大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Ann Redgrave of Norfolk Adult Education鈥檚 reminiscence team on behalf of John Miller and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

I joined the RAF as an Aircraft Apprentice in 1936. After a three year training course I was posted to a squadron at Cranfield, and after only nine months experience of working the war came. In August 1939 my squadron was posted to Watton in Norfolk where I joined the 21 Squadron Blenheim Bombers.

The transition from peace to war was just like that. We were under war conditions straightaway. Our aircraft were operational from the word go. As the days and months went by our operations became more and more dangerous. I didn鈥檛 fly; I was on the ground, but our losses were pretty terrific and of course we felt the loss of the initial crews more because we knew them from peace time. On one occasion, on May 17th 1940 we sent 12 aircraft out and only one came back and the Squadron Leader at the time was told that the squadron would be disbanded. He said: 鈥淣ot B鈥� likely. I鈥檓 not disbanding anybody. You get me the aircraft and I鈥檒l get flying鈥�. Which he did, and of course that boosted everybody鈥檚 morale. The operations went on through 1940 until August when we had the same procedure 鈥� we sent 12 aircraft out to places in Denmark, and only one came back. Life was pretty grim looking back, and upsetting, because a lot of these crews were only young people. I was only 20 or 21 and the crews were the same age. One day they鈥檙e there and the next day they aren鈥檛. Life was going on at such a pace that you didn鈥檛 have time to worry about it really. It was afterwards I thought about it.

When I joined the squadron I was what they called an AC1 鈥� Aircraftsman First Class, and after a couple of months the Flight Sergeant said to me 鈥淚鈥檓 going to send you on a course to become a Leading Aircraftsman. You鈥檇 better pass or don鈥檛 come back鈥�. So, I duly passed. As the war went on there were more people coming in and, although I wouldn鈥檛 say they were completely untrained, many of them had less training than I had, so we were put in charge, and the next thing we knew we were Corporals. In November 1941 I was invited to go on a cruise on a troop ship. We wandered around in the North Atlantic and South Atlantic and eventually finished up in Durban where there was a lot of confusion as to where we were going and what we were doing. Pearl Harbour had happened while we were at sea, so there was a lot of change of plans and we finished up in Suez, up the Red Sea, and nobody knew where we were going. We were eventually put on a train which went up to Cairo, where we stopped briefly, until continuing to Alexandria. Here we disembarked and got on some lorries and went up towards the desert, I suppose about 30 miles to a place called Burg El Allah. We were dumped down there and we asked: 鈥淲hat are we supposed to be doing?鈥� We were told we would be doing aircraft service, but the first aircraft that came we couldn鈥檛 do anything with because we hadn鈥檛 got any tools!

I was sent down to a maintenance unit at the Suez Canal which was receiving American aircraft from the United States where I asked whether they had any tools we could have. They said they had no tools, and asked why I wanted some. We decided there might be some in the stores in the desert which were covered with tarpaulin, so we went down to see the Technical Officer. We had a letter from our CO, but he said he hadn鈥檛 got any tools to give us. Well, we knew that every aircraft that came had a set of tools with it and we said to him 鈥淵ou don鈥檛 want all those do you?鈥� But he still said he hadn鈥檛 got any tools. Back we go to the stores and having searched the area we found some tools which we knew were American tools. We made a decision on the spot, and got the packing case, which was quite heavy, onto our truck. So back we go to the stores and said 鈥淎re you absolutely sure you have no tools?鈥� He replied 鈥淲e haven鈥檛 got any spare tools on the place whatsoever鈥�. I asked if he was willing to put that in writing and he agreed. So off we went with this tool kit, not really knowing what was inside it. When we got back to our station our CO asked whether we had got anything and we said: 鈥淵es, we鈥檝e got something, but we haven鈥檛 opened it yet鈥�. Well we opened the packing case and it was like Aladdin鈥檚 Cave with all chrome-plated tools and everything. He asked where we got them so we told him the story, and he said we would get him shot. Eventually, about ten weeks later, he came across and said he had a letter to show us. It was a letter from the headquarters of the Middle East saying that they had lost a tool kit. He said: 鈥淲hat am I going to do?鈥� and I said: 鈥淲ell, keep quiet! The thing is, we鈥檙e all going to be on the move shortly and they won鈥檛 have time to worry about tool kits鈥�.

