大象传媒

This is the second of two chapters covering George's experiences as a young Home Guard in Coventry, his experiences being trained as a marine for fourteen months before D-Day when he enlisted at the age of 17, then some of his experiences as a marine on D-Day, in Europe and in the Far East.

George had a good war.

The long training
On my seventeenth birthday, in November 1942, the four of us went into town to Sibree Hall to volunteer for the forces. I applied to join the Royal Marines, one of my pals opted for the army, one for the airforce, and the other never made it because of his faulty heart-valve.
I received papers to report to Portsmouth Royal Marine Barracks in February the following year. When my mother found out, she nearly had a fit, saying at first that she would soon put a stop to it. She soon relented. I didn't realise it at the time, but my joining up, together with one of my sisters leaving to get married, meant my mother had to get a job.
We went off to Portsmouth. I had ten days to make my mind up, we went round in civvies. They showed us round the barracks and we went into the gym. There were people doing press-ups ... "Forty-five, forty-six ...鈥� Of course, I had practised push-ups at home, but when I got to ten, I would be shattered.
There were huge vaulting horses, with a little springboard at the front, and you had to run as fast as you could and take a leap at them. Of course, we were in our socks and we didn't do any good, but the important thing was that you made the effort.
The sergeant said to us "Before you leave here, you'll jump over three of those, two in line with each other, and another one at the end, making a T. It won't be pretty, but you'll do it."
And we did, ... The idea was that you must have a go.
When I joined up, our money was a pound a week - a real drop from civvy wages which were three pounds a week, and I used to send ten shillings to my mother. As time went on, our money went up a few shillings a week.
Our barracks faced the sea. There was very strict discipline, but very little shouting. Our punishment was kit inspection. It was held at 7 o'clock in the evening by an N.C.O. You had to get all your kit out ready for inspection. You couldn't leave the barracks after eight o'clock, and by the time you'd got all your stuff tidied away, you couldn't get out that late. If you had a date, you missed it.
I had kit inspection twice, once was my own fault, once I was just picked out with a bunch of others for talking in the ranks.
We did a lot of marching, and I used to keep a bar of chocolate in my blouse pocket, and I would keep breaking off pieces and eating them. The sergeant called us all to a halt, and he looked at each man, and he got him to hold out his hands. When he got to me, I held them out, but I kept them closed. He got me to open them and there was chocolate all over them. It was kit inspection for me that night.
We went to Deal and some other depots, then we went to Wales for A.A. training. A plane towed a target across the sky. I'm sure he let out extra tow-rope when he got to our valley.
We went to Hayling Island three-quarters of the way through our training, so we could make up our minds on what specialised role we would take. I went into combined ops.
We trained all up and down the south coast. I learnt seamanship, currents, navigation, what type of terrain to land on.
I lost my first landing craft while at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth.
We had free use of the landing craft to travel up and down the River Dart and practice landings. We did exercises in the open seas, and went up the coast to just before Slapton Sands, where the Americans were.
We did this exercise in open seas, it was very rough, and we had to land in formation, going in at the same time. I was on the right-hand flank, just on the headland. I insisted we go in. When we hit the beach, the landing craft swung round ... the anchor never gripped properly. I abandoned ship. We got the man in the engine department hauled out, unloaded everything of value, then we stood on the beach, watching the landing craft going up and down and crashing on the rocks.
We stayed on the beach all night with no lights or fires. We had been told not to light any fires to prevent E-boats having a go at us, which was quite a laugh as there was nothing that would burn on the beach. There were some small cliffs we could have climbed up, but it would have been too dangerous as the light was failing, and we needed to stay on the beach to keep an eye on all the stuff we had salvaged from the landing craft. We clung to the sandstone, cold and soaked.
In the morning, a naval lorry came out. We got in, and the driver said "You're a bright one, fancy getting shipwrecked at Blackpool." We didn't know what he meant. It was only years later that I found out, there's a little village near Slapton called Blackpool, and we hadn't known because they took all the road signs away and removed all the place names.
We got back to Dartmouth Naval College, washed, put on some dry clothes to smarten up, got shaved and had a warm meal. I had to appear before the ship's captain the next day to explain how the landing craft had been lost.
I thought I was for it. I think that what got me off was that I explained that our orders were always to land at the same time, so I considered it my duty to go in regardless of cost. I was exonerated of all blame, and as I saluted, the captain said very quietly "Well done." I was chuffed.
We trained all along the south coast. Near Brighton, we were stationed at H.M.S. Lizard. There were lots of female officers, but very few N.C.O.s or ordinary wren marines, so we were out of luck. It was very hush-hush, they were all doing exercises for D-Day landings.
We were ferrying convoys of landing crafts, good ones to Portsmouth, bad ones the other way.

