大象传媒

Chapter 2.

In Which I Go To France.

It's a strange feeling to be going away from England and not knowing if we would ever return. Having heard tales and seen pictures of the last war my thoughts were somewhat mixed.

The following morning we woke within sight of the French coast. Even now I can picture in my memory the port of Cherbourg growing larger every minute. Excited? you may ask. Yes, I suppose we were excited to be landing in a foreign country, with strange tongues and customs, but we saw little of that. No sooner had we landed than we were marched off to a large shed where we dumped our kit and lined up for a meal. Did I say "meal"? It was our first mess tin experience. Soup and tea and our first biscuits (dogs, for the use of). Believe me, those biscuits would break the best of teeth! Breezy Blackpool, said the label on the packet - should have been Blackpool Rock! The whole BAD was lined up and detailed to go to various other BADs for Field Ammo Storage training. The squad I was in went by train. What a journey! In horse boxes too. "40 hommes, 10 cheveaux" said the inscription on the wagon. As it was we were about 20 to the wagon. What a nightmare, chugging along on those bumpy tracks, impossible to get any sleep - and cold! We were frozen. For 36 hours we went like that, stopping only twice for tea and a meal, until the train pulled up in the tiny village of
Pluret. Thankfully we filed out, only to be split up again to go to the various billets. I struck lucky at No. 3 sub depot with a really grand bunch of old soldiers who knew all the ropes and quickly made us at home.

That afternoon, being Christmas Eve, we went out on the spree to the town of Lunyen, a few kilometres away. It was a very quaint old place and the people were kind and helpful. That evening was one I shall never forget. We went to a cafe and studied the menu which, being in French, meant absolutely nothing to us. We pointed at something and by good luck we got omelette and chips. Of course, when asked what we wanted to drink we did as all Englishmen do on going to France for the first time and ordered "Champagne, s'il vous plait". Having dined well and drunk a couple of bottles of champagne, we felt at ease with the
world. Some French soldiers joined us. "Sing in English" was the order of the night and sing we did. "Tipperary", "Pack up your Troubles" and all the old last war songs, until we had the whole cafe joining in. As the Madame de le cafe said, "Ou la la you boys, just like your fathers in the last war, toujours gai". With that spirit we continued through Christmas and, considering that it was our first one away from home, it was a good one.

Those early days in France were peaceful ones. We were taught all about the mysteries of ammunition until we were considered fit enough to manage a depot of our own and were them sent to our depot at the village of St. Sanes. Having established a nice little depot in the heart of le Foret d'Havres we began to realise that there really was a war on. The realisation came with a jerk. My first air raid.

Having been to the films, the lads were slowly ambling back to the lorry and a couple of planes were circling high above our heads. "One of ours", remarked someone. Famous last words for no sooner were they uttered than down came the planes. "Jerry!" was the shout. I've never moved so fast, for at that time I was in the middle of the station yard. I ran for the nearest ditch and at that moment down like bats out of hell came the bombs with a nerve shattering shriek. Then I really flew for the blast threw me into the ditch I had been making for, where I landed on top of one of my pals who had got there before me.
His remarks when his breath returned were quite eloquent. In fact according to him my ancestors were not all they should have been! The raid was over and the air was full of dust and fragments of the destroyed houses. Lucidly casualties were small so, as we were not needed, the lorry took us back to the billet. The lads who hadn't been with us told us we were lucky to have experienced an air raid. What we told them was nobody's business! Raids like that occurred quite frequently and we became used to hearing a plane and taking a flying dive for a ditch.

The radio kept us in touch with the progress of the war. All was not going well.. At night we could hear the rumble of the guns and could see the horizon lighting up with flashes and frequently the blaze of some farmhouse burning. Each day it got closer. Suddenly one night we had the order to retreat. Never have I felt so ashamed and so helpless as I did at that moment. Could it be that the British Army was being beaten by the German Army? What was wrong? Lack of ammo? Impossible. We had a depot full

For nights, as we travelled back, the questions kept repeating in my brain. Then a story here, a story there and yet another story told the pitiful tale of women and children wandering in streets crowded with refugees, of the Fifth Column and the hopeless bravery of men fighting tanks with bayonets, out numbered and out gunned, with spies all around. The army fought on until one day we were ordered forward again to send the ammo depot to places further from the lines.

For a month we toiled filling train after train sending the ammo back to where we did not know. From dusk to dawn we worked unable to show a light by night or a head by day. As it was Jerry got to know and gave the depot a pasting. By some act of fate nobody was hurt. I am not a religious man as a rule, but I prayed a lot in those days. Then one evening we were sitting in our billet listening to a borrowed wireless when we heard the familiar sound of the 6 o'clock pips followed by "This is the six o'clock news -鈥斺��-The following statement has just been issued 鈥斺�擜ll members of the BEF have now been evacuated from France". Absolute silence reigned. Someone switched off the radio. Can
you imagine our feelings and our thoughts at being there in that little farmhouse miles from anywhere and not knowing where the Germans were? As we were debating this our O.C. arrived and said, "Come on fellas, we are leaving. I've just had word from H.Q. and a lorry is coming soon I hope. Take all the kit you can and open the NAAFI" (as we called our unit stores). As the lorry turned up so did a wagon full of RASC whose driver and mate came in to collect all the Small Arms Ammunition we had. As I was in charge of that area I was told to
take them to get it. Our own Staff Sergeant volunteered to come too and so did a couple of my pals, stout fellas were they. The O.C. said he would send another lorry for us.

