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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Ted Newcomen from the Hastings Community Learning Centre and has been added to the website on behalf of Arthur Morrison with his permission and he fully understand the site’s terms and conditions.

My name is Arthur Morrison and my first war experience was in the Civil Defence, stationed at the Bathing Pool on the seafront at St.Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. It was there that I met my future wife. Later I was called up and went to a training centre at Slough in Buckinghamshire. From there I was posted to Stroud in Gloucestershire to work with 20 Maintenance Unit, Aston Down, where I stayed until the end of the war.
My job was as fitter’s mate working on the maintenance of Hurricane fighter engines during the day and afterwards doing guard duties in the Home Guard. These were all brand new aircraft, straight from the factory. They were only passed ‘fit for flying’ and we then made all the modifications so that they were ready for action and flown out by the ferry pilots to Cardiff airport. From there they were put onto ships and sent all round the world to whatever theatre of war they were needed.
The pilots on our drome were mostly men having first respite from frontline duties but among the ferry pilots were Amy and Jim Mollisson. It always amazed me to see a young woman step out of the cockpit of a Lancaster bomber.
Sometimes if we had a slack period we were loaned out to another site and usually worked on Lancaster bombers or Oxford transport planes. When we had finished working on each bomber, all the maintenance crew had to climb on board and go up for the flight test. This encouraged us to always do a very thorough job!
Although being a civilian, I feel I did a good job & was never embarrassed when in the company of service personnel as we were an essential part of the armed forces.

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