大象传媒

This contribution was submitted by Cyril Totman to the People's War team in Wales and is added to the site with his permission.

Well basically I was being trained in those days as a radio repairer it was in the era in the 1930s where everything was just starting. I did a course with Pye in Cambridge and they were still building the Pye cube portable which was a huge thing in a wooden cabinet, supposed to be portable! It was an icon at the time as it had a rising sun on it, you鈥檝e probably seen a picture of it, it was a famous one. I came from a small market town in Suffolk - Sudbury, the birth place of Gainsborough. I was being trained in radio, but I didn鈥檛 really begin training until I joined the RAF because their training in radio was absolutely superb, well all the training was, the gunnery training was absolutely fantastic. They made you name and strip down a machine gun and name all the parts, it was that intense. With radio they really went into it deeply, in those days the equipment on aircrafts was very basic as far as radios concerned. It wasn鈥檛 until they brought out this model (brings out model). When they brought this out. These are still available, they don鈥檛 use them in RAF but in the amateur world these are absolutely icons, this is the transmitter, that鈥檚 the receiver this is American, transmitter receiver again鈥ne you find in a Wellington the other a Dakota. So I did a thorough training. I did my basic training in Blackpool, I learned morsecode in Blackpool, but also at two radios call in Yatesbury (Wiltshire). I did my air gunnery in Pembrey. I was then sent to 13 Operational Training unit which was a method of getting the pilot the observer and the air gunner wireless operator together as a crew. They then transported us to Freetown by the Royal Navy we went to Guroch on the Clyde, and joined the Royal Navy in a submarine depot ship that was en route to the Far East. We went as far as Sierra Leone. From Sierra Leone we went to Cairo via Lagos, and Khartoum. This was prior to El Alamein. When I was in the Almaza transit camp - I was there a long time, waiting to go to the Far East, tho I didn鈥檛 know it at the time - I was bored to tears. So bored that I used to help in the post office! Suddenly on orders came the request of people who could drive. I鈥檇 driven a van and I thought 鈥淚鈥檓 bored to tears, lets give it a go鈥� so I volunteered. I was taken to a motor pool. There was about 10 of us. We were given three ton lorries, left handed, American pattern. We were told to drive up this road, I think it was the Derna in Saraniger (now Libya) We picked up these squaddies鈥�.from the 51st Division I think it was. I towed in this lorry three things, a petrol bowser,which was empty but full of water (we were in the desert). We relied on that water to relieve the thirst and it tasted of petrol. Anyway I towed that, I towed two bomb carriers in a line. So I had three items I was towing and we went in convoy back to the delta. We got rid of the squaddies in a cab somewhere I dont remember where. We got rid of the lorries and we were taken back to Almaza.

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