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'This story was submitted to the People’s War site by a volunteer from CSV London on behalf of Douglas Charles Chandler and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.'

Furlough and hard times at home

Suddenly out of the blue in July 1940 they were granted two weeks furlough. By this time Britain was being bombed and from East London they could see fire and smoke as the city burned under the start of blitz. This was the first and only break they had. Imagine how most of us would react today if we had only two weeks vacation in almost 7 years.

DCC had heard that his parents and younger brother had been bombed out of their home in London; he set off to find them. His parents and younger brother were lucky and had not suffered though there was fear that his older Brother Percy was missing. A letter from his elder brother had been posted in Bristol had raised hopes, it seemed that the letter had simply been passed onto a friend, as was the custom whenever you knew someone might get to a post office in Britain. The letter was in fact posted after the sinking of the Lancastria at St Naziare near Dunkirk when DCC brother had been on board as an evacuee (The Lancastria was a 20 ton ferry normally used between Scotland and Ireland in peacetime). He was a young man who gave a false age so that he join the Forces earlier, like many others he was caught by the spirit inspired by the leaders. What an incredible tragedy that so many were dragged into such an awful experience created by so few of the world’s misguided leaders. And still today the same thing continues? Why do we never seem to learn?

DCC’s parents and younger brother were not allowed back into their bombed house for safety reasons, and the potential for unexploded bombs, but it did not stop the looting. “I still remember to this day the things we lost,” says DCC. A violin was among the items, it’s strange the things we remember especially as Dad nor anyone else in the family had any gift for music. The family stayed in an underground shelter in the park at the top of the road and later moved in with an Uncle in North London. This was a trying time for parents to say the very least. In DCC’s case both he and his older brother had been posted missing, while his younger brother was just about to be sent off to join the RAF. An Anderson Shelter was finally put up in the garden before the young brother left for the RAF, it was cramped but the remaining two boys had a spell together with their parents sleeping there every night. (Anderson shelter: as young boys growing up in London after the war my brother and I saw many Anderson shelters, we called them bomb shelters, though a direct hit would have obliterated them, They were about the size of a small garden shed 6ft x 10 ft perhaps, build half into the ground and covered with a mound of dirt which by the time we saw them made them look like grassy knowles. They would have been cramped to say the least for a family, and being build in the London Clay meant they were damp if not positively wet. Many stood well into the late 50’s and early 60’s as garden sheds). At the same time of course many Londoners were sleeping in the underground stations on the platforms, even here it was not always safe and bombs sometimes landed in the entries and scuttled down the stairs into the platforms where everyone was asleep. The family had pictures of their bombed out house in 1918 at the close of WWI and then again the same house was bombed in WWII.

After leave DCC reported back to Whitechurch in Cheshire. I can’t begin to imagine how his parents felt as their two remaining sons left home again. My Grandmother in particular never did really come to grips with the death of her eldest son, even for me growing up in the 50’s and sixties my brother and I often got the impression from my Grandmother that one day Percy (the eldest) would come home. Who knows what pain my Grandfather felt, a veteran of the First World War he too had the silent traits shown by so many war veterans and kept things to himself. He was a wonderful man; on one occasion someone asked my Dad if he could have been like anyone in the world who would he have chosen, Dad didn’t hesitate, said he’d like to have been just like his own Dad. And so it is with me I am extremely fortunate to come from a line of such wonderful Dad’s.

From Cheshire the group from R.C.S. was moved over the snake pass to Barnsley and two weeks later back to Catterick (the main depot for R.C.S.). The group was reformed and put back to training. For a change the duties were fairly light and sport was encouraged. DCC was proud to meet Brian Gomm a professional cricketer who played for Somerset. By this time regular forces were being brought back to Britain from various locations around the world, then one day Brian Gomm was returned home to play for Somerset, subsequently he may well have been called up elsewhere but contact was lost.

In January 1941 DCC and his group were sent north to Scotland, somewhere on the Clyde (Gourock) where about 30 ships were gathered. They were assigned to the Llangibby Castle; a civilian ship still fully crewed with its peacetime crew. DCC was among the NCOs and so was given a cabin while the rest were dispatched below in hammocks. Food on board was very good, and after several days they finally learnt they were bound for Capetown. It was February 1941 (May).

