大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Ms Christine Gibbons for Kent Libraries & Archives and Canterbury City Council Museums on behalf of Mr Harry Smith and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

On the 3rd of September 1939 living in Sidcup next door to a high ranking Fire Brigade officer. He was A. J. May and commanded the vessal Massey Shaw a fire boat located on the Thames which helped in extinguishing fires througout London during late 1939 to early 1940.

A. J. May took the vessal to Dunkirk to evacuate many hundreds of soldiers from the beaches. He also introduced me to the Kent Fire Brigade as a bike messanger. He also assisted my father and I in building a super air raid shelter in our garden. It was 20 foot deep and 12 feet square. It was constructed with railway sleepers and with concrete steps going down to it and earth piled over it. Possibly the earliest in the area. It could sleep 6 people complete with electric light and a pumping facility in the event of flooding!.
In 1940 I was probably the youngest member of the Local Defence Volunteers at the age of 16. I was then "evacuated" to Westerham in Kent to work for the Vestey organization. Lord Vestey had a mansion there where some of his staff were relocated. He was a meat importer (from Argentina and South America) producing corned beef. There I joined the Home Guard. I did that until 1942 when I decided to aid the war effort by working in a aircraft factory on the Great West Road making sections of bombers including Blenhems.
In September 1942 at the age of 18,I joined
the armed forces. The first posting was to Chichester barracks which was the headquarters of the Royal Sussex Regiment. After basic training I was transferred to the Royal Engineers. I stayed there for various posting in mid Sussex and was there until the 10th June 1944 when the company was transported to Wansted Flats in East London, under canvas, inside a barbed wire perimiter. From there the company was transported to Newhaven where we joined the ship for France. We landed from a LCT during the early morning of the 11th June 1944 and made our way gingerly into northern Normandy. There I stayed from early June until end of July 1944 when a small detachment from our company was attached to 3rd American Army Group?. They went eastwards to Cherbourg because the Mulberry harbour at Arromanches could no longer be the pivotal point of import of supplies for the army going westwards into Holland and Germanry. So the port of Cherbourg needed to be opened up. I went into Cherbourg just after the German troops had left. The Germans had decided to poison the water supply which effected me and I was flown home during late August 1944. After convalencence in the UK I was then transferred to Inverary in Scotland to join a whole spread of British, Allied and American troops gathered together. The rumour was that we were to be transported to Japan for an invasion of the Japanese mainland. After V.J. Day I was posted to Stranraer at another R.E. depot where I was acting CQMS with an appreciable amount of equipment to dispose of by various means, fair and foul. Fortunately Wellington boots were in unlimited supply and unwanted so I was able to supply the needs of every farmer and his labour force within a fairly wide radius of the port.
I was involved in the "defence of the realm" for 7 years, and they were the most remarding, interesting and worthwhile years of my life due to the range of people I met with their different backgrounds.

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