大象传媒

This account has been added by The British Schools Museum, Hitchin with Ron Pugh's agreement.

Scouting was my life, and at fifteen - how was I to know it would serve my country at War? My school evacuated to Chichester, saved from the phoney war. However, abandoning education, I became an office boy at Shiphams. By May 1940, it was felt I'd be safer back in London where I arrived in time for the Battle of Britain and then the Blitz.

Somehow our family of five survived in an Anderson shelter with Jerry hurling down bombs, and ack-ack guns playing fireworks every night. Now employed in a nuts and bolts factory, one morning I arrived to discover it had been hit overnight, rearranged over a block of flats and covered in the gherkins from the pickle factory in the basement. Then I became an Aeronautical Inspection Directorate inspector working 12-hour shifts and joined the home guard at the age of 17 - did I really get the Defence Medal for capturing a tank from a Canadian? The comparison to Dad's Army's Pike is very real!

Impatient to win the war single handedly, in December 1942 I joined the RAF. Instantly recognized by others (not me!) as an engineer, I was posted to Bolton to train as a wireless mechanic. In August 1943 I noticed an invitation to a 21st Party; off I went and danced the night away with the best girl there, Rachel. A whirlwind romance led to a Christmas engagement. Posted to Prestatyn on deployment with my mobile unit, we married in May 1944 - just before my unit headed for France. D-Day was imminent.

Our unit was in khaki, armed, badged and trained for Combined Operations (Commandos). In five three ton trucks there was a large transmitter, signal office, UHF receiver, large diesel generator and two load carriers for aerial masts. We were a motley crew of 12, an elite 鈥榟ush-hush' forward unit for a telecommunications chain for the 2nd Tactical Air Force under a young P/O Parker. Once in Normandy we earned the nickname 'Parker's Circus" because, every time we stopped, we had to erect eight 75ft tubular aerials.

Here my scouting background came in handy. I was the only one who knew how to put up a tent; I tutored the others in cooking; I invented "Pugh-tility" beds made from redundant fence slats; acted as interpreter and with my fellow sprog Peter Robinson led the erection of the masts and aerials. I wasn't a King's Scout for nothing!

In August 1944 The Guards Division broke through from Caen; we followed, first to Amiens under sniper fire, then our finest hour - to help liberate Brussels in mid September 1944. Performing our secret cipher service, we also had to buy diaries to keep up with dinner invitations. After Christmas we moved on through Holland, crossing the Rhine by pontoon at Nijmegen and then through the bomb ravaged Ruhr to the spa of Bad Eilsen near Hanover.

The 75ft aerials went up for the last time in a village called, aptly, Sudhorsten. I drew the short straw for leave to Blighty for the month of...MAY! So Rachel and I were there, singing and cheering Winston Churchill outside Buckingham Palace on 8th May 1945 - VE Day!

I returned to a delightful ex-Luftwaffe listening post near Oberkirchen (a place later famed for its children's choir with their "Happy Wanderer" song). The Decimeter site was operating the most advanced equipment on microwave frequencies with a UHF frequency generator called a magnetron - nowadays at the heart of every microwave oven!

Next door to our site was a charming Gasthaus where the Hausfrau was very pleased to cook our plentiful rations. Many years later I visited the Gasthaus and asked Frau Walter if she remembered me. "Oh yes," she replied, "you were the first to give us white flour since 1938".

In October 1946, I had my first encounter with the REAL RAF as I took compassionate leave and hitched a lift on a Dakota to see my dear Rachel and our newborn son. I was demobbed on July 17th 1947.

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