大象传媒

At the outbreak of war I was in London, a civil servant with the Air Ministry accommodation. Evertyone knew the war was coming and London was going to be bombed the first day so I was told to report to
the office Sunday morning, 3rd September 1939. We did but nothing happened. Back in the office Sunday, I and my boss went down to the Cirencester to prepare for the evacuation of civil servants. When we got there the buildings taken over were The King's Head Hotel, the Corinium Museum and the Royal Agriculture College. I went into a billet, the boss went into his. We took our tables and chairs, sent down from London, to the requisitioned buildings and waited. Three weeks later my boss was recalled to London and I stayed until April 1941 when I was called up. I was then 19. The landlord was very nice - he taught me how to drive. I bought myself a motorbike for travelling to and from my home in London.

When I was called up in 1941 I reported to Penarth in Wales. I was kitted out and sent to Weston-Super-Mare for drill instruction/square bashing. We lined up on the beach and 'square-bashed'. We were to choose which section of the Air Force we wanted to be in - I wanted to be a pilot but my eyes didn't pass. I took some tests and they found I could do some maths so they decided I should become a wireless mechanic. I'd never done any radio before but I was sent to Birmingham for training. While I was there Coventry was bombed. I took a friend on my motor bike to see the damage. This was on the Germans 'cathedral run'. I was sent to Ouston then to Berwick on Tweed to man a VHF transmitter. You couldn't transmit in two directions at once so I had to press 'send' to the aircraft then 'receive' to get their signal, then 'press' to the ground station and 'receive' to make sure they got it.

I was then returned to Ouston to join the 49 Wireless Unit. We were then sent to White Waltham in Berkshire. We did foot slogging for miles and miles to toughen up before going overseas. We went by boat from Liverpool to South Africa. We went to Durban first then we were sent by rail to Cape Town - the troop train was even slower than the ordinary African train, with no air conditioning of course. From Cape Town we were loaded back onto a troop ship and sent back around Southern Africa and up the coast to the Suez Canal. We were in a small village about 70 miles from Cairo. We assembled our equipment and practised. There were six of us in each unit, we set up our masts and we transmitted and received back to the aerodrome. We were about 50 altogether. Each unit had a corporal in charge with 2 ground obsevers whose job was to identify the in-coming planes - German, British, Italian, friendlies or not. That sounds simple but although I saw planes flying over I never saw any shot down.

Next we went to Palestine, had a rest, checked our equipment and then we went back to Egypt to a place called Amira by the sea. Our lorries were equipped with an exhaust system which enabled us to drive through water. We were encouraged to go swimming in the breakers. We were being prepared to invade Sicily. This was in 1943. We actually went to Syracuse in Sicily. We expected to use the landing ramps but when we got there we all disembarked onto the jetty. All the ground fighting was over by the time we got there. However, we did get bombed at night. We moved up Italy and the civilians were very welcoming. The 49WU was disbanded and I was sent to Naples for re-training and joined the 237 Rhodesian Air Squadron. The interesting thing about that was the IFF. This was an electronic radio-controlled system for identifying Friend or Foe. The trouble was it didn't work and my job was to fix it. Everytime I requested some spares they said 'out of supply', then the war ended and I never did get it working!

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