大象传媒

PART 4

ADDENDUM

The entry of America into the War at the end of 1941 had little impact during the following year. The news from the war fronts was universally bad. During 1943 that began to change as American troops began to arrive for an invasion of Europe. Large army camps were springing up all over the countryside. Near Coventry a large hospital was built in Stoneleigh Deer Park; brick-built huts like the ones built to house workers in the town. Another camp was built in Packington Park, this one to house a division of fighting men. The soldiers spent their leave time in Coventry. They had a romantic aura about them, smart uniforms, plenty of money, sweets and chocolate to give away, even nylon stockings! The impact on the local girls was devastating! It sometimes led to friction in the local pubs and at dances. A girl living near us, my age, started going to Banbury on Friday nights on special buses to attend the dance at a large air base at Upper Heyford. She married a 鈥淵ank鈥� and after the war went to America as a 鈥淕I bride鈥�.

I started cycling at this time. The countryside became littered with army camps and facilities; a huge ammunition dump was built at Kineton with underground storage bunkers. It covered several square miles. Airfields were built all over the place. I could name at least a dozen within a thirty mile radius of Coventry. When cycling across the East of England I saw that Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire were littered with airfields for our Bomber Command and the American 8th Air Force (the concrete runways are still there).

All of the Coventry motor factories were pouring out huge quantities of motor vehicles of every kind. The newly completed Coventry by-pass had one of its dual carriageways closed and a double line of vehicles stretched along its 7 mile length, parked side by side.

The Armstrong-Whitworth factory at Bagington were building a 鈥滾ancaster鈥� bomber per day. You could hear the test flight take off about teatime.

The Standard Motor Company at Canley were producing a 鈥淢osquito鈥� fighter-bomber every day, using engines made at a 鈥淪hadow鈥� factory, which it also ran, about 2 miles away. The 鈥淢osquito鈥� was made of wood. The furniture industry, mainly based at High Wycombe in Berkshire, machined all the parts. These were transported to Coventry and glued together at Canley to form the fuselage, tailplane and wings, which were then taken to Anstey on the eastern outskirts of Coventry to what had been a small airstrip for basic flying training of RAF pilots, assembled and test-flown.

What was known as the 鈥淪hadow Factory鈥� scheme in Coventry was producing 800 aircraft engines per month.

South of Chipping Camden in the Cotswolds the Americans built a huge camp to house a fighting Division, alongside the Five Mile Drive. The verges of the country lanes for miles around became lined with steel shelters (they were Anderson shelter sections minus the ends), which were covered with canvas curtains. We had a look inside one. It was packed with boxes of ammunition!! One day we were riding around a bend in a lane when we came across about twelve six-wheeled 鈥淒iamond T鈥� lorries parked in a line. Their drivers, all Negroes, were squatted in a circle in the road 鈥渞olling鈥� dice; a crap game was in progress!!!

Near Tewkesbury the Americans built an army prison; several acres of field land surrounded by a high barbed-wire fence and watchtowers. Together with our own activities, England was like an armed camp and an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

One weekend we cycled down to our favourite campsite alongside the river Wye, a few miles north of Ross-on-Wye, at Hole-in 鈥攖he-Wall. We found that the small woodman鈥檚 cottage there had been commandeered by the Army. There were about ten men under a Captain who had been shipped back from Burma to establish a single training camp. This they had done in the wooded hillside alongside the river where their 鈥渢rainers鈥� were living in small slit-trenches dug among the trees and covered by their army ground-sheets and undergoing battle training. The 鈥渢rainers鈥�, who we got to know, had been fighting in the Asian jungle for 3 years. They were part of the 7th Indian Division whose flag flew over the cottage; crossed daggers and the motto 鈥淔ORWARD WITHOUT FEAR鈥�.

By the end of 1944 I was sometimes thinking of the impending conscription into the forces. Many of the lads in the cycling club were in 鈥淩eserved Occupations鈥�, which would excuse call-up, their work being classified important for the war effort. Of my friends in the church Youth Club, Ray Hemleman and Bob Coleman were the first to go, both into the Navy. Ray was trained as a telegraphist and posted to Simonstown naval base in South Africa. Bob Coleman was sent into the Army Pay Corps (he was not a physical sort of lad). My pal from school, Len Hudson, went into the Royal Army Service Corps (now the Royal Corps of Transport) and trained to drive and service army vehicles. Earlier I have mentioned that Len鈥檚 father was killed in an air raid, so Len鈥檚 mother was left on her own with his young brother.

I was about 2 months short of my 18th birthday when the first Atom bomb exploded over Hiroshima in Japan and the war was over.

I was conscripted into the Royal Army Medical Corps in December 1945 (I had been in the St John Ambulance Brigade and served for two and a half years). There were no bullets flying around. The world was at peace.

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