大象传媒

Fred's s World War 2
Chapter Two

My partner for guard duties was a Scot of twice my age, who spent his spare time knitting, Gloves, Socks, Cardigans, anything you could mention, and no pattern book all from memory.
My mother was a knitter too, and he was as good at it as her.

The first time I did duty with him he put me onto the straight and narrow as to how things are done our way, not as they would like them to be done, for as soon as it was dark and we left the gun post for the pill box, he told me you can get to bed. "what time will you wake me?" I asked looking at my watch. " I've no idear", he said " It all depends on how lucky I get, it wont be before midnight and it will certainly be before dawn get your head down, and if the duty officer comes round I'm patrolling the fence, you last saw me about twenty minutes ago. There's nothing to worry about, and next time we are on guard it will be your turn." he then showed me the secret hole in the wire, and were he hid his rifle and webbing and helmet, pulled his soft cap from under his tunic, gave me a salute and set off for town, and god knows what mischief. Leaving me a bag of nerves and in mortal dread of a visit from the duty officer. I never did see one and I too had my share of nights on the town. Jock Mc Addam may have looked a sissy with his knitting needles, but he knew all the ropes on that station.

It was at Abingdon that I thought my airforce career was going to end with a Court Marshal I had not been there long when I was told that I was on duty on the back gate, I was dressed for duty, inspected, ordered to slope arms, and marched down the road to this back road gate, here we changed guards as at Buckingham Palace the Sergeant read out my orders, which were that no one should be allowed in unless they had a pass sighed by the Station C. O. "What if they don't stop?" I asked.

He stared at me as if I was from another planet then said: " Listen lad, you are here to make sure that no unauthorised person enters this station, and that is why you are carrying a loaded rifle. Do you understand, Do you?" " Yes Sergeant, I only asked." with that both he and the bloke I had relieved, with smiles on their faces marched back up the road to our camp.

It was a boring job, One airman on a push bike, married and lived close by, with a pass, then suddenly a car came round the bend and towards me and didn't seam to be slowing. I stepped out into the road with my hand out but it drove straight past. I whipped my rifle round , and fired a shot over the car, I hoped. The car stopped. I kept the rifle aimed and indicated to the driver to reverse. This he did, the Officer in the back seat was frothing at the mouth.
What the blazes do you think you are doing? he yelled. "Obeying orders Sir" I replied knocking at the knees at the sight of his rank, but too late now, in for a penny. " My orders are to let no one through this gate without seeing a pass signed be the station Commander" "I am the bloody Station Commander, you idiot," he splutted. " I come through this gate every day. Take a good look at me. Remember me. Then you will not have to stop me, or take shots at me. Do you understand.?" "Yes, Sir." I replied. "May I see your pass now sir, Please" and he slowly and reluctantly produced it and showed it to me, and I stepped back and presented arms.

This taught me a valuable lesson, particular while in the forces. You need not ever fear rank no matter how big, as long as you are doing your job right, it is quite possible that if I had let the car go after stopping it, and not insisted in seeing his pass, he would have charged me. As it was it was I that was in the right, even though I had discharged my rifle, regardless of the Station Commanding Officers annoyance they were his own orders that I was obeying. I applied this principal to my working life, and would never give way if I was right to any boss and I never had the sack.

It was here though that a government security officer got onto the station dressed as a German fighter pilot in uniform, wandered all over the place, including the H Q block, for several hours, he had even been to a dispersal point, chatted with the fitters and got them to let him sit in a Lysander before he marched into the C Os. office and gave himself up, this was after my brush with the C O. otherwise I may have got a medal.

Whitley bombers were the aircraft that flew from here, commonly known as Flying coffins. For two reasons, One: the fuselage was coffin shaped and Two: they had a notoriously unstable landing ability, the result of one of these was the reason of my first participation in a military funeral. I was on gun post duty this day, jock was having his two off and had gone to the NAAFI

When this Whitley came in to land, I was watching it, and as it landed it ran OK at first and then it tipped up on its nose and burst into flames. The crew at the front end got out or were got out with the aid of the fire crew, but the rear gunner was fast in the gun turret, way up in the air with flames licking round him, and nothing anyone could do, you couldn't even watch it was too awful.

