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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Meg Harrison and has been added to the website on behalf of Len Eades, with his permission and he fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

I was 23 when the war broke out and living and working in Winchester as a gardener. I was called up almost immediately and sent to the Albany Barracks, near Newport in the Isle of Wight. I trained there for approximately six weeks with other local lads from Winchester, Romsey, etc. I had tried for the Air Force but couldn’t get in because I hadn’t yet learned to drive. I remember us doing a couple of 25-mile route marches while we were there to toughen us up a bit.

Then I was stationed at Southampton Old Docks, close to the Woolston floating bridge. I was there during the Blitz (1941/42) for about six months — patrolling, 2 on and 4 off. There was a Spitfire works across the water and that was a major target for the bombers and a lot of damage was caused to the Docks. I remember there was a food store which was bombed in the New Docks and the fire burnt for weeks and weeks — what with the butter and lard in there.

After the Blitz had calmed down a bit, I was then sent back to the Albany Barracks where I joined the motorized section — the 147 RAC — where I learned to drive! My future wife worked for a grocery chain in Winchester called Pinks and she was allowed to visit their stores in the Isle of Wight — and visit me. Without a special pass, however, she like everyone else would not have had permission to get on a boat to the Isle of Wight. It was risky being on a boat at this time because of the raids and because the journey between Southampton and Cowes took up to one and a half hours in the earlier part of the war.

I was then transferred to the 24th Lancers (where they still wore spurs!). Catterick - a horrible place — was where the training was hard and I remember learning to ride motor bikes in the snow and falling off more than staying on. I also learned to drive lorries (of all sorts of sizes and in all sorts of conditions) and Churchill tanks. The Lancers insisted on greasing the front of their tanks — it didn’t half cause a lot of skinned shins of the men who had to climb up them. The Churchill tanks used to take about ten minutes to warm up — coughing and spluttering — I later found out that under attack they could easily catch fire and burn their inmates. I remember an occasion when I was driving a Churchill tank down a lane and being told to take care because the telegraph poles on the side of the road were waving about after being struck by the air louvres on the side of the tank! We also drove Cromwell tanks, similar to Churchills. I finished my training by driving Bren-gun carriers — these were very difficult to drive as the wheels could lock and being of a lighter weight you could lose control and spin round.

At one point I was billeted in Bridlington, where I also drove Sherman tanks which were American and not much better than the Churchills. Each tank however was different to drive — had its own peculiarities — it you had to learn quickly how to handle them. Changing a track on a tank was quite a job and needed two men to do so. The pins which held the track in place were over a foot long and it was a struggle to get them into place. You had to get the tension right, like on a bike chain — too slack and the track would fall off; too tight and it would snap. You had to be careful driving tanks on roads as they were very sensitive in their steering.

The Lancers were based at Marlborough — out in the woods somewhere. I went on leave for a few days to get married (on 6 June1942) We were married on the Saturday, went on honeymoon to Bournemouth, and on reporting back to the Regiment I found they had been transferred elsewhere. Nobody had told me they were moving. I was supposed to report back by Thursday but it took me three miserable days to find them! They were somewhere in Norfolk. I remember getting off the train at some small station and there was nobody there to give me any help. In fact I had to sleep on the station that night. I remember wandering off into the town — there was a dance on somewhere. I asked around about my regiment and was told: ‘We’ve seen them around but ….’ Not even the Military Police knew where the Regiment was. I had to keep showing all my papers to prove that I wasn’t just a vagrant or had gone AWOL. In the end I found an adjutant who said he would take me to the forest where they were now based. When I eventually arrived at the camp on the Sunday I was just shown my to bunk - fortunately the Powers That Be believed my story of having got lost for three days!

By May 1944 I was with my regiment in the New Forest waterproofing our old lorries for what was to be the D-Day landings. We had scarcely finished doing this job (which involved covering brakes and vital engine parts with grease and plastic/rubber casings) when a whole lot of new lorries arrived having already been waterproofed by civilians. Obviously we were a bit doubtful about how well the job had been done by them. But we had no means of testing them out.

By the end of May I was on my own inside the cab of a brand new lorry, having left Hursley Park loaded with three and a half thousand gallons of petrol and following, as instructed, the lorry in front. We were traveling very slowly, at around 15mph and our destination was Southampton Docks. Once there, I had to drive on to a tank carrier (with a shallow draught) on the dockside. There were so many tanks packed into it that we had to climb over them in order to get some air up above. We then spent a very rough, seasick week going up and down the Channel waiting for the weather to improve so we could land in Normandy. Eventually we approached a beach and I had to drive my lorry off the boat into five and a half feet of water which was a test for the waterproofing! We were supposed to drive with the handbrake for a number of miles till the brakes were dry. It was 11pm when I landed and very dark. We stayed three or four nights at Lagen where our job was to supply tanks with petrol. Five days after the landing, I remember lying in small hole which I had dug to shelter in when I was hit in the foot with shrapnel. Although I was not seriously wounded, I was sent back to England.

I went back up to Bridlington in Yorkshire and was billeted in a lovely house which the army had taken over for recovering soldiers. I remember my wife and my father visiting me there and not at first recognizing me because I had a beard — when I was shipped from France we had to leave all our possessions behind, including my razor etc. Because I loved sport, I played cricket there and kept on getting the plaster cast broken — which delayed my return to the army.

When I did return to France, I joined my mates in the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment (the 24th Lancers had been decimated during the landings). Here I drove Comet tanks, which were lovely to drive. They had Rolls Royce engines. We drove through Germany — I was up in the north where lots of German prisoners of war were being returned from Denmark. We finished up at Luneberg Heath where things became chaotic for a time. I was on guard duty etc. We were rounding up prisoners, disarming and directing them to camps guarded by the Military Police. I remember an incident where one of the men I was serving with was given alcohol by some Russian prisoners of war. He passed out and apart from the fact that he was still breathing, he looked as if he was dead. He was taken away in the morning in the same condition and I didn’t see him again.

We travelled many miles at this time — even to Holland. At one point — two days before the end of the war — the tank I was in was struck by a high explosive shell — if it had been in an armour-piercing shell we would have been killed. A number of infantrymen who were traveling on the outside rear of the tank were injured however.

There were some hard times and some fun times. I grew up quickly during these years. It was quite an experience.

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