大象传媒

We had a 鈥減honey war鈥� for the best part of 12 months when there were no attacks. People girded their loins for invasion and we did practical things like building public air raid shelters: some people built private ones in their back gardens. I once helped a neighbour dig and construct a shelter but it was never used. The air raid wardens and special constables would shout 鈥淧ut that light out!鈥� if someone left a curtain partly drawn. Tradesmen, such as butchers, had the chance to make a great deal of money because of rationing and the black market. I knew a butcher and he once took rolls of money out of his pocket to show me.

I joined up at the end of 1939 at the age of 25. I was married and had two daughters. I joined the RAF because I didn鈥檛 want to go into the Army. I had to go for a medical examination because I intended to join the air crew. They used local GPs who found I had a heart murmur. I joined as an Aircraftman Group One and did my initial training at Blackpool, which consisted mostly of marching up and down.

I remember when I got my uniform I was very proud of it, though the boots were very uncomfortable until I broke them in. I decided to go home as it was nearby: you didn鈥檛 have to catch a bus or train, you simply hitched a lift. I hitched to Preston to show off my magnificent uniform to my wife but on the way back to my base the police picked me up because I didn鈥檛 have a pass. I got seven days confined to barracks!

I was posted to Burton Wood near Warrington, a large country house which the RAF had just taken over. It was a place for aircraft assembly. Women flew the new airplanes in from the factories and it was our job to check them, especially to ensure the signalling equipment worked. When we were preparing to go for the second front I was posted to the Tactical Air Force at Nine Group Headquarters in Barton Hall, Preston. I had to check that the signals operators didn鈥檛 in any way reveal their identity to anyone listening in. They would all have little quirks in the way they transmitted Morse code (for example, adding a couple of dots at the end). The Germans were listening in and would make a note of these quirks and listen out for them again. If I heard anything like this I would get onto the signals officer at the station and get the bod rapped.

At that time that my son, Michael, was born. I didn鈥檛 have a telephone, so when my wife was ready to give birth I rang from a call box for an ambulance. They hadn鈥檛 got an ambulance so a blue van arrived. My wife sat in the front with the driver and I got into the back. There was a plank on a couple of trestles and as I got in I sat on the end of the plank and the other end went up in the air. I slid down and came to a halt at the door. I was sitting in a heap at the back of the van and I could easily have fallen out - which wouldn鈥檛 have gone down very well with them! We went to the Catholic maternity hospital. When I left my wife there I had to get home, but the van driver had to get back to where he was stationed which was the fire station so I had to stay overnight there and hitch my way home the next morning.

When the bombing came, it came suddenly. There was not much bombing in Preston. You would hear the planes coming over towards Barrow, which was full of the shipping and construction industries. I would lie in bed and hear the planes. Everybody claimed they could tell which were German and which friendly, though I couldn鈥檛. The returning planes were the more dangerous because they would release any bombs they hadn鈥檛 had the chance to drop over Barrow. The nearest I ever got to being bombed was at the end of the war in 1944 when the V bombs were coming over. It was Christmas Eve and I had bought a Christmas tree which I kept in the garage. That day I put it up. As I did so I heard a buzz-bomb going over. You had to wait for its engine to cut out and then it would fall and explode somewhere. On this occasion it went down in Walton-le-Dale just beyond Preston. It exploded there. I remember feeling 鈥淵ou bds, this is Christmas!鈥� But life went on.

On the night I was posted to Nine Group HQ I remember going to a telephone box to ring home. The sky was suddenly filled with our aircraft which were preparing for D-Day. At the end of the war the Barton Hall HQ was dismantled and was converted into a centre to prepare airmen for discharge. All ranks would come up for a week and one of my jobs was to give them a chat on returning to civilian life. The man in charge had been the headmaster of a school in the Isle of Mann he was an excellent teacher. They were a tough bunch but he handled them well. I was discharged from there.

This story was submitted to the 大象传媒 People's War Website by Robin Vallance on behalf of Mr Fred Latham and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

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