大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War website by Marie on behalf of Frank and has been added to the site with his permission. Frank fully understand the site's terms and conditions.

The story starts at Easter 1944 when I met my wife-to-be, Ivy, for the first time at the wedding of mutual friends. I was serving in the R.A.F. stationed at Farnborough and Ivy was working as an A.I.D. inspector at Airspeed, Portsmouth. Military preparations were under way and leave of absence was on a stop/go basis: luckily I was able to get to the wedding. Ivy and I were attracted to each other and began dating on a regular basis.

The R.A.F. then introduced a novel scheme to restrict personnel from getting home on weekend leave - a travel limit of 20 miles by rail. I was able to overcome this restriction by using my bicycle for the 36 mile journey from Farnborough to Portsmouth. The tempo of war preparations was hotting up - everyone sensed something big was in the offing - but not saying anything to each other about it.

Towards the end of May 1944 all leave was cancelled indefinitely. Ivy wrote to me suggesting that as I could not get home she would travel up to see me: there was no travel restriction for civilians other than to the coastal fringe. I arranged to meet her at Aldershot railway station on Sunday morning, 4th June 1944. Sunday dawned fine, sunny and warm. I walked (in uniform) from Farnborough to Aldershot and could not help but notice that the whole area was jam-packed with troops and equipment.

When I met Ivy I was somewhat surprised to see that she had brought her sister with her. The sister's fianc茅, Harry, was in the Army, stationed in Aldershot! Did I think it would be possible to find him?

All I had to go on was that he was a tank gunner in the 11th Armoured Division. I had never met him face-to-face. I left the girls in a caf茅 and said I would make some enquiries but if nothing came to light in an hour I would have to abandon my efforts; I was very pessimistic about my chances of finding him. I started off westwards down the 'lines' of barracks, making my enquiries at the guardrooms.

Despite the odd look here and there - a lone airman in the middle of a huge array of khaki battledress - I found everybody wanting to help, although the information was somewhat sketchy - "We think the 11th Armoured Division are that way but we aren't sure. Ask at the next command post."

An hour had nearly elapsed when I reached two barracks on the main Farnborough to Farnham road. I went to open the gate to one of these when a soldier approached from inside - carrying a bucket and brush. "Hello Frank," he said, "What are you doing here?"

It was Harry! Apparently he had recognised me from a photograph he had been shown. We all met up later in Aldershot, took the girls to the cinema and later saw them off on the train back to Portsmouth. Harry and I went for a beer in a local pub before walking back together to his barracks where we said our farewells. That night, and for several nights later, was 'alive' with the sound of moving vehicles - D-Day was two days later.

What amazed me was that I had found a soldier - whom I had not met previously - in a 'needle in a haystack' scenario. Was that luck or divine intervention? Harry went over with the D-Day landings and it was only after V.E. day that we saw him again.

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