Eight of us were detailed off as escort on either side of the gun carriage, and we had to fire the salute over his grave. You could smell the burnt flesh through the coffin I'm sure, a smell that one never forgets . He was a twenty four year old Canadian.

The main camp was about a mile away to where the NAAFI and the camp Cinema and where the concerts were put on by ENSA, One night I went to an ENSA show and when it was over, when I got out it had snowed about three inches thick, and on top of that there was a thick fog.

I set off for the far end of the camp to our camp but the road was gone, I tried to guess my way, and seamed to be walking forever, so I started to shout, and eventually one of the perimeter guards heard me, and kept calling until I got to him, and I finally got back to camp, the next day the fog had lifted and you could see my tracks in the snow, going round and round in circles.

It was while I was at Abingdon that I had my first flight in a plane " unofficially of course." but the planes on the dispersal's were well away from prying eyes and had to have test flights after certain maintenance work was carried out, and usually one crew member had to be a gunner, even if it only took off and landed again, of course it should be an Air gunner and we were at War. I also had the opportunity for a quick flip in a Lysander while there. It was at Abingdon that several of us took our confirmation classes with the station Padre, and was confirmed by the bishop of Oxford.

Oxford was close by and on our days off Jock and I often went in to there to see the sights, and Jock would always insist that we went into a posh tea room for tea and cakes, another of his quirks like his knitting.

Scorton :- One day six of us were told to pack our things and be ready to move out the next morning, we had been posted to Scorton, none of us had heard of it, but the next morning we were issued with travel warrants to Scorton from Oxford, and were transported to Oxford by truck. We reported to the transport officials on the station, and after changing trains twice alighted at a little one horse type station "Scorton."
We asked the only person there if there was an Airfield or RAF unit nearby, The answer was no. It appeared that the nearest was Morecamb We got in touch with the Military transport people, who had an office on every main station. Told them of our predicament, for our tickets ran out at Scorton and we were there. They in turn authorised our continued journey to Morecamb on the next train with the station bloke, and told us to report to their office on arrival. We had an hour and a half to wait for the next train, it was already six p.m. we were all hungry and thirsty, and there was nothing at this station and only about half a dozen houses outside it.

The train finally arrived, and as soon as we got off it at Morecamb, we found the transport officer, told him how long we had been travelling and when we last ate, he asked for our travel documents. After a quick look at them he said: " You appear to have arrived at the place you were sent to. It is obviously the wrong one, And may take some sorting out at this time of night, So I will take you to were you can be fed, and try and find somewhere for you to sleep, That is going to be the hard part, Morecamb is as full of W.A.A.F.s as Blackpool is of R.A.F. Erks." He took us to a Fish and Chip Restaurant, and told them to fill us up. told us to stay where we were until he returned.

When he did, he took us to a big building that was in peace time a Theatre or Cinema, that had been taken over by the RAF for drills and lectures, etc As Morecamb had been taken over as a WAAF recruit training centre. "I am sorry lads", he said " But at this time of night it is the very best that I can do, you will each have two blankets and a pillow, I suggest you each pick a radiator to bed down along side of.
The heat is on and there are more than enough" he said pointing down both sides of the completely bare hall. " There is a gents toilet, with a wash basin in, in that corner over there, I will have someone come and take you for breakfast in the morning, and bring you back after, you are not to leave this building at any other time until I have sorted out where you should be going too, Is that clear."

And so it was that we spent the night in Morecamb.
The next morning we were aroused by clumping feet on the bare floor boards by a group of Waaf's with brushes and dust pan's, who were as surprised to see us as we were them, it appears that these girls were all on Jankers for some misdemeanour or other, hence there early arrival. The NCO in charge of them soon moved them out, while we dressed when she saw us, and was told why we were there.

