大象传媒

MY LIFE IN THE ARMY
By Gunner Frank Pemberton
145th Field Regiment Royal Artillery
No. 14373958

It was in 1942, during the Second World War. I was 18 and I was called up for the army with thousands of others. After arriving at Leeds City Station we were taken by train to Berwick on Tweed in Scotland. There we had to do eight weeks training before being posted to regiments. After four weeks we had to choose to volunteer for doing what we wanted. I volunteered to be a despatch rider and truck driver. It was hard work as we had to learn most of it on the hills and bogs on the moors. Eventually we all passed. We were then told we were going by convoy down south to Berkshire. While we were going down the old A1 road, I left the convoy at Wetherby and called home for half an hour. They were all surprised to see me. Then after saying my goodbyes again I set off and picked up the convoy at Doncaster. We continued down south and finished up at East Grinstead to be with the Berkshire Yeomanry regiment. The hospital here was well know for burns and we saw some terrible sights of airmen and others who had burns all over.

After a few weeks we packed up and moved to a town called Shirley near Southampton. Here we had to run a camp for all allied troops going across to France for the invasion. It was pretty hard going here but the American soldiers were good and kept us supplied with cartons of cigarettes. It was here one night that a mate and myself went to town one night boozing without a pass. As we came staggering back to camp very late, a jeep came belting up the road. As it got near us it skidded sideways through the hedge, caught me on my side and knocked me down. As it skidded an ATS girl was thrown out of the side onto the road. I managed to get up and with my mate went to look at the girl and so did the officer who got out of the jeep. He told us to wait as another jeep was coming and told them to get an ambulance. When he wasn鈥檛 looking we both started to go back to camp as we knew if we got stopped we would be put on a charge. We managed to get through the fence okay, but I was sore down all my side. The next day I dare not report sick.

After about eight weeks we all had to pack up as we were told we were all going abroad. In Southampton we all boarded a ship and sailed to Bombay in India, which took 28 days. We were told by the Medical Officer not to stay longer than ten minutes in the sun as it got warmer. Some were very poorly with sea sickness. One day my mate and I fell asleep on deck. When we woke up we were both nearly black. A seaman told us to get a shower in salt water, which we did and all our skin just peeled off (what a sight). I think that is why we soon turned brown.

After quite a journey we pulled into Bombay in India. Everything had to be unloaded, apart from the guns and wagons. We all boarded a train and ended up in a placed called Dhera Dun and stopped there for about three months. It was here that one of my mates died with peritonitis so we had to leave him behind.

After about three months we packed up and crossed the Syn desert which was about 110o in the shade, boarded a ship and sailed to Singapore in Malaya. We moved inland and settled down in some old buildings in Kuala Lumpar. There we had to guard the rice sheds as the locals were starving. I used to give the locals a small bag of rice in exchange for a gold watch or a revolver. It was not while we were leaving that we were reported and the officer made us all empty our kitbags and given them back. We got to know quite a lot of the local people who used to invite us in and have a drink of their local brew. One night I had too much to drink and going back to camp there were about twelve steps to go up and we all ran up and fell down the lot and were spark out. My mates carried and in and left me on my bed and the next morning I staggered on parade and then had to find somewhere to sleep it off.

It was here I turned twenty one and finished up on guard duty. We stayed for about ten weeks then packed up again to go to the port and finished up on a cargo boat and headed for Sorabya in Indonesia. When we landed we had to go ashore in small landing craft called 鈥榙ucks鈥� and had to jump into the sea to wade shore. I could not swim and as the water came up to nearly our shoulders, I was not very happy, but one of my mates was over six foot tall and helped me along to get to the beach. We then made some large fires to dry out, then it belted down with rain all night so we got wet through again. We settled in some old buildings. We were told we had come to help the Dutch troops to fight the Indonesians and as there were lots of hills, that鈥檚 why they wanted us to use the 25lb guns. We were in the school building and behind this were all the huts that local people were in and one day we found someone had broken in and stolen a lot of things. The Sergeant Major and six of us then found a trail to one of the huts. We then pulled out the two men that were inside and the Sergeant Major beat them both up. We then set fire to the hut as everything would have been polluted. They never broke in again.