Two days out the ship was losing ground to the convoy as result of “running in new screws??” because the ship had been fitted with new screws just before they left. Not being able to keep up meant they were alone and unprotected. The “silver lining” to that cloud was that the enemy U Boats were focused on the convoy where they inflicted a number of attacks and seemed not to notice the lone ship. Just as well because the soldier’s rifles and the single Lewis gun would not have been much use. They finally caught up with the convoy in time to dock in Capetown. Day passes were granted for two days and the men were greeted and hosted very well by the local people. In fact DCC maintained contact for many years after the war with the family who had looked after him. Then many years later as a family we visited the daughter of Dad’s South African Host when they immigrated to London in the late 1950’s.

4 July 1941 the ship set off north and landed in Egypt at the south of the Suez Canal. Various places in Egypt were used as tented depots. The group had few quiet weeks before moving North West up into the desert. Cricket matches were played against other units; the pitches were made on areas where the winds had dusted away the sand to reveal a good solid base for the pitch. One amazing incident took place when Wally went in to bat, and during one of his wild swings he somehow managed to lose his wedding ring in the sand. He’d just been married before they left England so he took quite a ribbing from the team. After a futile search the ring was given up for lost. The following week another game took place. Remarkably he swung his bat and hit the sand, to his amazement he’d uncovered the ring, Wally was delighted as well as a little relieved, Churchill might have thought he was the boss but as we all know the real boss is at home.

All too soon the quiet time ended and they were joined up in convoy to go up to the desert.

"It was, getting late in the afternoon, and we were passing forward between the wire on a pre-arranged route, which so far had gone off without a hitch. For those who were never in the desert this was a barbed wire defense, which had been built from the Mediterranean borders of Egypt and Libya extending many miles into the desert. Our Unit at this time was well behind the front line- "We had nothing to worry about, except getting to our position by nightfall”. There was a good deal of dust being thrown up by the vehicles but this is not an uncommon sight when moving in the desert. Large stretches of fine sand in a reddish sky ahead pointed out our direction. Everybody seemed reasonably happy... several months of preparation amongst familiar sounding names such as Charing Cross, and Piccadilly Circus was now behind us. With typical English sense of humour these were the names given to the Tented communities where the desert preparations had been taking place. This was going to be such a simple operation Torbruck and back to Cairo by Christmas. Wonderful……….However, within an hour a complete change had taken place. We were now heading hotfoot with the red sky behind us, something had gone wrong up front. Vehicles were almost running into one another as they turned and came back. An order at the front had been sent telling us to turn, "Get back behind the wire!” Of course, we didn’t know what had really happened at this moment, but we learned later that our forward Brigade Division had been badly shot up and Rommel’s troops- whom we were supposed to encircle. They had broken out!

The stories of these battles - our pincer movement, annihilation of Rommel's troops, the battle of Sidi, Baranni Tobruk, the glorious exploits of our own 7th Armoured Divisions are legendary, and have been recounted many times. The point of this story is not to dwell upon those. Nevertheless, we were in the thick of one of these maneuvers that had gone wrong.

Astonishment showed on many faces. This reverse was so sudden, and exactly what to do was difficult and confusing - one minute we were hurtling forward at 20 mph- pretty fast for a convoy to move across the desert. Then next we were retracing our steps: It was getting dark quite quickly, and suddenly before us we spotted the wire. It had been cut in several places to enable our troops to go through. Now the line was pretty useless. Back through the same gaps came enemy transport. In the dusk of the evening we spotted various strange transports amongst us, but then a whole army were up front. Although they seemed strange we were unable to identify the occupants, who, no doubt were in the same boat regarding us. For several miles we traveled side by side. In this form of travel one doesn’t get any nearer than 20 yards to the next vehicle, so it was understandable in this dusk and dust a mutual error was likely.

