大象传媒

Rose and Rand Austen celebrated their Emerald Wedding in 2004. Their stories are told in 鈥淲e have a Story to Tell鈥� and Memories of Wartime Westgate. Both had narrow escapes from bombs that fell in Thanet. Rand went to join King鈥檚 Royal Rifle Corps and served in North Africa, Italy and Greece. He was expecting to be sent to the Far East after the war in Europe was over, but landed in Folkestone on VJ Day to be told that was off! He later served with the British Army of Occupation on the German/Danish border. He retained his copy of the 鈥淪pecial Order of the Day鈥� dated 2 May 1945, the day when the Italian Army laid down its arms and has allowed it to be copied.

Rand鈥檚 Story
鈥淚 was nearly 16 years old when the war started and lived in Margate with my parents, brother and sister. I was serving a 4-year apprenticeship as a joiner at Rice & Sons鈥� joinery works in Westbrook. With the amount of air raid warnings there were, the firm could not afford the time lost in the shelter so, as there were 8 apprentices, we took turns to stand watch on the roof and give warnings if planes got close.
Early in 1940 my brother volunteered for the RAF and, soon after, my sister was evacuated to Tonbridge to my grandparents.
In May 1940 I put my age up and joined the LDV, No 3 Platoon, CO Captain Hatfield. Our HQ was at Burshell鈥檚 Garage, Canterbury Road, Garlinge, now a petrol station. We had ten rifles between 70 men at the start, but, after a few weeks, we all had weapons and ammunition to take home. Our company was the first in the country to have a Brengun - that was brought back from Dunkirk and handed over to Captain Hatfield for our use.
From the windows of Rice鈥檚, we watched the British and French troops on the trains at Margate as they were sent to other parts of the country. As C Company, our main position, if there were an invasion, was in trenches and a concrete pillbox on the mound at St Mildred鈥檚 Bay, Westgate. Normal night duty was on a roadblock at the junction of Manston Road and Shottendane Road, each platoon one night a week from dusk to dawn and our HQ was the Black Cottages, where the waste tip is now.
Over the next two years we received a lot of weapons and were trained to the Rifle, Bren Gun, Thompson sub-machine gun, Vickers and Browning machine guns, Norhtover projector and Blackard Bombard; the last two are anti-tank weapons.
On a November Saturday morning in 1940 at 10.15 a.m. all available men from Rice鈥檚 were loaded on the firm鈥檚 lorry and sent to help in rescue work in St James鈥� Park Road, Garlinge. 6 houses were down. It was the first time I had seen a dead person.
In 1941 my uncle died and my father shut his greengrocer and fruiter shop at 79a Canterbury Road, Westbrook and we moved to H & C Austen, Adrian House, Station Road, Westgate in the flat over the shop, Greengrocer and Fruiter & Coal Merchant. We lived there until the bombs dropped onto the railway siding opposite the International Stores. The blast took out all the shop and flat windows. We were very lucky to escape injury, so my father had to close the business and we moved back to Margate and my father became an ARP warden.
I finished my apprenticeship in May 1942 and went to work for Woods, Builders in Dane Road, Margate on first aid repairs on houses after the blitz on Canterbury (1st June 1942) for about four weeks, as I had my calling up papers for 2nd July. I joined the King鈥檚 Royal Rifle Corps near Swindon and then on to training camps in Yorkshire. I learned to drive 15cwt trucks and Brengun carriers and trained in 3inch mortars.
On 11th November 1943 we sailed from Liverpool on the liner 鈥淭he Monarch of Bermuda鈥� in convoy for ten days. We landed in Algiers then went by single-track railway to Bezente Tunis in cattle wagons for 3 days - 20 men and kit.
Then on Troop Landing craft to Tananto, Italy, by train on open wagons with tanks, Brengun carriers etc up the Adriatic coast to the River Sangro to join the 2nd Bn KRRC and stayed with them for about 8 weeks. We transferred across Italy to Caserta near Naples to join 11th Bn KRRC in the 23rd Armoured Brigade and took part in the 1st Battle of Cassino near Casetelforts, where I was wounded on a fighting patrol behind German lines.
I was sent to hospital in Naples for 2 weeks, then went down with diphtheria, so was back in hospital, where I watched the eruption of Vesuvius from my bed. A fantastic sight. I was sent by a hospital ship to Catania, Sicily for convalescence, then back to Italy, where I joined officers and Riflemen from the battalion that had been sent back to Giza under the Pyramids to refit for the Liberation of Greece.
We embarked on 13th October 1944 from Port Said on HMS Cruiser Black Prince, an impressive convoy - minesweepers, corvettes, sloops, four cruisers in 鈥渓ine ahead鈥�, destroyers, radar ships, tankers and supply ships. We landed at Piraeus - the Germans had gone before we got there - moved on to Athens, then up country to Lamia, until the Civil War started. We had to make our own way back to Constitution Square in Athens in the dark and found roads. It was hard to know who you were fighting, as most were in civilian clothes and there were lots of women. We missed Christmas Day but had Winston Churchill arrive. Fighting went on until 5 January 1945, when we moved out, distributing relief supplies until 1st July, when I was transferred with lots of other riflemen to the 2nd Bn Rifle Brigade.
We flew from Piraeus to Pisa in Italy in the bomb bay of a Lancaster, then to Klagenfurt in Austria to go to the Far East. We went back to England overland in lorries to Calais, arriving in Folkestone on VJ Day, so the trip to the Far East was cancelled. I was then sent to Germany with the army of occupation to Flensbury, near the border with Denmark and then to Burstinfort until I was demobbed in June 1947.

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