大象传媒

When the war was declared in September 1939,Tom had been down one of the local coal mines at Steetley. On joining up he was moved around the country to different camps. He was eventually drafted to Durham were he joined the 10th battalion of the Durham Light Infantry from where he and his mates made their way to France.
They landed at Le Havre and went on Cattle trucks to Frevont, Where their first job was to make landing fields for the aircraft. While there, the men were told to get some sleep and then woken up and told to get ready to move out, they had been given Field Service Marching Orders.
Tom marched all night and rested during the day to avoid the spotter planes, covering four miles an hour.
After marching for a week to ten days, Tommy ended up in Belguim on the Albert Canal where he was told to start digging trenches while the raids started. "The only planes you saw were Germans, we were sitting ducks, the only things we had were Bren guns". "When I saw the first soldier killed in my platoon, tears just ran down my face. Talking to them one minute- dead the next. We took one hell of a beating."
Tommy remembers the retreat, as they marched through a bomb hit village, he passed a house which had been blown apart. Something shiny caught his eye, and he went to get a closer look. It was a brass crucifix , which he took of the wall and tucked in to his vest. "I am not a religious man , but I honestly believe it helped me to get back".
( My dad , Tommy, gave that crucifix to me, and I treasure it with the knowledge of what it meant to him and of how he came to have it.)
When Tommy reached Dunkirk he waded into the sea and was picked up by a long boat and put onto a hospital ship which transported him back to Margate from where he went up to Formby in Merseyside. He was told by the officers in his regiment that he was one of seven men that came back from 250, and he had to retell the story of what happened.
After being ordered back to Dunkirk for three months, Tommys regiment went to Iceland and he had been made sergeant. He was put in charge of the reconnaissance platoon for the next two years, then when the yanks came and took over, he came back to England. Before crossing the Channel on D-Day , Tommy remembers sleeping under canvas in some woods and feeling "totally cut off" from the rest of the country. When he died get across to France, Tommy and his party was taken to a prisoner of war camp where he met a local man, Edgar Ellis.
Tommy ended a long Army career by returning to England and going back down Steetley pit as a Mines Rescue worker.

Tom is now 84 years old, and while his memory of present day things isnt so good, he can remember events of the war so vividly. To Tommy and men and women of his generation- we thank you.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.