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Memories of an Artillery Gunner Part Three — From Coastal Battery to India

Part Three of an oral history interview with Mr. Jack Clifton conducted by Jenny Ford on behalf of Bedford Museum.

Another funny one about the ‘Security’, if we said the ‘Security’ you used to hear all the while you know it was so tense down there, the old Major he said to me, ‘You ride a motor bike, don’t you?’ I said, ‘yes.’ He said, ‘I want you to take this. It’s an urgent message.’ He said, ‘It’s very confidential, I want you to take it personally to Dover Castle.’ Well that was just a few miles up the road so I went there and I thought ‘Security’ would be murder! Not a bit of it, I drove straight through, nobody said, ‘Eh, you!’ I went in and I parked the old bike and I went into the place and it was all set out as a wireless, signalling part, I just walked in and I asked for this chap for the letter and I took it up there, I was escorted actually. But I thought to myself ‘this is supposed very ‘secure’’ but it wasn’t on that occasion! Anyway I dumped it and I met one of our old Battery in there. He’d been posted there and he was in this Signals Section. ‘How are doing?’ ‘blooming awful’ I said, couldn’t chat with him of course because I was obviously an usurper in this Signals place. I went back and that was it.

I was there at Dymchurch for 20 months. And then we moved on for a rest but we went on the guns at Margate, there were guns at Margate. I was the chap who used to be in the Observation Post. I used to think that’s a good job that is, nice brick but since the war I’ve realised it’s a blooming horrible place because any aeroplane coming in that would be the first place they’d aim for, the Observation Post! We used to look through the range finder. Oh, and we went to Folkestone for a bit too and at Folkestone we used to look through the range finder and you could see the clock at Calais. You couldn’t tell the time but I knew it was the clock because I’d been to Calais in peace time. It was amazing really. The RAF gave Calais a hammering one night, it frightened even us! And it was twenty miles away but we could see it alright. We were told that they smashed up an invasion plot over there but they missed their chance they should have come over straight away because … I asked once when we went to Hyde, I said, ‘Where are the Infantry?’ ‘Aaahh, oh, they are over there in the hills.’ Well the hills were miles away. The only Infantry I saw there was a Light Infantry were they did that very fast march, left right, left right, left right and I saw them there on one occasion but I didn’t see many soldiers there. If old Hitler had known I think he would have come across, I think he would have come across in his rowing boat!

We never had any more than 16 rounds of ammunition! When we were eventually given permission to fire them for practice they did replace those we’d fired and they brought us some hand grenades, a box of hand grenades, yes. We had an exercise once, how to throw a hand grenade. They said, ‘There are troops out there,’ and one of them didn’t go off and there was a Colonel visiting us and he said to me, ‘Pick that one up will you?’ I said, ‘Not likely, it’ll go off!’ He said, ‘It won’t, it hasn’t got the fuse in.’ I said, ‘Who knows that?’ ‘Oh, no’ he said, ‘it hasn’t got the fuse in, I can assure you.‘ So I had to go and pick it up, it didn’t have the fuse in so it was alright but! But there you are - as they used to say, ‘orders is orders’.

We then went to Folkestone and then back again. Then we went to Margate and when we were at Margate on one occasion word came that you were being posted to a place near Brighton where the ferry boats used to go. We were told that you are going there for a short time, it will make a change for you, make a change up there. So we set off, a proper convoy and got there and there was another Observation Post just like the one we had left. But it was manned and I thought to myself, ‘why send us here when they said it wasn’t manned and it is manned?’ Anyway that was it. We were free to roam around really. We moved into New Haven and we wandered into town and one night, black out buses came round, every soldier on the street they picked up and took back to wherever they were stationed, we were taken back and ‘What’s going on?’ ‘oh, you’ll find out soon enough.’ Anyway we were taken back and weren’t allowed out and then came the news that the Canadians as they said had invaded Dieppe. A lot of them had set off from New Haven and they it was obviously a security measure, the less people who knew about it the better. I went down there a couple of days later and some more boats came in back from France and oh, dear oh dear, these poor old troops, they did look - I felt sorry for them. It was a lash up, they were massacred over there. We saw the Canadians and Commando’s, British troops as well, you felt sorry for them. Mind you they had plenty of pluck, you wouldn’t take them on but you couldn’t help but feel sorry for them.

We were there apparently as reinforcements for the gun should the Germans follow the Canadians back. We were there to help man the gun. We were there for about 10 days something like that. It made a nice break.

We then moved, the whole Battery then moved to Folkestone for a bit then we moved to Margate. Aah, we thought, this could be a holiday camp! But it wasn’t. They had the exact same six inch Naval guns there, that was one of the places they expected them to land. So we manned the guns, well I didn’t, as I say I was in the Observation Post. It was cushy really but we did have a few air raids. My wife Joyce was caught out in once, I didn’t know her then but apparently she came home all white looking like a ghost, her hair was all white with the dust of a house that was blown up alongside her. I was in the Observation Post and saw him come in. He machine gunned Joyce for a bit of fun I think.

