大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War site by a volunteer from 大象传媒 Radio Suffolk on behalf of Kenneth King and has been added to the site with his permission. Mr King fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I joined the T.A. on the 9th April 1939. At the time I was earning a meagre wage of five shillings a week in a dead end job and I had never been on a train or even away on holiday. In contrast, the army offered adventure and fourteen shillings a week! I spent a month at a T.A. training camp in Lewis in Sussex, near Brighton.

By the time the war broke out, the T.A. had been mobilized and I was a regular soldier.
In 1940 I was in Dunkirk and spent four days and nights awaiting rescue. We only had five rounds of ammunition and some soldiers only had one rifle between two. We were eventually rescued by a ferry boat from Folkstone. I saw some terrible things, wounded men being thrown over the side of boats, etc.; scenes I shall never forget. We were extremely pleased to be back in England. We were a sad looking lot, very shabby and dirty although I do remember our amusement that the Grenadier guards were ordered to polish up their buttons before arriving home! On our return, we were given a two week 鈥榣ock-up鈥� to give us time to smarten up, and returned to our units. As I was in the Royal Artillery my battery helped defend London and then we were moved to Derby late September 1940 to protect the Rolls Royce factories and a large railway centre. I met my wife Ann there, she was fifteen at the time and we have been together over sixty years.

At the end of 1940 I volunteered to join the paras. Training at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire and then to Ringway (near Manchester)we had to do ground training and then had to do seven jumps. We were told that we would earn our beret and wings at the end of the seventh jump. For the first seven jumps the WRAF were responsible for the folding of our parachutes but after the seventh jump we would be responsible for our own parachutes. Also at that stage no one could refuse to jump or the result would be a court martial.

This was new training and we were the first recruits; in fact, even our instructors had had no experience parachute jumping! Our first two jumps were from the basket of a barrage balloon (about seven hundred feet up). Then we graduated on to an aeroplane, a Whitley bomber. There were thirty-one new recruits. A hole was cut in the bottom of the aeroplane and we all had to sit around the hole and then take turns to jump out. Unfortunately, I was only able to do two jumps because on the second jump I fell awkwardly and broke my ankle and had to return to my unit.

At the end of 1941 my unit was sent to Gibralter in order to 鈥榙efend the rock鈥� from dive bombers. Then in 1942 with the Americans we joined the invasion of Algiers. There were no Germans but our enemy was the Vichy French (including the Foreign Legion) who we tried to persuade to come over to our side, without success. We then moved on to Tunisia where, if we were hungry, we could help ourselves to grapes in the vineyards. In Tunisia, hundreds of Germans surrendered amongst whom was a complete German orchestra 鈥� the 21st Panzer military band, including their piano. The first night after their capture we had a sing song which included 鈥淭he Lambeth Walk鈥�; 鈥淩oll Out the Barrel鈥� and 鈥淢olly Malone鈥�. We were eventually sent back home in 1943 and we were sent to guard prisoners in a cotton mill in Oldham and the orchestra was there!

I was then posted to Radcliffe on Trent in Nottinghamshire. Here we were not told where we would be going next. We received a month鈥檚 training at a firing range in Weybourne in Norfolk. Then one morning at 2.00 a.m. we were marched to the station and caught a train to Greenock in Scotland and on to the 72,000 ton troopship the 鈥業le De France鈥� and we were told we were among a selected few on our way to America. There were about fifteen hundred German prisoners on board (including the orchestra!) They were kept in cages below sea level but were allowed up on deck for a couple of hours for exercise. Our job was to not allow trouble to break out on board and most of the prisoners behaved well although one young German blew pepper in a warden鈥檚 face and tried to disarm him. His punishment was to stand and watch his fellow prisoners eat their supper; there was none for him!

On arrival in New York we were hailed as heroes. We had arrived to help train the Americans on gun firing techniques. We were posted to North Carolina and our stay in America was a very happy one. During my stay there I travelled around and went to Fort Knox and West Point and also to Mexico where I attended a bull fight. But the highlight was our visit to Hollywood where we saw and met many of the film stars of the day 鈥� these included Cary Grant and Hedy Lamarr (I have a photo of me standing near the star). The Americans were very friendly and made us all very welcome. But after eight months we had to return home on board the Queen Elizabeth, there were 12,000 of us, mostly GIs coming over to Britain for D Day. It took us five and a half days.

We were waiting for D-Day. As D-Day approached we were told that only three batteries were needed for every regiment so we had to draw lots. Unfortunately, we lost and my battery was ordered to join the Americans on Omaha beach. And here I met my Waterloo! It was quite dreadful; I saw hundreds of people die and then my gun barrel exploded and I was blinded. I was flown home to hospital. I had to wear 鈥榟ospital blues鈥�, a uniform which we really did not like but it demonstrated that we had been discharged from the army as unfit. I was admitted into Bansted Red Cross Hospital in Surrey between June 8th and 12th 1944 and stayed there for four months. One evening some of the Red Cross nurses invited us to a dance in the village. Of course, we wanted to go but not in our 鈥榟ospital blues鈥� so this nurse arranged to put our army uniforms in the boiler room and we all went to the dance. Except for an unfortunate friend who had lost both his hands and his eyes in an explosion. We put kit bags in our beds but this did not escape the notice of Matron who came looking for us. We escaped from the dance but she caught us as we jumped back in to our beds. She informed the authorities that she didn鈥檛 think that I should be discharged 鈥� I was able to be a ring leader for our escapades and so I was quite fit enough to be in the army! I ended up in Plymouth with fellow NCOs and put on a month鈥檚 course. Leave was granted and after this I ended up on the Gold Coast and then I was finally demobbed in 1946.

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