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This story has been written onto the ´óÏó´«Ã½ People’s War site by CSV Storygatherer Louise Smith on behalf of Francis Brown. The story has been added to the site with their permission and Francis Brown fully understands the terms and conditions of the site.

I was a child of five years when the Second World War started. I believe that I remember the very day. At that time my family lived at the village of Cawsand. I must have absorbed the mood even at that young age as I was fearful of gas attacks. I can see now the cloud formation on the horizon above Wembury and remember how I thought that gas was coming.

I was walking towards Rame in company with Edna Thomas whom I assume had charge of me for the day. Along the nearside of the road was a continuous line of stationary Army vehicles with their personnel gathered in groups.

Many soldiers with lorries and cement mixers appeared at places around the village. There were piles of sand and gravel and stacks of cement bags. They worked for many weeks, widening our roads with strips of concrete.

Our next door neighbours, the Jenkins, had two sons. The elder, Maurice, had joined the RAF and the younger, Colin, was a member of the Home Guard.

A building was under construction at Cawsand Triangle. This turned out to be a fire station and housed a single fire appliance; I think it was an Austin, painted green. Up to this point, I remember an old Morris van which towed a fire pump.

A vast pile of steel poles and stacks of barbed wire appeared and men set to work to construct a framework across each of the three beaches. This framework was almost submerged at high tide. Behind this, they erected a barbed wire fence supported by many wooden posts to a height of about 3m. There was a set of gates in the Cawsand fence so that it was still possible to get onto the beach: we did and had great fun climbing on the long line of scaffolding which they had erected.

A part of the beach defences were the Pill Boxes. The soldiers, whom I believe, were members of the Pioneer Corp, constructed these at three locations that I can remember, but there were probably more.

Most of the access roads and footpaths to waterside locations were closed to the public. Roads to which there remained access had blockades in the form of old cars filled with sand, which if invasion threatened, could be pushed into position to block the road.

At the time I was not of an age that I felt restricted by these measures but as time went on, I remember being frustrated by these restrictions on movement. A trip to Plymouth, on the bus to Cremyll and then crossing the river by ferry, enabled one to see how much a garrison the area had become.

There were in fact encampments if soldiers at Penlee Battery, Penlee Fort, Tregantle Fort, Blarrick Camp, Maker Barracks, Maker Redoubt, Picklecombe Fort, Fourcross and Cremyll Redoubt that I knew about. There was also the Royal Navy at Pier Cellars and the RAF at Fourlanesend.

Air raids at night found our family huddled in a cupboard under the stairs. I remember the distinctive undulating drone of the aircraft engines. The Dockyard Port of Plymouth was the target but I didn’t know that. I believed that our village was the principle target and the night that a stick of bombs fell on the village and adjacent fields confirmed my belief. At that time we were able to shelter in the unused magazine tunnels of Cawsand Fort, where we could not have been much safer.

I was taken on one occasion to one of the Army encampments and was able to see a little of what was going on. The camp was a sea of tents and parked vehicles. On one occasion we had to pass a square canvass sided trailer with what, I was convince, was someone firing a machine gun at us. This seemed a reasonable fear, such was the stringent discipline of the time. My adult companion, Sonny Glanville, had some difficulty convincing me it was merely a petrol engined generator.

At a later period the Americans came. There could not have been much room to spare in the Maker and Rame peninsular but somehow they squeezed themselves in. There were blacks and whites and they had to be kept apart; that was apparent even to us youngsters. We did not mind what colour they were, they all seemed great fun with their chewing gum, lifesavers and wagon wheel handouts.

I remember the strange, clumsy looking Indian motorcycles and the neat agile little jeeps. There were GMC and International trucks with six wheel drive and smaller four wheel drive versions. There was a tanker truck which came to collect sea water at the waters edge at Cawsand Beach and struggled back to the road again with its wheels spinning in the shingle.

There were visiting landing craft, several of them on many occasions. They just seemed to be endlessly roaring about, but I suppose that their coxswains had to hone their boat handling skills. It was interesting to witness their efforts to refloat craft which had become stranded on the beach and adjoining rocks due to inexpertise.

The crossing from Cremyll to Stonehouse was made more difficult by the sheer number of small craft. Ocean Quay seemed the focal point and several layers of them were secured there. Our ferry must have appeared a very quaint vessel with its long slender hull and tall smokestack in comparison to the military craft.

A structure had been built on Cremyll beach. I suppose that this was for the embarkation of troops, it certainly provided a convenient landing place for passengers of the Cremyll Ferry when the tide state precluded the use of the usual slipway.

I felt at the time that there was a certain permanency about the occupation of our quiet rural area by troops and the constant military traffic had become an entertaining way of life. There came a time however, when things were changing. The soldiers were moving out!

Under cover of darkness the Army lorries with soldiers aboard moved in convoy past our house, nose to tail, hour after hour.

Military ships had gathered in Cawsand Bay. At first there were a few, but they were soon joined by a few more — many more, until the whole bay seemed full of ships.

It was easy to see that something tremendous was about to take place. Of course there was not a whisper of proper information; there never was. We all knew that careless talk costs lives and it could have been ours for all we knew, so we were always very careful.

We awoke one morning and suddenly realised that the Bay was empty. The armies British and American had gone leaving behind just a few of their men and vehicles.

News of the Invasion came to us in broadcasts by the ´óÏó´«Ã½ but the enormity of this event was lost on a boy who even then, was only ten years of age.

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