Soon after dark a halt was called. At this point there was a general gathering of the troops amongst vehicles, a check up on what each other knew, a word with the wireless wagons, nothing very definite discovered. We were to hold fast. There was no action going on, just a quiet mumble of voices as men stood around in groups. Some wanted to light fires and make tea- as ever. It was getting cold, being November, the temperature in the desert drops considerably at night. One vehicle was noticed to have collected a puncture. This was soon righted however. In an emergency one doesn’t need a thing like a jack- the vehicle was manhandled and the spare put on. What to do next was not obvious. Suddenly our co-riders in the strange vehicles had been more Observant probably than we had been, and discovered that they were either in the wrong lines or we were. Whichever way it was they decided to open up; of course not without return fire from us. Who shot up who is difficult to pin down now. Vehicles went up in a blaze, vehicles moved forward a few hundred yards and back, and after this short sharp bout of activity we seemed to be rid of enemy action for the time being.
This all happened in a small area, but in actual fact the vehicles were spread over many miles of the desert, some no doubt reaching as far as the coast. Instructions were received to spend the night in our present positions. This meant getting our own sections settled, getting a little sleep where we could, posting a guard around the vehicles, and awaiting the dawn. There was a little action later in the night but the main fighting was going on some miles behind us. The enemy occupied the northern coastline at this time. It seemed our likely course in the morning was to travel eastwards a few more miles, regroup, or turn south and go deeper into the desert, turning into Libya and regroup in the south. However, at first light we were ordered to move eastwards and then turn north- which I’m afraid proved fatal for some, and the commencement of some years in captivity for others, for we went straight into a heavily mined area. We were forced to stop and were confronted with heavy enemy tanks.

The desert undulates at this area and at any one time only some six or seven vehicles are visible. The few in our sight seemed encircled on the one side by tanks and the minefield the other. Considerable fire was coming from behind the minefield, which proved later to be enemy entrenchments. We left the vehicles and crawled away from them, because these were drawing fire. We lay doggo whilst the Vehicles were shot up in a sheet of flames. Our thoughts were varied during the course of the day. Nobody had come out to take us in, so we gradually got confident we could steal away in the night. There were some thirty men in little groups in this particular Hollow. It meant re-tracing our steps for some considerable distance. This was not a good prospect, although we did have our usual iron rations to keep us going for a couple of days. Water of course was the main snag. However, this was idle hoping…our first spell of ill luck was coming up. The usual evening patrol, motorcycle mounted, came out from behind the minefield and spotted us. They went back for reinforcements who came out with Tommy guns to lead us back through the minefields.

All our arms had gone up with the lorries so there was very little we could do about it. It was difficult to know exactly where we were at this but later we found we had been taken to the outer defenses of point 207. Here we joined the enemy troops in the trenches. There were thirty of us still, and we shared an odd tin of meat from day to day and a severely rationed water supply. We spent 14 days there, most of the time cursing our own Royal Artillery who were Consistently shelling the area, the shells being much too near for comfort, in fact they landed one or two close enough to bury a couple of our colleagues. No one was hurt however. We voiced complaints about our situation and rations, but as far as we could understand their reply was either we kept quiet or they would shoot those who were complaining and leave more for the others. Gradually the situation worsened- aircraft were beginning to attack this point in addition to the shelling, and so they had to retreat.

After fourteen days in the enemy trenches we were told to get out. It was rather difficult to walk, and in fact some of our boys had to crawl on all fours. On reaching Point 207 we were bundled onto an ancient canvas covered lorry and bounced along the now almost rocky surface of the desert. Later in the morning we arrived at Hellfire Pass. We were led down the steep side of a wadi where we were able to get a first view of the enemy emplacements. They had cut deep into the hillside long tube like structures, where no shells could possibly land. In fact only by over-running the area could one get them out. This proved to be so. Down in the bottom of the wadi were a few tents and already some British prisoners were encamped. This brightened us up considerably to see fellow British, they were helpful to us. Soon we had a wash and a drop of hot soup. The sea was away ahead of us, perhaps about a mile, but there was no way up the steep sides these wadies. The surface at this area consists of smooth slate like material, fairly loose, making climbing difficult, and the tops overhang. Obviously many years ago the sea had beaten up as far as this and left this natural cutting. We made brave attempts to clean up our faces — we all had beards, and managed with a pair of nail scissors to clip them off and scrape our chins with a many times used razor blade. While this may have been the first time it was not to be the last.
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