大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 London on behalf of Ted Shannon and has been added to the site with his permission.

Joining REME:
"I joined up in early 1942 when I was 17陆. Like all my friends, I wanted to get into RAF, but couldn't get in. Initially I was building wings for Typhoons and petrol tanks for Spitfires. Then I was sent for training to Ossett in Yorkshire when I was called up into the General Service Corps as it was called then. Next I went on a REME (Radio Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) training course in Glasgow and onto Bury in Lancashire for searchlight training. I was at Fareham in Hampshire on a gun-site and it was there that I got tickets for a concert and saw two of the most famous people of the wartime. The concert was by the Glen Miller Orchestra and in the audience was General (later-to-be-President) Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was in overall command of the D-Day landings.

Paddle steamer to Ostend:
A fortnight after D-Day, we got on a paddle-steamer - the kind they had in seaside resorts, en route for Ostend and then to try to get into Antwerp, but the Germans still occupied it, and the route there was heavily mined so we had to go back to Portsmouth. That was much to the disappointment of the French Canadian troops on board who'd spent much of the voyage sharpening up their knives. Almost as disappointed, but for completely different reasons were Douglas Young and Nan Kenway (Kenway and Young) who were going out to entertain the troops as members of ENSA.

For the Fuhrer:
Anyway, we were off again, this time to Dieppe in Normandy on landing crafts and then onto Belgium and into Antwerp. While we were passing through Tourville and I saw a barn door which had huge great letters on it in German meaning 'For the Fuhrer' which was quite laughable as the German troops who painted it on where now on the run 'for the Fuhrer'.

'Nuns' over Belgium:
This was happening during the Battle of the Bulge, the German's last big counter-attack of the European campaign. We'd been warned that many of them had parachuted in disguised as American soldiers and, would you believe it, nuns? We didn't see any of them. But we did see low level Messerschmitts skimming the rooftops so close that we could see the faces of the pilots staring at us.

Water safety:
As we were going into Holland, there was a scare at the time that the Germans had poisoned the Antwerp water supply, so we kept our washing water in these huge 10 gallon petrol containers that we cut in half. It was pretty foul, but nothing to what the Belgian people had been suffering under the Nazi occupation.

Under fire:
Then we headed for Holland which was when we came under German shell fire for the first time. That was quite new experience for us as we'd been having a relatively quiet war having been working behind the lines for most of the time. We went through Neimegen where we converted a German hospital into a REME workshop, then reached a desolate town called Emmerich which was completely flattened.

Mines in Emmerich:
We were supposed to stay the night in what was left of Emmerich. Unfortunately, things were happening so fast that the mines in the area hadn't been cleared nor was there the usual white tape around mine fields, but not here. Anyway, we'd been going into this ruined building and I stepped off the cobbled paving and suddenly there was an explosion and I landed on my backside. Amazingly, I didn't feel any pain but I looked down and my foot had been blown off and my other leg was a mess too. While I was laying there stunned a small 15cwt truck came up to investigate. A sergeant saw me and he was walking backwards guiding the truck towards me to pick me up. As he did that he stepped off the cobble stones onto the grass verge, and there was another explosion. The next moment he was sitting on the ground with half of his foot gone.

Sergeant hero:
They loaded us into the truck and took us to Neimegen hospital. I never saw that sergeant again, but I would love to know if he's still around so I can thank him for what he did. Anyway, I had a lot of my mind at that time as they amputated my leg at the knee. And as the right leg had been wounded with lots of bone fragments in it, they were thinking of taking that off too.

Saving the leg:
I eventually arrived up at the Sheffield Royal Hospital where I had the worst part of the whole experience. I was told by a doctor that because the bone had disintegrated in my other leg, they were going to amputate that too. I could deal with the pain, but the shock of that possibility was very hard to take. Fortunately, though, they changed their minds and managed to set it. I was fitted with an artificial limb which was very painful and awkward, and it took some time to get back on my feet and to get on with my life.

BLESMA
I also joined BLESMA, the National Charity for Limbless Ex-Service Men and Women where I did my best to help ex-service people get over the traumas of their injuries and to start living as normal a life as possible. Which is what I did and have done ever since."

BLESMA (www.blesma.org) :
BLESMA accepts responsibility for the dependants of its Members and, in particular their Widows. It also accepts responsibilities for those who have suffered the loss of use of a limb in Service. The objects of the Association are to promote the welfare of all those of either sex who have lost a limb or limbs, or one or both eyes, or the use of limbs as a result of service in any branch of Her Majesty's Forces or Auxiliary Forces and to assist needy dependants of such service limbless. It will also help those Ex-Service Men and Women who lose a leg after Service.

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