大象传媒

This story was contributed by Bernard Deere and added to the site with his permission.

I was working as an apprentice book binder at the Western Mail in Cardiff...paper became desperately short within a few months of war being declared so that production at the printing works was severely affected. But it did continue and as the men disappeared ladies became more prominent and more responsible in the staff. In 1941 the disaster in the Low Countries....they set up the Local Defence Volunteers and I joined the company in Ely, Cardiff with a few friends. Our guardroom was immediately opposite to the entrance of Western Cemetary, and we did guard duty there every night in rotation. Our weaponry consisted of a piece of metal pipe with a bayonet welded into the end of it. I don't think any of us had much idea what to do with it. I was in the home guard for two years, during which time we set up a signals section....at first we only had flags for semaphore but then we came really up to date and got some signalling lamps which we used for exercises and to communicate with the various sections when we were on manoevres or if there was a scare on...because the danger was that they felt if anything happened near Cardiff it would be airborne landings on the road to Wenvoe ...so between the Panzers and Cardiff stood the Ely Home Guard. I don't think we'd have stood much chance!

Serving in the Home Guard gave me an interesting in signalling...we were taught the Morse Code...which was quite useful. By 1942 I was 18 and would soon be liable for call up, so I thought I would forestall that and volunteer for the Royal Signals. After basic infantry training I was assigned to the Royal Signals. We did our training at Catterick...a two year course for radio operators was condensed to six months for us. Then we were broken up and assigned to various units. I went to the 55th South Lancs division stationed in Northern Ireland..on garrison duty for about twelve months. The Americans were arriving in great force at that time and were very warmly greeted by the local people, because they had much more money than we did, and better uniforms and what have you....but the Irish people, by and large, despite what we hear in the last 20 or 30 years, treated us very well and we made very good friends there. Then we were sent on what was something of a secretive operation. We were sent to Stirling in Scotland a small group of us, just Signals and we had to make out that we were an Army corps. This was deception work in advance of D-Day this was 1943/44 and we travelled at a leisurely place down from Stirling in Scotland, right down the East coast, stopping regularly, sending out coded messages and indeed sometimes in clear because it had to look like a normal operation moving a large body of troops from north down to the South of England. A corps would be approximately 60,000 men and we were about twenty bods actually in several trucks. It was interesting and it took us about three months, we went through London and by this time the landings were just happening in Normandy and we had the second army insignia on the trucks and we were given a great welcome as we drove through London. At that point we weren't going anywhere in particular we went down to Sussex and I suppose in the grand scheme of things our unit had gone across the Channel and we were again left, twiddling our thumbs, waiting for further instructions.

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