The RASC wagon was duly filled and went on its way. We waited close under the shadow of a wall, just four of us alone on a dark night with the knowledge that "All the BEF had been evacuated" and not certain if a lorry would turn up. A quarter of an hour passed and then another went by until we could bare it no longer and we took up our kit and started to hike. Later the lorry found us and we very thankfully joined our own mob.

Back and back we went, first towards Cherbourg - no ships there. To StMalo some cried. The lorries by this time were nearly all on tow and we could only travel by night. We came to a little village near Rennes where we were told that our only hope was St. Nazaire and we could go by train if we emptied it first. It contained ammo! Never had a train been emptied so quickly! When we arrived at St. Nazaire two big troopships were in the harbour - the last to leave France I was told. Little launches full of troops were darting from the dockside and back again for more. In the middle of it all Jerry paid a visit, fortunately doing little damage.

We managed to get aboard one of the troopships and later they both left the French shore. On the following morning, somewhere in the Atlantic, I noticed that the other boat was missing. I was asked how I had enjoyed all the excitement yesterday, but I didn't know what they were talking about as I had been below deck sound asleep. The other ship had been the Lancastrian, that ill-fated ship that went down with thousands of troops aboard and I had slept through it all!

That evening as we steamed along, not knowing where we were going, I saw an object on the horizon so I borrowed a pair of glasses for a better look. What a thrill ran through me 鈥� the Eddystone Lighthouse! Never did anything look so beautiful. I don鈥檛 know if I was the first to see it, but the word went round the ship like wildfire. Later that evening we pulled into Plymouth Sound at last!

One would have thought we had just come back from winning the War instead of just having been kicked out of France. The greeting those Plymouth people gave us was wonderful, cup of tea, cakes, pastries and even postcards to write home 鈥� and they paid for the stamps. An amazing Race are the British; nothing ever gets 鈥榚m down.

Soon we were seated in trains northwards bound. Leicester was the first stop, where we were in civvy billets for two nights and treated with utmost kindness by those good people. But no peace 鈥� onwards again, stopping at Nottingham this time. Here we were under canvas, but we didn鈥檛 mind. We were in England, alive, safe and well.

Chapter 3.
In which I do some Serious Training.

The following two and a half years were quite uneventful ones, for most of my time was spent on ammo depots. It seemed very queer to me that I should be living in the comparative peace of an ammo depot way out in the wilds while the people who lived in towns were getting bombed night and day. A strange twist of fate, I think.

During those days I went on the Ammunition Examiner鈥檚 Course, three of the most interesting months I've ever spent, and thus became one of the I.0.0. Staff, or as our friends called us. That bunch of 鈥�- scroungers".

Once again the flap started. I was posted to an O.A.C. which was proceeding overseas. "Heigh Ho, what a ruddy life!鈥�, I thought and went on Embarkation Leave. When I got back the draft was cancelled and I found myself in a Beach Landing Group. That meant nothing, but I soon found out that we were an Invasion Ammo Section and that our duty was to form an ammo dump at a newly taken beach head during an invasion of enemy territory.

Then the training started! We were chased up and down the Scottish Highlands, through lochs (with or without boats), sleeping out in the open in winter, until we were considered trained and fit. I must admit that I felt fitter then than at any other time in my life. Finally we completed a large full scale exercise named "Dryshod". I can't remember getting any wetter in all my life, but that's by the way!

We were having a few weeks to ourselves and generally enjoying life when the hammer fell. I was called into the O.C.鈥檚 office and the conversation went something like this -
"Well, Staff, things are happening. You have to report to the R.T.O. with three men. Battle Order only".
"Where are we going Sir?"
"Don't know. On a raid 1 expect. Take who you want and give me their names. By the way, don't let them know anything".
"Yes Sir" I replied, with knees knocking and a queer feeling inside. I detailed some of the lads, warned them, and we vanished from the camp without a word of our going.

At the RTO.'s we had to strip off our formation signs and badges and report to R.T.O. Docks. "This is it", we thought. The dock was a hive of activity with boats starting to load. I was on detail to watch the storage of the ammunition going on board. "So this is what the excitement is all about", we said. Then I noticed a peculiar thing. No box package or lorry had either formation or Army sign on it, while all the boats had invasion craft slung on board. The great day couldn鈥檛 be far off. So we went to work with a will. Alter a week we were sent back to our Unit, only to find another hive of activity. We were packing. That completed we sat back and waited for the word to go. It wasn鈥檛 long in coming. One morning at 0530 we boarded a train bound for the docks. The embarkation completed we steamed down the Clyde to await sailing orders. We waited 10 days, doing PT on deck and practicing getting in and out of invasion craft at night. Once we did a mock invasion of the deserted coast, followed by a 20 mile route march and back on board again.

Then at 22.00 hours one night we felt a tremor run through the ship as her engines started to turn the propellers. We were off at last. What fate had in store for us we knew not.

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