These three planes came in and, ‘it sounds like Germans’ ever so low, heading straight for the Battery and they let their (fighter bombers) bombs go. On this occasion I was on ‘look out’ and these three planes were coming in, Germans, and the one on my right looking out, the pilot he would be on the left of them, he was a bit off course I could see that. And anyway he let his bomb go and the other two did and one of them hit the cliff just away to the right of the Battery. The bomb went off and didn’t do any harm and the other one it whistled on and it landed in a park somewhere, it damaged a house but it landed in a park. But the one that was on the left he went into a boarding house, he went straight through the wall, just left a bloomin’ big hole, out the other side and it hit the church. Trinity Church, well it’s been closed down ever since, yes it made a bit of a mess of that. But the funny thing is after the war people used to say, ‘Those horrible Germans bombing our church here was no reason for that.’ In fact there was an article in the paper about it so I contacted the person who put it in the paper and said, ‘You are wrong, you know.’ I said, ‘I was a soldier at the time and I was on duty and I saw those planes coming in, I saw it drop it’s bomb, it was bombing ‘us’, but the pilot was off course at little bit, he wasn’t aiming at your church. It was a pure accident.’ I said, ‘The time was, I think it was eight minutes past one. I was the NCO on duty up there and I personally reported the incident to the Head Quarters at Dover so I know just what happened. They were not bombing your church!’ They didn’t like that, it made a better story to say they were bombing the church but I saw it and this person didn’t, it was just assumption. I was there a few months, that’s where I met Joyce. We met sixty years ago! Then I was posted to a medium Regiment that’s just field artillery.

When I joined them they were at a big park at Sevenoaks and they were, of course I didn’t know but they were obviously training for ‘D’ Day. We went from Sevenoaks up North, on the borders of England and Scotland. It must have been Northumberland, there’s an old castle or something up there and there were peacocks up there. Funnily enough, when the troops took possession the peacocks disappeared! They were on the menu! I don't know who did it but that’s what happened.

Then we came down and we had orders to move and we got as far as - we travelled all day with this convoy, it was about 16 miles this convoy, there was a race track there and we parked all around this race track, guns and lorries everywhere. I was chatting to one of the boys and Captain, oh I can’t remember his name now, he said, ‘You come from Bedford don’t you?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Would you know how to find it?’ I said, ‘Oh, yes I could find Bedford alright.’ Because all the sign posts were taken off the roads then but I knew very well that it was straight down the North Road as it was then, but I didn’t tell him that. He said, ‘Would you know your way to Welwyn Garden City?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s about 30 miles from Bedford I should think.’ ‘Mmmm, would you like to take me there?’ I said, ‘Yes, I don’t mind.’ Thinking that we were going down in the convoy and then when we got to - we didn’t know where we were aiming for, when we got down there, he’d say, will you nip me off? He said, ‘Right! I’ll get hold of a jeep and plenty of petrol,’ he said, ‘we’ll go now!’ I drove him off and after some hours driving, I didn’t dawdle but you couldn’t go very quickly in jeeps, no matter what people tell you they were governed at 60 miles an hour and you couldn’t get a mile extra. Went down there and after some hours he said, ‘Do you know where you are going?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you’re alright.’ I said, ‘We haven’t got far to go now.’ He said, ‘Well, call in at Bedford, your parents live there?’ I said, ‘My Dad does, I haven’t got a mother now’ ‘well I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you.’ So we popped in, saw my Dad. Poor old boy, he nearly fainted he did! A big man and the look on his face, the jeep loaded up with war materials. Went in and I suppose I had an hour with him and when we left he gave us plenty of refreshments and we left. Went to Welwyn Garden City I said, ‘Here you are.’ ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘ I can see it’s Welwyn Garden City.’ I said, ‘Now I don’t know where you are going, I don’t know Welwyn Garden City,’ ‘oh, I’ll take over now’ he said, go down this road and we stopped outside this nice house down there and he said, ‘Just a moment.’ He went and rang on the bell or knocked on the door, I don’t know which, ‘Ooohh!’ somebody came dashing out to greet him and he beckoned me in and he stayed there, oh, some hours. I should think it must have been the early hours of the morning and he said, ‘We’d better push off’ he said, ‘we’ve got to meet the convoy.’ He said, ‘It’s stopping just on the North Road, just near here. The petrol wagons (which were spaced out every quarter of a mile, miles of convoy) he said, ‘We’ll pull up at one of those and fill up’ it was a lot of petrol that we’d had. So I went out and did that and he said, ‘Well I’ll tell you where we are going’ and he took me off to where we were going to stay. Eventually the rest of the mob turned up and nobody knew I’d been away!

It had an unfortunate ending really, actually we were there for ‘D’ Day and we went down through Worthing, went to Worthing and Worthing was cordoned off. Went in, we were allotted a place, in our case it was a boarding house mind you nobody in there, no civilians there and that was it. We still didn’t know what it was but we guessed. As we approached Worthing the roads became absolutely pure military. Stacks of bombs, shells and ammunition, in rows all along the roads there, so we guessed and we guessed right. But anyway next morning I heard my name being called out and I thought, oh, hell’s bells what’s going on now? I went to the office and the old Captain was there and he said, ‘You are a lucky b…… ! ‘ I said, ‘yes, I know that, what’s up?’ He said, ‘Oh, your Dad’s been taken very ill, you have got compassionate leave to go and see him.’ Well he was doing me a favour because I took him down. I went back and saw my Dad and anyway afterwards after my spot of leave was up I was posted to a Reserve Regiment at Watford, I wasn’t posted back to the 6th gun work and from there I was posted to India with a Counter Mortar Battery.

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