I had to go with the signal trucks and one day I got a lot of barbed wire round my back wheel, so I had to stop. I could see the Indonesian soldiers in the woods, so it did not take me long to get the wire out. By then the roads were getting very bad with potholes and rubbish, so I was told to find something else, so I volunteered to go in the cook house. It was doing this when I sent a letter to my mother to as her what it would take to make two hundred Yorkshire puddings. Well I got an answer and after trying it, I was quite good.

It was here that we were told two signal trucks had been cut off, so two lorry loads of us went out. We found them but both trucks were shelled to pieces and the eight soldiers were all dead. We had to dig a trench and bury them. Then we all went round in a circle and saluted.

Another day a man went missing and it took about two hours to find him in the toilet. He was put on a charge and tied to the wheel of one of the guns and left in the sun all afternoon.

I had got to know some of the Dutch people in the houses on an estate and as a lot of them were suffering from sores and things on their legs, I used to sneak out and bandage them up. It was like a doctor鈥檚 surgery when people queued up, but after a while I was reported. I had to go before the Commanding Officer who warned 鈥淒octor Pemberton鈥� not to do it again. I was lucky and got off with it.

Me and two other soldiers had to go to a river and pump water up to the camp. One day my two mates had walked back and I was laying there reading. I could hear this hissing noise and after looking around I realised it was coming from under my bed. Kicking at the two ammo boxes a black cobra snake came out. I let it go outside under the tent then got my Sten gun and shot it to bits. Then I hung it up for my mates to see. I was pretty scared.

After about six weeks we packed up again and went to a small airport where we boarded some troop carrier planes and set off. We landed at an airport in a place called Medan in Java. We had become attached to what they called the Air O Corps which was part of the Royal Air Force. They had three Ouster aircraft for spotting over the hills and as it was part of the Air Force we were all issued with white sheets.

I soon got friendly with some of the people and as I was in the Quartermaster Stores I used to pass them the green uniforms through a back window for so much of their money. (A right conman).

We know that troops were being demobbed back in England, so it was only a matter of time. What the people did know apart from our people was we were still out there helping the Dutch troops. After about ten weeks we were all told to pack up again as we were going home. We left in the back of lorries as we left the Three Ouster Aircraft and the 25lb guns to the Dutch troops. We travelled to the port and sailed back in a Dutch liner to Singapore and had a whale of a time. Unfortunately I did guard duty about four times so I was a bit cheesed off. I think the sergeant did not like me. We then boarded a ship called 鈥淭he Empress of Australia鈥� and a corporal and I ran bingo cards and other games to pass on the time and make something on the side. A storm came and they had to stop the ship as the waves were about 40ft high. We were about a week away from England and were told we were all going to be searched. So we threw the revolvers, knives and other things into the sea, but not one of us got searched. I was so annoyed that I had thrown everything away. When we landed in England at Southampton we were taken to a large warehouse and told to go round and pick a suit, shoes and shirt and other things which were then packed in cardboard boxes. We were taken to a camp for a meal and the first thing we got on our plates was polony, potatoes and vegetables and it was great. After a couple of days after being cleared and given our papers, we all said our goodbyes and boarded trains to different places. A Jewish lad and I caught a train to Leeds which was in July 1947. We got off at Leeds City Station and as we walked through City Square everyone was staring at us in our uniforms and bush hats, pus cardboard boxes and kitbags. We caught a tram to Roundhay Road and said our goodbyes. I walked about half a mile to get home and it was about 3 o鈥檆lock in the afternoon and everyone came dashing out, especially my brother Jack, looking for tins of cigarettes in my kitbag.

From going away to coming back it was about 4陆 years. (Anyway I missed all the bad snow in 1947).

Frank Pemberton

The Soldier鈥檚 Lament
If I should die, think only this of me
That there鈥檚 some corner of a foreign field that is forever England,
And there shall be, in that rich earth, a richer dust concealed,
A dust whom England bore shaped made aware,
Gave once her flowers to love, washed by the river,
Blessed by the sons of home.

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