From where we were we moved down to a place near Suez and our job was to repair and salvage aircraft which had crash landed in the desert. We had to go up there, gather the bits, and try to put them together and repair them. That doesn鈥檛 sound too bad, except that we had no spare parts. We had to 鈥楳ake Do and Mend鈥�. Eventually Al Amein came along and it just so happened that the weekend before we鈥檇 been up to Cairo. We had a swim in the swimming baths in Cairo which belonged to the Italian community. Anyway, I managed to knock my shin on the ladder getting out of the pool. Back at the Unit on Monday morning I went across to the Sick Bay where the Medical Officer told me I鈥檇 be alright. Well, it wasn鈥檛 alright because the next day I couldn鈥檛 walk on it, so the Medical Officer said I鈥檇 have to go to hospital. Normally I heal up pretty well, but out there things didn鈥檛 heal up so well. So I went to the Army Hospital for a couple of days to clean the wound up. The Medical Officer came round every morning and said I鈥檇 soon be home, but it just wouldn鈥檛 heal. I was an 鈥榰p鈥� patient on the ward, and the Sister said that as I was up I could do some work, so I was doing all sorts of things in the wards. I hadn鈥檛 been there long before the casualties from Al Amein started coming down the Suez. Some of them were in a terrible state 鈥� legs missing and all sorts of things. I remember one chap about my age who was wounded in the shoulder and leg. They found shrapnel in the calf of his leg and he couldn鈥檛 put any weight on it at all. They decided to send him for another X-ray so that they could be sure of where exactly the shrapnel was. Well, on the appointed morning they couldn鈥檛 find the bit at all. They said they鈥檇 have to give him another X-ray, but by this time he had a fever and they couldn鈥檛 operate on him. Once the fever passed they did the operation and when he came back onto the ward his leg was in plaster from the fracture. I was given the job of draining his wound every morning. You never smelt anything like it. The sore didn鈥檛 heal with passing time, so they decided to take the plaster off. I can see it now 鈥� the whole of the plaster was full of maggots. They said, don鈥檛 worry, we鈥檒l clean all this up, and soon his leg was clean as a whistle. Another thing with this chap was that he was meant to drink a bottle of Guinness a day because he had lost a lot of blood. As he didn鈥檛 want to drink it, I ended up with the pleasure of drinking it for him. In time he was shipped off to South Africa.

Eventually I said to the staff at the hospital that I was fed up with being there and they had to do something to make me better. They needed the beds. The following night the sister came and looked at my wound and sprinkled white powder on it and put the dressing back on, saying that I mustn鈥檛 tell anyone what she had done. The next morning the MO came along and said that it had improved greatly. She stood behind him signalling to me to keep quiet. I asked her what she had done later but she wouldn鈥檛 tell me.

Anyhow, I got out of hospital and went back to where my unit had been, and found that they had gone. I went over the road to a transit camp and asked what would happen. They said I would be moved to another unit, but I didn鈥檛 think much of that. There was another chap there from my unit. We had to report every morning to see if there was any news and after several days we decided between us that if there was no news the next day we would take off on our own to find our unit. The next morning they still had nothing for us, so we said 鈥淩ight, we鈥檙e off鈥�. We were told that we couldn鈥檛 do that, but we hitched a lift on a lorry up through Cairo and Alexandria. Eventually we came to an RAF camp which distributed rations, where there happened to be one of the lorry drivers from our unit. He said they were just up the road, so we went with him. We walked into the Orderly Room and were asked what we were doing there. I said I was out of hospital and so had come back but he said 鈥淵ou鈥檝e been posted. You鈥檙e not supposed to be here鈥�. But I said I wouldn鈥檛 go anywhere else because all my kit was there, so eventually he said I would have to go and see the CO. He said he鈥檇 fix it for me to stay. On paper I was posted somewhere else, and then posted back again.

