大象传媒

At eighteen I volunteered first of all, originally for aircrew, but I failed the eye test on that so I switched to the Army. Then I volunteered for overseas duties, colonial and I came here first of all (Oswestry) for ten weeks, heavy anti-aircraft training on predictors training as a positioner 鈥� to the officers assistant. When we finished here, I was posted then eventually to the Royal West African Frontier Force, training Africans. I was training them on the predictor and the 3.7鈥� heavy anti-aircraft gun.

We鈥檇 put the African鈥檚 through tests and firing courses for about two weeks. We had to have the guns all lined up, and the gun position officer was there: I鈥檇 have to support him in the whole operation; but whenever they were firing their guns we weren鈥檛 allowed wear ear muffs: we had to be able to hear commands coming from a distance. We were allowed small bits of cotton wool but that only slightly dampened it. (Unfortunately I鈥檝e ended up very hard of hearing as a result.)

Then from there I went with reinforcements to the 82nd West African Division in South East Asia: the Burma campaign. I originally went out to join the 14th West African Anti-aircraft brigade but it disbanded so I did all sorts of things like mortars and then staff jobs and that sort of thing. There I stayed until the end of the war, they eventually went back to South West Africa, and in this case the unit we had demob, starting off in Nigeria, and to the Gold Coast and then back home.

When we got back home I was posted to the 77th heavy anti-aircraft regiment. I was the head clerk. I went to Burma for a short time, but we don鈥檛 talk much about that. I stayed in the 77th regiment until I was demobbed.

I had all sorts of peculiar jobs for instance in South East Asia, they cottoned on to my background and I ended up in the headquarters of this Infantry Brigade on statistics and when they moved 鈥� it wasn鈥檛 called the 5th Brigade then, but when it moved down to the Madras area it became the 5th Brigade. There were three battalions, First, Second and Third.

It鈥檚 difficult to describe as we did all of this is such a short space of time, but it was all very interesting.

You鈥檒l never believe this but for one short time in the Far East, because of my knowledge of Military Law I was sent to the 5th West African Military Prison and Detention Centre in order to document them and prepare them for evacuation back to West Africa.

I was doing stats with the headquarters, I suppose you might call me a staff warrant officer at times, but that鈥檚 just what the post was called. My rank was Sergeant.

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Becky Barugh of the 大象传媒 Radio Shropshire CSV Action Desk on behalf of Alan Cooper and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

See another of Alan's stories:

• I've come back here today...

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