大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/大象传媒 Radio Nottingham on behalf of Mr RA Newbold with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I joined the RAF in June 1942, and did my square bashing at Western Supermare. On one of the Sundays while I was there, one of the national newspapers printed a tranquil picture of Western with the headline 'The Place where there's No War.' The following Saturday and Sunday the town was bombed mercilessly. After Western I was posted to a transmitting at Ossington near Newark. I was surprised to see the gigantic valves which were serviced by airmen skating on felt pads to keep the room dust free. Also at this station they took nonsensical cryptic messages called 'BEETLE' (shades of the French Resistance) My next posting was to Fraseburh (Kipper Country) where I practised radio telephony until I was sent to 'Old Sarum' in April 1944. I joined signal unit 5139H on the 17th June 1944 the unit was dispatched to Normandy. At breakfast the first morning one of the chaps was disgusted because the cook had given him jam instead of marmalade! For dinner occasionally we were given a small tin of triangular sausages (toblerone shape). We had no idea how the war was progressing apart from the gunfire, so I contacted my brother in law and he sent me a radio. We assemble dit and it worked first time, so that was a great boon to us. In September up to Amiens, where we lived in small wooden huts (left by the Germans) in a small forest. It was there at Christmas 1944 that we got a call telling us that Germans dressed in American uniforms were heading our way. I suppose they didnt fancy tackling us because we never saw them. While we were out there, I fell in one of the ruts caused by the lorries and it had frozen solid. That was my one and only war wound. I finished up in tent on VE Day with a small beer and the Seargent saying that the CO had volunteered the unit to go to the Far East. 'The Atom Bombs got in the Way' after all that when I was demobbed, one of the officers wrote in my paybook that I had served three years of undetected crime. Charming.

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