Our job was to fix any problems with the aircraft that the squadrons couldn鈥檛 fix because they were too complicated. We salvaged aircraft where possible, but if we couldn鈥檛 do it, they went all the way back to Egypt for them to have a go. We had no spares or anything. We just had to do our best. We never had any maps when we were sent to salvage aircraft; we were just given rough directions. We salvaged Wellingtons on a lorry that they called a Queen Mary, with a mobile crane. I鈥檇 sit a chap right up on the top of the crane to look out for the aircraft we were supposed to salvage. Weather conditions were far from ideal and we had to take all our water and rations with us for three or four days at least. It was all desert and during the night it was freezing. I took it upon myself to make the tea in the morning, together with the porridge. I鈥檇 get the porridge to the right consistency and then call out to the lads to get up and they鈥檇 have their tea and porridge. (Some time after the war I was stationed at Newmarket and a chap came running across the road there one day and said 鈥淚t is you, isn鈥檛 it 鈥� the Porridge King of the Western Desert鈥�. He鈥檇 never forgotten the marvellous porridge he鈥檇 had!).

The whole of the time I was in the desert I didn鈥檛 have any firearms at all issued to me, but when we arrived in Tunis after the surrender there, we were allowed to pick up German weapons. At the tip of Tunis there had been a lake and this had drained to make a completely flat airfield about three miles long. We were using that until the beginning of October and then we were told that we were moving out because the rains would start and the lake would get flooded. October 2nd it started to rain and by the time morning came there was six inches of water all over the lake and we were sitting in the lorry. That morning we had to get all our kit out and get it dry. We got on the move again in December 1943. We went back through Tunis and up through Bizerta, where we embarked on flat bottomed landing craft. We didn鈥檛 know where we were going, but we had quite a good crossing and finished up at Naples. The trouble at Naples was that when the Germans had moved out they had smashed up the docks and the stuff that could get in there at one time was pretty limited, so we had to take our turn. Eventually we got into Naples and got our lorries off, and then asked where we should go. By then it was dark and raining, and we were told to follow the route signs. My driver missed the signs altogether and we ended up in a narrow street with washing strung across it and couldn鈥檛 turn round. Eventually we came to a little square with a fountain and we managed to get round that.

We eventually found our transit camp and had a meal. The next day we were on the move again, and went from Naples over the mountains to the east side of Italy. The truck my gang was in lost its fan belt and we were boiling over. So we stopped in this little village on the top of one of those hills, and pulled off the road into a square where there was a war memorial. We were stuck there, and knew we would have to wait for someone to come and tow us. Nothing happened, and night came on, so we attempted to bed down in the back of the lorry. Then a pastor appeared and although he couldn鈥檛 speak much English he took us two at a time to sleep elsewhere. Eventually I was the only one left and I said I would stay with the lorry. But he opened some nearby gates for me to put the lorry in, and took me into a house occupied by a woman and her two daughters. I was offered a seat and given a huge dish of food. I didn鈥檛 think he鈥檇 leave me there alone with the girls, and after a while he took me to a small village hall where he had the only water closet (as he called it) in the village. I slept on the floor by an open fire and it was lovely. The next morning I got up and it was snowing, so we knew we were in a real fix. I went back to the truck and the fellows gradually turned up. We asked each other how the night had been, and everyone had had good meals and beds to sleep on.

People began to pass by laden down with baskets. When asked what the people were doing we were told they were taking food into Naples because the people there were starving.

Eventually a big army recovery lorry came along and picked us up. We went with him and came to a town called Foggia. In time we found the town we were looking for and our own Unit. We completed our work on that airfield alongside the Americans. One day they were loading their bombs onto a plane and they had more bombs than we did. An American Navigator told us that they weren鈥檛 getting on as well as expected and described an occasion when they had been over Yugoslavia and they had all dropped their bombs because they were lost. When I saw him again a couple of weeks later he said that the Germans were no fools and the moment you thought they were was when your number was up. The Americans were becoming wise to the realities of the war.

In June 1944 we were working on the airfields there and a lot of Americans started jumping, shouting and carrying on. They came over to us and told us that the Allies had landed in France 鈥� that was D-Day. They said the war would soon be over, but we knew that it would take a while yet.

At the end of 1944 we went home. We got on a French ship at Naples and travelled across to Algiers where we got another ship. When we landed in England we saw all the lights on and wondered what was going on. Of course, Christmas 1944 everyone was thinking that the war was over, even though it wasn鈥檛. I got back home and had a months leave, and then I was posted at an RAF base in Britain. Just before VE Day we were going to be posted up to Scotland. We were all packed up ready to go when someone came out and said 鈥淐all it off. It鈥檚 all over鈥�.

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