大象传媒

I have only vague thoughts that might just be deeply buried impressions of World War 2. I was born on the 6th July 1942, which is only memorable to me , in that 6 X 7 = 42. The Nation was unaware that this was the year the war was going to start to turn in our favour. Tobruck had fallen to Rommel, the so called Desert Fox, and the Eighth Army had started to dig in at El Alamein. The Germans were also still advancing unstoppable into southern Russia, Sevastopol fell as did Rostov on Don and some Caucasus oil fields had been captured by them. The Japanese had completed the route of Burma but had just been defeated in a naval action at a place called Midway. How things were to change. By my first birthday the Germans were in retreat from Stalingrad with the complete loss ofthe 6th Army. Defeat in the desert following the Battle of El Alamein and the Allied landing in Morocco and Algeria had repulsed the Africa Corp from North Africa. In the Pacific war, allied forces had completely halted Japanese advances and the enemy was being pushed back, island by island. The Battle of the Atlantic was being won and a great tank battle was raging at Kursk after which the German forces in Russia were to move only westwards.
Worsborough Bridge was a small West Riding coal mining village with no claim to any thing. (It even lost the '0' after the 'b', as it never had borough status, not even under Worcs the Saxon). Born on the distaff side of the Webster brood a large family of farmers and butchers (they were almost all army men) and an untraceable history beyond my grand father on the other side. The miners worked the coal and drunk and fought on Friday nights. My father was a fellmonger in a reserve occupation and was threatened with prosecution on his third attempt to join up, so he was ARP as well. My mother was a seamstress in a local shirt factory and did some fire watching.. We had no air raid shelter, we did not need one, we were never bombed. The house next door had an air raid shelter, of red brick, three courses thick and a concrete roof, it was the police house. There was a communal one across the road in the chapel cemetery for the rest of the village. It was still standing there in the late 60's but it has gone now. I wonder if they put the bones back.
Sheffield was 10 miles to the south and Sheffield was bombed. I think Sheffield was also attacked by either VIs or V2s as I have this earliest of memories of being held up by my father to look to the south at a red glow on the horizon, "That's Sheffield burning". This must have been late in 1944 but more probably in 1945.
I know that we put the flags out (Union Flags with portraits of the kings Mum and Dad) on VE Day. By VJ Day my uncle was home from the Near East well Greece actually. He brought back a Greek Royal Flag, very luxurious, rescued from a Greek Communist gang, so he said. It made our printed flags look a bit pathetic really. A tank lead a parade of some sort up the main road. He went back that night for demob and I stood at the bus stop with him and my mother's sister getting totally in the way but remembering the scratchiness of a khaki serge greatcoat and the smell of gun oil on his No. 4 Lee Enfield whilst wondering what was in the kit bag with the steel helmet at the top.
Funny really with no naval connections in the family that I should serve 40 years in the Royal Navy, our eldest son is in his 25 year in the Army

John Bithell

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