大象传媒

The Vanishing Army

As a child prior to D-Day, I lived with my parents at Salmon Pool Railway Crossing, the village of Uton, Crediton, Devon. I was twelve years old.
Obviously I didn鈥檛 know then that the invasion of the continent was imminent, but the area where we lived was frequently overrun by American troops.
One event concerning troop exercises and the war was the arrival of an American convoy at our remote little country lane railway crossing. There were a great many and various armoured vehicles. There must have been hundreds of them.
Dad, having received telephone permission to open the gates, and their transition been allowed to commence, there was no way of stopping them.
For nearly two hours, vehicle after vehicle just kept trundling across the line. No trains could run, and dad was besieged with telephone call after telephone call, 鈥� Stop the traffic, and close the gates.鈥�
It was an impossibility, and I remember dad鈥檚 final comment to the railway authorities, 鈥� If Hitler can鈥檛 stop the bloody American Army, how the hell do you expect me to鈥�.
As children, we were definitely exited, especially as all these benevolent soldiers were only too eager to throw us chewing gum and sweets, or candy, as they called them. Having had only a very few sweets in the latter years, we soon learnt to shout, 鈥淕ot any Gum Chum?鈥� to every available American soldier, and that day at the crossing was a real bonanza.
Throughout the previous and most recent months everyone, including us children, had all become familiar with so many young American Soldiers in the area, and then one day they were all gone.
They simply vanished to we knew not where. As children who had lost so many newly made friends, we just could not understand it. One day they were there, the next they were gone. It seemed so impossible that our young minds just couldn鈥檛 get our heads around it.

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