大象传媒

Smugglers or spies ?

Dear Jack,

Here are a few words that may be helpful for your homework on WW2.

On the day war began in 1939 I was 15 and we were on holiday in North Cornwall and my father listened to Neville Chamberlain鈥檚 declaration of war on Germany on the earphone of a crystal radio set that I had made. The reason given was that Germany had invaded Poland and that we were pledged by a treaty to go to their aid if that happened.

On that night I was sleeping in a tent by the seashore in Crantock bay near Newquay. I woke at midnight and looked out to sea There was a boat a mile or so offshore and it appeared to be signalling by lights going on and off in morse code. I could not see the boat, only the lights. I looked across to the Newquay side of the bay and one of the big hotels had lights on too in the windows and the lights read in dotted letters the word 鈥淵 E S鈥�. I immediately woke Kathleen (the family nanny) who was in a nearby tent with my young sister Catherine and she too read the lights as 鈥淵 E S鈥�. Five minutes later the lights were changed to read 鈥�2 A M鈥�. We both watched in amazement and looked out to sea where there were still lights flashing from the boat !

I thought it might be a German submarine trying to land spies. Next day, by rowing boat ferry I crossed the river Gannell which separates Crantock from Newquay and walked up to the hotel to see if I could see where the lights had come from. It was just not possible that all the guests in the bedrooms could have taken part in a plot to make the signals, so I looked for other lights on the hotel walls. There were a few hidden among the ivy leaves, but I could not spot enough of them confirm that they might have spelled out the dotted letters. One of the gardeners saw me and asked me what I was doing and told me to leave at once.

I then thought it might be smugglers and that the signal from the hotel was to say it was safe to land the contraband at 2 AM.. On the way back I told the old ferryman what we had seen the night before and he was very taken aback. In a broad Cornish accent he immediately said it was nonsense, but as we climbed out of the boat he spoke again. 鈥淵oung man, you鈥檇 best not go poking your nose into other people鈥檚 business or you might get hurt鈥�. This told me it must be smugglers. Although Kathleen and I saw the lights together, my father said we must have been imagining things. I knew better, but it made me wonder whether he might be a German spy ! Wartime makes everybody suspicious !

In the first year of the war nothing much happened in England and life went on almost as usual. That period was called the 鈥榩honey war鈥�. Then the German tanks invaded Belgium and Holland and broke through the French defences and the British army in the north of France was cut off and had to be evacuated back to England in small boats from Dunkerque. I was still at school taking my equivalent of GSE when the Battle of Britain began, but in the countryside we did not see or hear anything except (what we now know to be) grossly exaggerated radio reports about how many German planes our air force had shot down. Rationing of food and clothes then began to bite, but the general public never thought the Germans would ever beat us and morale was always high.

I was still too young to be conscripted and went to Cambridge to study aeronautics. During the holidays I worked in an aircraft factory at Hatfield helping to make twin-engined RAF Mosquito fighter-bombers from wood glued together with araldite because aluminium metal was getting in short supply. At night I trained as fireman and became a motor cycle dispatch rider for the fire service during the big German bombing of London. After two years I decided to join the RAF. I was trained to be an engineer officer and was eventually posted to Hendon to look after the old American planes loaned by the RAF to the Dutch Government during our invasion of Europe.

One day the Duchess of B鈥︹��..(then a beautiful young lady) persuaded one of our pilots to take her for
flight over the battle areas. Unfortunately being an American aeroplane , its engines were not synchronised and it was shot down by British anti-aircraft fire by accident. It managed to land on one engine at Brussels airport which we had just captured.

I had to fly in a Dakota (DC3) with a spare engine aboard to Brussels and spent two weeks in a dugout on the edge of the airfield supervising a team of mechanics to make the plane airworthy. After some hairy flights to airfields in Holland still under German bombardment to check other crashed planes, eventually we took off for England in the repaired plane. Half way across the channel the engines stopped 鈥� the pilot thought we had run out of fuel and we were falling fast towards the water. Then I realised that he did not know how to bring in the spare fuel tank supply using what they call a hand 鈥榳obble鈥� pump which primes the petrol pipe. I dashed forward shouting 鈥淲obble, wobble, for Christ鈥檚 sake wobble鈥�. The pilot still did not understand and promptly began to wobble the wings from side to side. I grabbed the pump lever in the cockpit and wobbled it hard. The engines came to life just we were about to hit the water 鈥� phew, that was a close shave !

What the young duchess had done was strictly against the rules and I was told never to talk about what happened to cause the accident. It was hushed up and never appeared in the press.

My mother, Diane Farnell had learned to fly long before war and she joined the Air Transport Auxiliary. They were all very brave women who delivered planes from the factories to the airfields flying very low all across the UK. Very dangerous work because they never knew when there might be barrage balloons raised in the sky to prevent German aircraft flying low to bomb more accurately. The balloons contained hydrogen and their steel wire trailing down to ground level could cut an aeroplane in half if it hit one.

I am not certain, but I think that we may have been the only mother and son to be flying on active service at the same time !

Later I was sent to Calcutta in eastern India to help fight against the Japanese. The climate there is always very hot and humid 鈥� the town is poverty-ridden and the area was called the 鈥榓rsehole of the world鈥�. I was stationed at the nearby airfield called Dum Dum. I am told that is where the dum dum bullets were first made to suppress the Indian peasants when they dared to try and throw out the English soldiers who had invaded their country.

One day some Mosquito aircraft arrived at the airfield from England to start bombing operations against the Japanese in Burma. Unfortunately their water-cooled engines overheated and many crashed on take-off. Then some of the glue began to come unstuck (due to the high temperature and very high humidity ?) and the airframes started to crack. I lost several pilot friends in planes I may have helped to make. But my job was to help keep our planes flying at all costs, It was a nasty experience and I fell ill and was sent home.

There are many more wartime adventures I could tell you about, but I hope this lot will help you for the time being.

Much love, Grandpa

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