大象传媒

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This story was gathered by Joan Venus-Evans, Hull volunteer, from her father Mr. Ernest Venus.

I was working at Hull City Wireworks when the war started and spent the first few months down at the docks putting up fences around the big guns that all the ships had to have in case they ran into any Jerries. The fences were to stop the shells from rolling around the deck. Because I was doing war work I didn't get called up straight away.

My call up papers came on my 22nd birthday on 10th February 1940. I had to report to a Dance Hall down West Street where they gave me a medical and then I was posted to the Victoria Barracks in Beverley where I joined the East Yorkshire Regiment.

We were moved from place to place all over England for the next couple of years doing training. I was getting browned off not seeing any action so when they asked for volunteers to join the parachute regiment I jumped at the chance especially when I found out the pay was a shilling (5p) more than the 14 shillings (70p) a week I was getting. I used to send 2s 6d (12p) home to my mother out of that!

The first jumps we did were training jumps in Whitly (Pencil) Bombers. They carried 10 Paras and we had to jump out of a hole in the middle of the plane where the bombs would have been dropped out. Then we got these American planes that could fly higher. You could get 20 of us in them which meant that somebody had to jump at number 13. That sort of thing never bothered me but I remember once when we were doing a training jump over North Africa and one of the blokes was getting all steamed up because he was going to be the thirteenth man out. We kept winding him up and having a laugh about it but when we did the jump he ended up dangling by his parachute high up in a tree. We all gathered round the bottom of the tree shouting at him to press his release button so we could catch him.

It took ages to persuade him and when he finally plucked up courage to release his chute we totally missed him for some reason and he fell and broke his leg. He swore all this happened because of the thirteen thing but I still don't believe in all that rubbish.
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Edited by: Alan Brigham - www.hullwebs.co.uk

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