大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Roger Marsh of the 鈥楢ction Desk 鈥� Sheffield鈥� Team on behalf of Harry Wood, and has been added to the site with the author's permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

MEMOIRS OF A GUNNER
BY
HARRY WOOD

Chapter 5
The damp drizzle woke me up as I lay on the deck of the troopship, Duchess of Bedford. We were steaming up the Mersey on this grey November morning, and I had slept up on deck ever since we left Sicily. The hammocks and the heat below were not for me, and I slept quite comfortably on deck with two blankets and a great coat to keep me warm. We nosed into the landing stage met by a military band with the Liver Birds in the background and quite a cheer came from the Dockers, as they made fast for the ship, Customs were a mere formality, but it was late afternoon before we entrained for our next destination. Dozing in the darkened train, speeding through a blacked-out Britain, it was daylight before we wearily tumbled out of the train at Great Shelford, a little village six miles from Cambridge.

We were in Nissen huts and had a camp bed allocated. Everyone was in a right good humour and I remember that it was Saturday, as the Post Office was closed and we couldn鈥檛 inform the folks at home that we had arrived in England. Anyhow I sent a letter that caused quite enough consternation in Sitwell Road, and sure enough the following Saturday, it was fourteen days leave for yours truly.

Three of us shared a taxi from Victoria station, Hooky Walker from Heeley, Tom Donnelley, Arbourthorne and I was dropped off last in Sharrow.

Chalked on the wall outside the back door were the words: 鈥淲elcome Home Harry,鈥� and it certainly was a warm welcome from Mum and Dad and my sisters, Mary, Dot and Rose. They spoiled me rotten and I am sure that much of their rations found its way onto my plate. Dad insisted on me going to his local as often as possible, although I didn鈥檛 need a lot of persuading. Mary was on war work in a local steel works, working 12 hour shifts including nights, and her friend Dot Rogers often accompanied her to our house after an evening out. I had known Dot slightly for three years, but from a schoolgirl of 15 she was now a very attractive 17 year old, and I started taking her out. Of course I received a finger wagging from Mary. 鈥淒on鈥檛 trifle with her affections,鈥� she said, 鈥淒ot is just recovering from a broken engagement.鈥� All too soon, leave was over, but I expected my next one about three months later and Dot and I intended writing every day to each other.

Back at Cambridge the Pye Radio works gave our regiment a magnificent time, socials and stag nights; their hospitality is something that we all appreciated very much. Of course, our pay didn鈥檛 go very far, a Saturday night out and that was our limit, we stayed in the rest of the week. The Americans were much in evidence and on a pay scale that was treble ours - prices in the town started moving up. Taxi drivers and restaurant owners gave them priority, and we resented this very much, so there did occur quite a few brawls. What did surprise me was the deep division between black and white American servicemen. I have seen white Americans walk out of a pub if a black member of their forces was having a drink there. We found out later that there were no coloured combat troops in the European sector, but the blacks were used for driving, unloading, road mending and all jobs that we usually handed over to our Pioneer Corps.

The New Year was on us, I had my first stripe and changes were taking place in the regiment. Our Sergeant Major had gone to India and further promotion, Major Fawkes DSO MC was at a staff college, and we had a new officer over our troop. I will call him Lieut. Kitchen, a young chap, about 20, very enthusiastic, full of gung-ho but little common sense and he was to lead us into action. The new Sergeant major was a Geordie - Tommy Davison, fifteen stone, six foot tall, very strong. I knew he would get on ok. He had a big booming laugh even when things went wrong. Sgt Robson was still my number 1, he was ok just now, but what would happen when the flack was flying around. I had a feeling that his nervousness would only increase; there was definite opposition to being in his subsection by many of the lads.

My second stripe followed very quickly and it was obvious that I would now have the responsibility of keeping an eye on our bomb-happy sergeant.

Training speeded up, many men going on courses. I had a week on a first aid course, which was quite a change. Then the malaria bug hit us. The tablets had kept the fever at bay in Sicily, but now the ambulances were busy taking them in droves to the White Lodge Military Hospital near Newmarket. My turn had come when I started shivering with a temperature of 104掳F. I remember being wheeled down the ward and greeted on all sides by my mates in the troop. After the fever had left me I was surprised and pleased to find out that my sisters, Mary and Dot had travelled down from Sheffield to see me. We had a walk around nearby Newmarket before they caught a train back home.

February came and another leave, but Dot was working 12-hour nights, so in order to spend any time together we could only have the afternoons. I think we saw every picture that played Sheffield the first week. Dot was only having four hours sleep in a morning before she met me at about 1 o鈥檆lock. I don鈥檛 know how she kept awake at work making the anti tank shells.

The regiment was now fully equipped but the new guns required calibrating.
This meant a trip up to Redesdale on the Scottish border, a journey that necessitated an overnight stop at Doncaster where we spent a cold night sleeping in the Grandstand on the Race Course. The next stop was Catterick and then on to the firing camp at Redesdale. We lined the guns up on the ranges, our gun being number 2, and I went with Jock Reynolds to pick up six boxes of ammo that had been dumped behind the guns, little knowing at the time that one of the boxes contained a faulty round, this was picked up by Sergeant Knight鈥檚 team Number 1 gun. When they fired, there was an unusual crack and I looked over to see their gun breech split in two and men lying around. On rushing over I put a bandage over a scalp wound of the Sergeant, but the gun layer and loader looked in a bad way. The counter balance steel block had split and hit them in the face as the shell had exploded in the breech. A fifteen hundred weight (750 kg)truck came up and I got in the back with two of my mates, Cliff Naylor from Sheffield and Kipper Heron from South Shields.