After breakfast that had been arranged at one of the local B&Bs across the street, we spent another one and a half hours in the Cinema watching the Waaf's learning how to roll up their gas capes, put them on and release them, so that they rolled down your back and you could be covered in quick time in case of a gas attack. At last the transport Officer sent for us back to the station, were he informed us that our train left in twenty minutes, we were going to Scorton, it was an Airfield not far from Cartterick and it was their department that had made the boo boo.

We had hardly got settled when we were given seven days leave, Hooray. It was here while doing some arms drill on the perimeter track, it was tarmac, most of the airfield was grass including the runway, we were having a 'Stand Easy' break, and watching a spitfire above the air field doing some aerobatics he was putting on a good show, and every one was watching, he then put it into a vertical dive, and as he came screaming down through the air, everyone was crouching further down with his mad decent, and we were gasping Pull out Pull out!
But he didn't, there was a thud , the screaming engine suddenly silent, as was everyone who was watching, for a moment or two, then everyone started to talk at once, we heard that the engine went into the ground sixteen feet.
Hornchurch:- in Essex was the next station that I was posted to. No 122 Sqdn. it was not a very large station, but very active and the spitfire squadron were constantly in action, either escorting bombers or raiding, if they were raiding they would have a bomb under each wing. we used to count them when they went out, and count them back in again less than two hours later, They could only carry fuel for two hours, extra fuel tanks had to be fitted if required. The squadron C.O. used to be an active fighter pilot and went out with his Lads, but we had one bad week in which we lost three C.O.s and the Air chief said enough is enough, No more active flying for Squadron C.Os.

At Hornchurch we started to do more active soldier type training, not just drill and Stripping down machine guns and building them up again, but going on route marches etc. The officers too. One day we were sent on a route march and the officer had a map and our route was map reference no's. in other words it was a training exercise on map reading for the Officer. We were along for the ride so to speak, this turned out to be true, for he got hopelessly lost, it was getting time that we should be back, so he took us all onto a tube train and paid all our fares back to Hornchurch. with the threat of dire consequences if we opened our mouths.

It was at Hornchurch that I became a part time stage hand, I don't know what the building used to be, but it had big ward like rooms with lots of windows, a very large kitchen near a large dinning room with a stage at the far end, and a projector room over the hatch or counter where you collected your food at the Kitchen end, there was four of us that helped after dinner to stack the tables and chairs up by one side wall and pull out rows of cinema seats in blocks of six ready for the picture show. When the film show was over we got stuck in and put every thing back ready for breakfast. It never took long for folk that had been to the flicks helped. Every now and then we would have an Theatrical show of one kind or other, and because we were the four regulars for setting the place up we got the spot light job. One in each wing and two out front on the sides and the film operator controlled a spot light from his pigeon hole. We were each given a sequence of colours etc. so that we were all in step and sequence.
Not a very exciting job so to speak, until the Windmill theatre girls came one night, and we had to fight for our jobs every one was an expert all at once but justice prevailed, and we did our bit.

There is no doubt that when you are a red blooded young man and only a few feet from a naked girl you get a thrill. The set up was with the curtains down the girls would come to each side of the stage wings, their props were put in place, the girls would drop their dressing gowns and dash onto the stage and take up their poses, an announcement would be made as to what the scene was supposed to be and the curtain would go up.
The girls have to pose perfectly still, Applause, Whistles etc. then the curtain comes down. as soon as the curtain is down the girls dash around to change positions and poses, unlike the audience we get to see the girls in motion, another announcement, up with the curtain again.
It's getting boring now the excitement is dying. and in any case there's a bus waiting to take them all to the officers mess as soon as they are done. Another thrill though was "Glen Miller and his Band" Wow! and the Squadronaires were good too, Oh and I almost forgot our P T instructor was Len Harvey the boxer.

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