked up and taken to Coalville. We did the reverse procedure at night and I arrived back in Coventry at about 8 o鈥檆lock which gave me nine hours of the twenty-four at home.

Some time after this for some reason our car driver was going to be made available for re-direction to another firm, in those days no-one was free to change jobs, all had to be directed. This put not only myself but my two pals in a fix with our home living. To solve the problem it was decided that I should ask the foreman to make me available instead of our car driver. Fortunately he agreed and I arranged for a friend at the Alvis company in Coventry to apply for me when I became available. This he did which proves the old adage 鈥淚t鈥檚 not what you know, but who you know鈥� .

At the Alvis the work was entirely different from welding small component parts whilst seated at a bench. We worked with tubes 戮鈥� to 2鈥� diameter and 6ft long, re-assembled by fitters on a jig about 8ft long which we swivelled round to suit ourselves, although sometimes it was necessary to work upside down. These assemblies when finished looked like a miniature Forth bridge and were actually engine mountings for Lancaster bombers.

I was of course transferred from the Leicestershire Home Guard to the Warwicks and here I was placed in the intelligence section (class will tell). Here we were mainly interested in recognition of enemy aircraft and I became quite knowledgeable in this direction.

Nothing very exciting happened after that 鈥� we were winning the war and the pressure was off. Apart from losing a battle between Kenilworth and Coventry in which I was once again declared officially dead we kept on turning out the Lancasters and the war was won.

I got my certificate from the King and did my piece at the Stand-down Dinner, paraded through Coventry at the march past and history was made.

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