大象传媒

Frank G. Healey (ex Lieut.,R.Signals)(ex Pte 1st Warwickshire Home Guard).

Having been a youth of 16 when war was declared my wartime memories fall neatly
into two parts 鈥� pre-regular army service (up to the late summer of 1942) and service
in the army from that time to late 1946. By then I was assistant adjutant of my
regiment (6th Armoured Divisional Signals) and signalmaster Trieste, helping to keep
an uneasy peace in the hotly disputed Venezia Giulia between trigger happy Yugo-
slav partisans and Italians.

Before entering the army I saw service with both the Home Guard and Birmingham
University OTC so that my knowledge of and familiarity with parade ground drill,
musketry, army organisation and discipline, to say nothing of how to raise a mirror
finish on the toe-cap of ammunition boots, was of quite a high order. The Home
Guard, for the benefit of those who only know it from the television series 鈥淒ad鈥檚
Army鈥�, was , as I knew it, a quite grimly efficient force which certainly had its comic
moments and conflicts with self-important civilian functionaries, but was built up
around a hard core of First War veterans (especially the NCOs ) who literally knew
what it was like to face the enemy. We were armed with the .300 Ross rifle which
was, in my experience, at least as accurate as the regular army鈥檚 .3o3 Lee-Enfield but
heavier and with a very long and lethal looking bayonet . Furthermore many of my
comrades had had a lifetime鈥檚 experience with guns of one type or another, either as
poachers or legitimate shooters of all kinds of wild life.. They rapidly became
excellent marksmen at least equalling those of any regular unit I later served with.
Rifles apart we trained with a number of improbably amateur-looking anti-tank
weapons and mortars, to say nothing of mock-up armoured cars, which would I freely
admit, probably have raised a hearty guffaw from any opposing panzer grenadier.
Later, I believe, Home Guard units were issued with such new- fangled things as Sten
guns and even brens.
Training took place on one or two nights a week, with the occasional week-end
exercise. In winter it was in the village hall, in summer in the open air with frequent
fieldcraft training in local farmers鈥� fields, not always to their delight. Once a week on
average you were on night duty which entailed sleeping on the floor of the village hall
fully clad ready for action, and carrying out two patrols round the village in groups of
three, at least in theory checking that no parachutists had landed. These patrols were
not infrequently carried out against a dramatic background of gunfire and bomb
explosions as the Luftwaffe raided nearby Coventry or Birmingham. On one
memorable night, when my father was on firewatch at the factory where he worked
and only my mother and myself were at home, a parachute-mine intended for
Coventry (7 miles away) landed a few hundred yards away from our house and blew
out all the front windows. Several houses in nearby roads were demolished or badly
damaged but no-one, miraculously, was killed or seriously injured. Our night
activities were not without their compensations, however, given that they were often
preceded by a preparatory meeting ( to discuss tactics) in the snug of the Queen鈥檚
Head pub. It also gave us a close acquaintance with the habits of the local owl
population (and indeed of some of the local 鈥渘ight-owls鈥� too). One night we actually
heard a nightingale.

Compared to the Home Guard the University OTC, although staffed by regular army
NCOs and having a few rather superannuated regular officers, was a much more
gentlemanly affair, hot on drill and 鈥渂ull鈥�, keen on platoon attacks and teaching 鈥渕an
management鈥� but it entailed a quite ferocious three week summer camp in a pine
wood, I think, complete with a ready-made trench system and enormous mosquitoes.
Here I got my introduction to the delights of the NAAFI canteen and the bawdy
entertainment of camp concerts. The only really bright spot at this camp came when ,
due to a clerical error, I was posted on daily orders as promoted to lance- corporal,
much to the annoyance of other considerably more experienced and deserving
hopefuls. As far as I can remember this was the only time I ever heard an orderly
room sergeant apologise for anything!

When I was finally called to the colours in late summer 1942 I already knew as much
as any reasonable person might want to know about the army and its ways. I even
turned up at the basic training centre at Leicester racecourse already wearing my
uniform (with Home Guard flashes removed) and with a service respirator.
Basic training was, as I expected, rather boring but afterwards I found myself posted
to London where , having School Certificate Maths and Physics, I was to be trained in
radio for several months at Norwood Technical College with the ultimate aim of
becoming a radio mechanic, servicing the new radio- location (radar) equipment
which was then highly secret. This posting was more or less like a return to civilian
life for three or four months except that we were wearing uniform and were not
supposed to go into the capital (no further in than Clapham Junction!) without a pass,
which was not very freely granted. Air raids were rare in London at that time and so
we made the most of our opportunity, with or without a pass, to visit the cinemas and
galleries and such restaurants as we could afford (not many). As I had made friends
with a comrade who worked for the 大象传媒 in peace-time he was able to get us tickets
as studio audience on one or two occasions, once for a concert performance in the
Albert Hall of some Wagner operatic pieces which made a great impression on me at
the time.

After the whirlwind introduction to wireless theory, those who passed successfully
went on to the radio mechanics鈥� school proper at Twycross, near Nuneaton, where the
real secret stuff was kept and our notebooks had to be handed in for safe-keeping
every night. This was challenging work and took some digesting for some one with no
real background in radio technology. Fortunately, just as I was about to take a step
sideways and accept a promotion to become an instructor on diesel power units,
which were included as part of the course, the call came for suitable candidates for
selection to train as R.Signals officers, of which there was a shortage at that moment.
I applied, was sent to the Selection Board, and to my surprise, accepted. Thus I began
what was, I believe, the longest officer training course in the British army, consisting
of six weeks Pre-OCTU at Wrotham in Kent, an all-arms training course, and then
thirty-two weeks at the OCTU proper at Catterick Camp.
Pre-OCTU, which prepared candidates for officer training at OCTUs of every arm,
was both physically and mentally very tough indeed with iron discipline, not
dissimilar I gather to the basic training for the French Foreign Legion. Those of us
who survived this happy place left it with a feeling of having triumphed over
adversity and of general invulnerability. R.Signals OCTU was tough in a different
way, apart from battle camp in the Lake District in mid-winter, which was hard by
any standard. The sheer duration of the course, added to the winter conditions on
Catterick Moor, the incredible number and complexity of the various tasks and
techniques which had to be learned, together with a full knowledge of orders of battle
and army organisation, parade ground drills, driving skills on almost anything
including tanks (although we were never actually allowed to drive one in practice),
morse code, etc.,etc.,. meant that we had hardly to time get a regular haircut, which
was, of course, obligatory. However, I survived it all, including a road accident in
which an enormous armoured command vehicle, somewhat resembling an armour-
plated mammoth, in which we were on radio excercises near Knaresborough,
overturned into a field and stood on its roof with myself and the rest of the crew of
four still inside.
Passing out as a second 鈥攍ieutenant in the early summer of 1944 I was posted to
a Welsh infantry division stationed on the Isle of Wight at Albany Barracks, now a
prison. There for a few weeks I learned something of the role of a divisional signals
unit and, in particular, how to run a signal office. More importantly, during my spell
in the Island D.Day took place. It was very frustrating that with so much going on
around and even in the air above us, we were not involved except as a holding
garrison in case the Germans should try a diversionary counter-attack on the Isle of
Wight. A few days later a message come into the signal office from Division saying
that I was to report to St Annes- on- Sea to join an overseas draft after a week鈥檚
embarkation leave.

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