A shell dressing covered their faces as we sped to the nearest hospital at Otterburn, but both lads were dead on arrival. Obviously a faulty fuse, but who could you attach the blame to? On our way back, as we stayed at Doncaster, the Sergeant Major gave me a pass to go and see Naylor鈥檚 parents who lived in Canada Street. The police had already informed them of Cliff鈥檚 death but I think they appreciated me calling and explaining how the accident really happened. It was fate really, any one of the four guns could have picked up that faulty round of ammo., and the sergeant recovered but was discharged back to Civvy Street.

All leave had now been cancelled as the build up to the Second Front got underway, and all the signs were that we would be one of the assault divisions.
I asked Dot if she could possibly come down to Cambridge for a visit. Who knows if we would ever see each other again? After making enquiries in the village, a lady whose husband was in the forces, offered to put Dot up for one night in her little daughter鈥檚 room. Dot arrived on the village station Saturday morning, and I wangled time off to meet her and take her to the digs. We met in the afternoon and spent the rest of the day in Cambridge sightseeing. The University grounds, the River Cam, the parks - quite a change from blitzed Sheffield. Sunday morning was church parade and once more we got permission to pick Dot up at her cottage, but I had to attend the church service, so we sat at the back, with my mates turning around wondering why I wasn鈥檛 with them and - who was the bird? Well Dot went back in the afternoon and to work again, the authorities carpeted people who had time off in the war years.

It was May now; the guns and vehicles had gone to an area near Tilbury to be loaded and we were confined in a camp about 20 miles from London. We were allowed one pass to London for 36 hours, and Cockney Raynor offered to put me up at his house if I didn鈥檛 mind sleeping on the floor.

He lived in Islington - true Cockney. Brash, humorous, we got on well together and had been mates since leaving the Queen Mary two years previously. We went in pubs near the Angel, met some shady characters that seemed to have plenty of money and could supply anything, and what with the singsongs and free beer, I was really enjoying myself. From there we went to the Collins Music Hall. Drinks served all the time while the turns were on, it was all rather heady stuff and I was sorry when the evening ended and we went home.

Back in the compound we were now guarded by red caps, no one was allowed out and all mail was censored. It was quite a relief when the trucks arrived to take us to the Docks at Tilbury. We had quite a few newcomers in our ranks, mostly lads in their twenties, I felt much older for my 23 years. The ship we embarked on was the City of Canterbury and how she got out of the crowded docks I shall never know, but we headed up the Channel past the big guns of the Germans at Cop-Gris-Nez. Naval destroyers laid a smoke screen down and the few shells that came over did no harm.

We anchored up with a large flotilla of ships off the Isle of White, wondering just whereabouts in France we were heading. The sea was getting a bit choppy as we slipped anchor during the night, and the next morning we awoke to the sound of heavy naval gunfire, quite close. What a sight the next morning. Ships as far as the eye could see, aeroplanes overhead, the battle cruiser Rodney blasting away on our left and rocket firing boats sending their missiles of death ashore. Coming back from the coast were the wounded commandos and infantrymen, many of them giving us the thumbs up sign. It was teatime before we disembarked into a bobbing landing craft that held 30 men. One very nervous naval rating acted as coxswain. He had made one trip and didn鈥檛 quite relish what he had seen. Sergeant Driscoll, an old campaigner, was in charge as we crouched in the flat-bottomed cockleshell of a craft heading for Normandy.

A young lad called Sidall seemed to attach himself to me. He was very nervous and probably thought that he wanted to share any luck I had coming to me. Just before we hit the shore, Sergeant Driscoll did a strange thing 鈥� he took off his shoes, socks and trousers and tied them around his pack saying he didn鈥檛 want to get them wet. I always knew what a comedian he was but this was the end.

The sailor dropped the ramp too soon and we floundered ashore with water high on our chest, some of the smaller chaps nearly drowning and sergeant Driscoll's trousers still got soaked.

We were on the wrong beach anyway; this was the Canadian sector. There was evidence of heavy hand to hand fighting amongst the pillboxes, but the Canadians were good soldiers and had achieved their objectives.

We moved inland about 戮 of a mile and lay down in a cornfield, darkness was not far away. Sidall was still with me as we shared a blanket each and tried to get some rest. I told him under no circumstances was he to get up during the night; if he wanted to pee he was to roll over on his side.

There were a lot of bullets whistling through the cornfields during the night, but thankfully we had no casualties. Everyone had been issued with 48 hours rations that fitted into a mess tin. We had a fuel block about two inches in diameter that we lit and this was sufficient to boil a pint of water. Into the water we put what looked like a lump of wood, this melted and became porridge.

Another piece of brown (wood) became our beef supper. We were glad to march up the coast, our clothes drying all the time, until we rendezvoused with the rest of the regiment in an orchard about three miles away. Very hungry, we were delighted to see the RASC had created a dump nearby and as the DUKW came ashore and passed our lads we got quite a few of the excellent compo rations dropped off. There was just time to drop a few lines home to say I was safe, then the guns and vehicles arrived to take us up the line in support of our infantry the faithful Durhams.

Pr-BR

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