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This story was submitted to the People's War site by volunteer from The Chepstow Society on behalf of June Traynor and has been added to the site with her permission. June Traynor fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Continues from contribution ID 4124431

The saddest soldiers to come up to the Camp were white Americans. They sat on the steps at the end of their billets, writing home. We used to ask them for chewing gum and were delighted when they gave us some. These Americans used to go to dances in the Public Hall and jitterbug. We used to sit on the steps at the back of the hall, waiting - and this is how I learned to jitterbug. Eventually notices went up banning this dance. The Americans, in their heavy boots, were shaking the building too much! A Texan group arrived and they wanted to party. They knew most houses in Bulwark had only women in them, so knocked on the doors, enquiring if they were going to have a party! One day I was eating my tea and looked up at a mirror on the wall facing the window. A group of them were out in the road, looking in and waving. My mother took fright and transferred our tea to the back of the house! There was no harm in them - they were just looking for fun. Never in the whole time that we had all those different nationalities of soldiers in that Camp did anything ever happen to any children. We were never told not to go out alone. We wandered the woods and fields alone and our doors were never locked. During the stay of the Americans they put barbed wire all around the woods at the back of our house. They dug out very deep, oblong holes which looked like graves! They fitted these holes with guns. Nobody took much notice, except we kids who were deprived of our favourite play area.

Then all hell broke loose. We had an air raid and it was very uncanny that the planes were overhead. The Americans completely lost their cool out the back in the woods. They were convinced they were going to be bombed. Someone had evidently told the Germans about the guns. Things got worse next day when my mother and other neighbours were visited by the police and Americans MPs, questioning about the Army officer in the last house at the end of the street. It was reported that a lone German plane had picked up signals being flashed from the bedroom of his house which looked over the River Wye. He was in the British Army, but was Austrian. He had a very bumptious attitude and was heard saying anti-British things. The next thing was the big fright! Well, we never knew the answer to this, because he disappeared!

I am not sure just at what stage of the War a lone German plane flew up the River Wye to bomb the shipyard. He didn鈥檛 do it, but flew very low over Beachley Camp and shot at a soldier and killed him. The vibration was so bad as he went passed our houses, that a beautiful china-faced doll I had fell off my bed and smashed! My mother very determinedly repaired it!

( The raid on Beachley was on November 9th 1940. The pilot dropped his bomb on the back of the workshops and then turned to strafe the Camp. Apprentice Tradesman Thornton was killed and a sergeant wounded.)

When a bomb was dropped in the rocks along the Wye, a stone shot across the tops of the houses - and I presume over the Castle - and went through the bedroom of the 鈥淩ummer Inn鈥�! It landed against the wooden bottom of Mrs Harvey鈥檚 bed! That must have caused a great deal of talk in the bar the next day!

Chepstow got used to having soldiers around from various countries, but to me the 鈥淩ed Indians鈥� that came amazed me. I could not believe you could have skin that colour! We also had evacuees who became good friends. I can remember well when it came time for them to go home, all in tears. A lot have kept in touch with Chepstow families. It must have been very hard for them to leave the people they had lived with. It was good, in later years, to hear how well some had done in life.

Eventually the camp became a prisoner of war camp. Italians came first, but then Italy capitulated and they were replaced by Germans. At first, anyone seen going near the fences was blacklisted, but as time went by, things thawed out. The prisoners made toys by burning patterns into them and, as Germans have always been good at toy-making, they made some marvellous things. For us to have these toys, we gave them cigarettes. They built a model village around a fire water tank ( EWS - 鈥淓mergency Water Supply鈥�). We used to look through the fence at it and, eventually, the guards let us in to look at it closely. Bulwark people were allowed into the Cook House and Eating Hall to go to their concerts. One thing that has remained with me for life was one prisoner singing 鈥淒on鈥檛 fence me in鈥�, with tears in his eyes. They all seemed so very nice and kindly, and loved children. Not like the nasty Hitler who blackened our version of all Germans. Some of these prisoners have returned to Chepstow and I have talked to them. They all talked well of the camp - and especially Bulwark people. Some have taken bouquets of flowers to people they made friends with, when they were eventually let out for so many hours a day. One thing that intrigued them was that they were imprisoned in a town that had a racecourse.

The War with Germany came to an end and the folks in Victoria Road built a huge bonfire and threw a huge party. Everyone sang songs such as 鈥淩oll out the Barrel鈥� and 鈥淩un Rabbit, Run鈥�. The grown-ups got very drunk. My father returned safely from Syria and remained in the Army until 1957. We never went to Canada!

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