大象传媒

I was born in 1938 so my very earliest memories are only of a family, neighbours and friends overshadowed by wartime. Peacetime was a sort of Fairyland when, so I was told, you could have the lights in the house on at night without being compelled to pull the curtains, you were able to have bananas (whatever they were like!) and to buy unlimited sweets and chocolate. And having a Dad who came home every night. I was barely three years old when he was "called up" into the Army and got to know him as the man who arrived from time to time to the great excitement of my Mum, often in the dead of night. He was in the Royal Artillery as a Gunner in an ack-ack (anti-aircraft) battery and I was always fascinated by the red badge on his shoulder showing a hand drawing an arrow on a bow to fire skywards. He told me that: When gun laying radar was in its infancy, the scanners had to be rotated by manpower and he was what was called a "binder" turning a mechanism like bicycle pedals by hand.

In 1944 when the V-l "Doodlebug" bombardment began his Battery was deployed to the South Coast and had to rip up a beautiful wooden esplanade to site its guns (then re-deploy without firing a single shot in anger!). Shells with radar proximity fuses were remarkably effective. Towards the end of the war he went to Germany and found that the Germans were absolutely terrified of the prospect of coming under the control of the Russians "Ruski coming" was enough to get rid of any being difficult. He was stationed near a camp for DPs - Displaced Persons (homeless refugees) and when there was some trouble he had the unpleasant duty of being among those sent in to restore order using just their Army webbing belts which had heavy brass buckle fasteners. After he was demobbed he was invited to our hometown's drill hall to receive a thank you gift - an inscribed cigarette lighter. He was one of the kind who did not wish to claim his campaign medals.

My Wife was born in 1940 and did not know her Father, an Infantryman in the Army who had escaped from Dunkirk and then went to North Africa, until the end of the war. Having had the undivided attention of her Mother for five years she was not impressed by the man who started to tell her how to behave and, like many no doubt and sadly, told him to "go back where he came from!" (I was in the RAF when I married and had to defend his complaint about "where was the RAF at Dunkirk" which was rife in the Army at the time).

Of my Uncles; one was on the Spitfire production line at Westland's in Yeovil, one, a tank driver in the Army was a POW (prisoner of war) and I was never allowed to mention Uncle Len in my Grandmother's hearing. (I have since read that some families thought that being captured was somehow shameful!) Another in the Army was badly wounded at Salerno in 1943 (in a seaborne landing to outflank German defences in the south of Italy). One, was gentle, had flat feet and was very deaf - and a member of the Home Guard (the epitome of a Dad's Army character!). My best friend's Dad was in the RAF. His ship was torpedoed on his way to training in Canada (and, I think, his rescue ship was as well).

Late in the war the young man conscripted into the Army next door came home with a wounded foot. My Dad reckoned that it was self inflicted - a common way of avoiding action. Of two Sons next door but one, one was a Petty Officer in the Navy, the other saw action with "the Forgotten Army" in Burma and when he came home I remember him shaking from malaria. Their Mother billeted a NFS (National Fire Service) Fireman resting from duties in the London blitz. We kids thought it was hilarious when he was clearing out a shed and fainted when he uncovered a nest of baby rats - but then our Mothers quietly explained his bad experiences in bombed out buildings. Today we would call it PTSD but he was not given the luxury of counselling - only a spell in the country. The Daughter of the family next door to them was courting a hero in my eyes - an RAF Pilot!! This, therefore, might indicate the scale by which families every where were touched by the war.

RAF PORTREATH

I lived near this airfield ("the "drome") in Cornwall, the southernmost airfield in the country and thus a refuelling stop before a long flight over the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar. Apart from consequent miscellaneous transits, Spitfires for convoy cover were based there and latterly anti U-boat and shipping twin-engined Beaufighters and Mosquitoes. Particular memories are: Four engined aeroplanes towing gliders then returning hours later with the tow ropes whipping behind them. (I have determined that the tugs were Halifaxes towing gliders to North Africa in preparation for the assault on Sicily in July 1943 which were intercepted by Luftwaffe fighters over Biscay and had been forced to cast off their tows). One day, of American B-17s and various fighters, especially easily recognisable two-tailed Lightning鈥檚, heading towards the airfield. My Mum called me down from our garden wall in case they were German but I pointed out that I could see their white star markings. Most formatively of a solitary Mosquito on a beautiful summer day, flying quite slowly quite high with a hole in one wing that I could see daylight through, the engine on that wing with the prop rigid on a dead engine, and the other trailing a whisp of smoke and "coughing". (This was most likely on 16 July 1944 when Fit Lt Nunn's aircraft on No 248 Squadron was hit by flak when attacking shipping off St Nazaire and he masterfully nursed it home to a belly landing).

Although Portreath was a very active airfield with a satellite a few miles away at Perranporth and three others within 30 miles further north east on the coast, I do not recall the skies being constantly full of aircraft. I have since found that there were several crashes quite near where I lived - but we never heard of them such was security.

AIR RAIDS and PRECAUTIONS

The town of Redruth, where I lived, was not a target but, not that I knew at the time, it was once hit by bombs jettisoned by a German bomber that had been raiding RAF St Eval north east of Portreath. Therefore, we had an indoor Morrison shelter, like a high table with a steel top, angle iron legs and square mesh wire sides which my Mum and I slept in - for a while. It also made a satisfying / realistic vroom as I wheeled a model Lancaster and a tank (Christmas presents made by my Uncle at Westland鈥檚) on the top. As in many towns, there were static water tanks for fire fighting at strategic places. I was fascinated with such potential "swimming / paddling pools" but was always warned off them and although I don't remember any casualties in my home town I understand that there were many drownings elsewhere.

Visiting relatives in Yeovil, I remember most buses towing two wheeled auxiliary fire tenders/appliances and a site near the middle of town for a barrage balloon (which looked very comical when it was not fully inflated). Westland鈥檚 made the town a target which was hit severely on a number of occasions. We were there during one. I cannot remember even being woken up but my Mum took me to see a bombed out street in the morning with hose still snaked along it and telling me to "hate the Germans' (her father was killed in the front line in WW1). I (and others?) called the air raid warning siren "Moaning Minnie" and caught out on my way to school I sheltered under a railway bridge over a minor road, peeking out to see a very high flying aeroplane with anti-aircraft shell bursts around, but probably under, it. (Some German reconnaissance aircraft could fly at very high altitude above the reach of even heavy ack-ack and even fighters). When I told my Mum she scolded me for sheltering under such an obvious target - overlooking the seven arched 100 ft high railway viaduct spanning the centre of town half a mile away!
The sirens also sounded when I was walking out in the countryside with my Mum and Dad on leave. We just leaned into a hedge and watched an aeroplane high overhead dropping "clouds" of aluminium foil strips which caused showers of sparks when some touched a line of high tension electric cables. He knew that this was what is now recognised as "Window" for radar jamming. Towards the end of the war the Germans took to dropping "Butterfly Bombs" tiny antipersonnel devices which exploded when picked up and could kill youngsters and/or maim adults. None were dropped in my area but the quite graphic warning posters and cinema flashes made us ultra cautious.

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