大象传媒

We joined up almost from school, Dunkirk having taken place while we were in our sixth forms. Before that we had labouriously dug trenches in the playground as shelter in case of air raids.
It was a strange experience as lads from all classes mixed for the first time in the barrack room, one lot eyeing the pyjamas of the other lot and being stared at in turn as they went to bed in their 'combinations.' But after a few days of being innoculated, kitted out and shouted at by NCO's, all those superficial differences disappeared.
We were cheerful and excited, for what did we know of war? Our fathers knew but they kept quiet. They knew that we would learn quickly enough. Well, some did and some did not, it was all decided by where one was sent. "Nowt you can do about it," said the wiseacres, "volunteer for nothing!"
That might be accepted wisdom, but some of we Gunners got excited about the danger in Heavy Ack Ack of being straffed by the planes we were firing at- six of us volunteered and spent our whole war in Britain. The rest who sat quietly probably got shipped out to North Africa.
It was all a lottery.
At the end of the war came the occupation of Germany and for me North German Coal control in Cologne. That is where the reality of mass bombing was made clear. Acre upon acre of rubble with corners of walls sticking up like broken teeth. In those ruins Germans lived somewhow going each day to work along tracks such as sheep make on a hillside.
One didn't experience hatred, just fear in case we in uniform behaved as the Germans had in occupied countries, but the British Army does not do that. Also a swift readiness to do what they were told. We worked with them trying to put the pieces back together again. Maybe North Germany was less relaxed but the South Germans in Cologne knew how to laugh.
We were billeted in miners' cottages in a village outside Cologne. That statement gives the wrong impression though. The German tax system meant that profit used for such housing was not taxed and these modern houses had, for instance, large bathrooms tiled floor to ceiling in black.
I remember one of the British civilians who had taken jobs in coal control alongside us was terrified at having no sentry guard outside our billet. That is how relaxed it was there, we never thought of sentries. One ran across some fine people too. There was a mining engineer who had refused to join the Nazi Party, but was too valuable to be wasted. His prudent keeping down of his head before the war had left him unable to communicate with us. The habit of lonliness was too ingrained to break.
The children would cluster round our sentries and workshop people chattering like sparrows and eager for titbits. They had no fear of us. This is typical of the British soldier and we can be proud that is so.
A German chap I worked with, one Herr Esser, recommended a dentist when I needed one. I offered to pay the dentist before I left his surgery but he refused saying that he would send me an invoice. It was so nice to be trusted as an Englishman.
Coal trains left the open cast mines around Cologne to take their laods to the countries the Germans had over-run and stripped. The drivers took their trains slowly through certain outskirts of Cologne where there was tree cover. There, civilians swarmed over the open trucks, flinging the briquettes over the side to be smuggled away later. We knew that they did it but looked away, that winter was too bitter to stop the dodge.
But we learned what war had been like when we went swanning round the countryside. Ruined tanks and shattered guns on both sides littered the landscape. One sight was unforgettable; a row of dead American Sherman tanks spread out across a hillside. I saw it nearly 60 years ago and I can see it as clearly now.

This story was submitted to the People's War website by a volunteer of th Stoke CSV Action Desk on behalf of John Pound and was added with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

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