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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Louisa Pointon, a volunteer, on behalf of John Brown and has been added to the site by his permission. John Brown fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I joined up in 1942 for the duration of the emergency and reported to Clitheroe, Lancashire in Low Moor Mill an old stone cotton mill where we slept 200 to a room. It was in Clitheroe that I had my Sapper training. From there I went before the War Office Selection Board at Wrotham, Kent and moved onto Newark in Nottinghamshire for Royal Engineering training. Soon after my training I was commissioned and sent to Clumber Park to join a mechanical equipment unit attached to the 21st army, ready for the invasion of France in the summer of 1944.

My next movements with the Royal Engineers took me from an assembly point at East Grinstead to Tilbury Docks in London, which no longer exists today. It was in London that I saw my first ‘buzz’ bomb drop on the city. In London, I joined a ‘Liberty Ship’, a ship built by the Americans and sailed across the channel to Arromanches in August of 1944. We were anchored in the bay outside Arromanches for three days because of bad storms and the troops were shown films in the hold to pass the time. Our equipment was landed on the beach at Arromanches and I was sent to Caen where we cleared the debris left my the bombing

My first night on landing in France was spent in a feather bed with a family in Caen, who shared my rations, much better than a slit trench! Next, I was moved to Brussels where I was stationed in Vilvoorde. It was in Vilvoorde that we assembled piling gear for the Rhine crossing with Belgium civilians which had arrived from Antwerp docks. Our pleasant life in Brussels was ended by the Battle of the Bulge We then went up the Rhine and reached Klev. Here, we (the Royal Engineers), put in a mains signal cable in the ground for the army headquarters. We were aided by German civilians, they were only pleased to get work and we repaid them a nominal sum. The route of the line went across the Siegfild line, through the minefields.

Germany was in an awful state, it was destroyed and there were few people. They had no electricity, gas or other basic supplies. The Rhine banks by Klev were constantly thick with black smoke as the army had but up a smokescreen to disguise their movements and act as protection against the Germans. We crossed the Rhine on a Pontoon bridge built by Canadian engineers.

By the end of the war, I was moved to Hanover where we repaired the autobahns and bridges as most of them had been blown up or damaged by German demolitions. When victory was announced, I thought I was going to get out of the army but no such luck! Many of my fellow Royal Engineers were released but I was transferred to India. I served in India as a garrison engineer, with no leave! I was stationed in a variety of places including Dinapore, Jamshedpore Ranchi, finally New Delphi when the country was handed over to the Indians in April 1947, when Mountbatten handed over his authority.

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