大象传媒

I am too young to have been involved in World War II. Infact, my birth and the Korean War were two of the biggest events in 1950. Anyway I like to think so.

I have however, since my early years, been keen on listening to stories and anecdotes about the period from 1939 to 1945.

So far during my life I have attained several "strange" or at least unusual achievements, one of them being an honorary member of a Germany town fire-brigade, indeed, my bungalow is named after the very same town.

During an International Feuerwehr Treffen (meeting) there some years ago I was involved in a conversation with some oldtimer (as the Germans call both old firemen and old fire vehicles) firemen who, like their British counterparts could tell many comical stories.

One of the Germans mentioned how as a child during WWII he became confused when he heard that in each British and American heavy bomber there was a man called a Bomb Aimer. Bomb is the same in both languages, however aimer sounds very much like the German word "eimer" which means bucket - for a long time he wondered why these aircraft had a crew member called a bomb-bucket.

In 1933, after Hitler came to power, all fire-services in Germany became part of the police force under the command of Heinrich Himmler. The professional, full time fire brigades became the Feuerschutzpolizei and the volunteer brigades became the Feuerloeschpolizei. The fire appliances changed in colour from red to polizei dark green.

Current law in Germany requires any town with over 100,000 population to have a full-time fire brigade under that and they can operate using volunteers. Most towns with smaller populations now have full-timers and as the population thins into the surrounding villages then the volunteer services come into play.

Don't think because the bulk of fire-fighters in that country (some two million people support their local brigades in Germany, both actively and passively) are volunteers that their cover is in anyway inferior. (Many small towns and villages have actively recruited housewives to run the service during the day while the men work away in the cities - they are fully trained and competant and give a cover that would not be available if just the males in the area were relied upon). As an example, for a population of around 7,000 plus an army barracks, the town in which I am a "volunteer" has eight fire appliances. Spalding, the nearest town to where I live and with a bigger population has two pumps and a water tanker.

Anyway, to carry on with the story. In 1940, as part of a local civil defence exercise, it was decided, one Sunday morning to send out several of the fire appliances and crews on a map reading exercise. Both members of the volunteer and the youth fire brigade were involved and they had to go to several different map references and report to an umpire when they reached them.

One of the vehicles, an Opel Blitz TLF15 arrived at an umpires position and it was discovered that the vehicle had a leaking radiator. It was immediately decided to drop the vehicle from the exercise and return it to the station. Just the driver and officer in charge were left on the Opel and its crew was distributed around other vehicles to carry on with the exercise.

Our two trusty fire-fighters set out to gently take the sick vehicle back the ten or so kilometers to its home station.

They had not been on the road for very long when the driver noticed that the temperature was rising drastically and the Opel was beginning to steam.

The land in this area being very rural the two men were pleased to see a farm off to their right. They turned down the track and into the farmyard. The officer jumped from the appliance, went to the rear section of the double cab, lifted the seat and took out a bucket, he then proceded to the farmers door.

He rapped heavily on the door and called "Feuerwehr!". In a few seconds, following the call of "fire brigade", the door flew open and there stood a barrell of a man, napkin tucked into his neck, still chewing a mouthful of lunch.

Before the farmer could ask the question what was wrong/burning/had happened/been damaged? The fireman held the bucket towards the startled man of the land and said very politely, "Could we please have a bucket of water for our radiator?"

Still chewing, and with a puzzled frown on his face, the farmer snatched the bucket, went to the rear of the fire-appliance, opened the big green doors to gain access to the pump and turned on a valve. The first trickle of 1500 litres of water started to run out.

Leaving the bucket filling, the farmer walked back in, still chewing and not saying a word, slamming the front door as he went.

So much for German efficiency.

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