D-Day landings
It was getting on to D-Day, there were lots of Air Sea Rescue and lots of destroyers. We took a trip to Portsmouth ... there was a huge number of ships, I've never seen so many. There were thousands and thousands of ships, but no battleships or cruisers, except for the command ship Largs that set off with them.
On June 5th we were briefed, and told to get some sleep. I was excited. In the evening, the armada set out. Everything was going to plan except for the weather in the Solent, and we went to sleep expecting a call in the morning. There was no call, and when we woke up the next morning, we were back at anchorage in the Solent. We spent a day not knowing what was going on, but we weren't really worried.
When we set off again in the evening, the number of ships seemed larger. I said to my mate "I bet we shall be for it now. No one could miss this lot." I was expecting a pasting, but we caught the Germans completely by surprise.
We got quite close to the beach (Sword Beach) when the enemy batteries opened up, but it wasn't long before our battleships silenced them. All hell broke loose. We were more concerned about our barrage falling short than we were about enemy fire. I never saw one enemy aircraft. We were told "Don't fire at any aircraft", because the R.A.F. had guaranteed one-hundred per-cent air cover.
There was a loud explosion at the front of the landing craft, and the ramp collapsed in two or three foot of water, close to the shore. We dragged off the few men at the front of the craft who had been stunned by the explosion to the waters edge, which was strictly against orders.
Our sergeant had told us "Get off the beach, leave the dead and the wounded. Don't stop to take the cigarette from behind your dead mate's earhole." My ears sounded muffled and I could hear ringing, but no one was seriously injured.
On the beach, I looked to my left, and I saw four dead bodies floating up and down in the water, there hardy seemed a mark on them. They were wearing the same uniform that I was - they were men from my unit. There were some horrible sights on landing. It made you realise what war is all about.

Back home
In September, we came home, were medically checked over then given ten days survivors' leave. Shortly before the leave was up, I received orders to make my way to Aberdeen, where I was to meet with the rest of my unit to receive more training. When we got there we were billeted in the Sailors Rest, where we were looked after marvellously by the staff. Although we had no money in our pockets for a while, almost everything we needed was given to us by the people of Aberdeen: theatres, cinemas, beer, cigarettes - we never wanted for anything.
After about a fortnight, we were formed into a new flotilla, and a tough training regime was started - probably to knock the cockiness out of us, and to remind us that the war was still going on.

George in the Far East
After a few weeks of this, we were on our way to the far east, the Pacific. It was nasty at times, but we were completely on top of the Japanese.
One time, in New Guinea, we were guided to a head-hunters' village and allotted two huts. The head-hunters looked very fierce, but they were very friendly al the same. We slept with our weapons handy, in case they forgot which side they were on.
On leaving the village, the heavens opened up, which was a wonderful relief, then the sun came out again, and after a short time we were almost dry, apart from our boots which were filled with water. While we were drying out, someone called out that it was my 19th birthday, so we opened a pack of rations, cut up some meat, stuck a sprig of something that looked like holly into it, then began to sing carols somewhat out of season.
Afterwards, we went to a number of islands: the Solomons, the Philippines, New Caledonia and Australia, before heading back to Ceylon to be re-equipped.
There were rumours on ship that we were going on for an assault on Japan. We'd heard stories of Japanese civilians committing suicide if invaded. We would be fighting women and children. I didn't mind fighting soldiers, but I didn't like this.
Four or five days out of Ceylon, we heard about a big bomb, then two days later, another bomb. The Japanese surrendered, so we skipped Japan, and returned home via the Panama Canal.
We went through the Panama Canal, then up to New York, then back home to Liverpool. There are three ports in the canal: Balboa, Panama in the middle, then Cellon. You could buy anything under the sun - watches for five shillings. When we got back to Liverpool, the excise men made us put everything in a bucket, then we could take just one thing back.
Then we went to Portsmouth and got demobbed. I would have stayed in, but the new government said there weren't going to be any more combined ops, and I didn't fancy hanging around barracks.
The discipline was very good for young people. It made you grow up quickly, you learnt to be self-sufficient.

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