大象传媒

I was also in the Home Guard. I had tried to join the army and had been passed A1 fit but as soon as they found out I was an electrician I was refused entry as it was a reserved occupation. I had to go and work in Blandford my OC at the Home Guard told me I would have to transfer but it was impossible as I was 3 miles away from the Home Guard Base so in was released from duties until my return.

Whilst I was at Blandford Camp we had to share a hut, there was 10 of us in each hut. One morning we were woken at 3am by a terrific noise from one end of the sky to the other was full of aircraft. At the end of the day the aircraft returned and I remember one plane in particular. It was an American bomber, a Liberator I think, and it was flying really low with one engine hanging out, trying to get back to his base.

There was a 15 mile exclusion zone around the coast. I had a pass and we went to Bournemouth the day after D-Day. I went for a walk along the road by where I was staying and the road was all blocked by tanks waiting to go over. It was around June 5th and they were waiting for better weather. Looking out to see there seemed to be more ships than sea! All along the beach there was war rubbish, pieces of aeroplanes and exposed land mines. To see the beach now with children back is lovely. It was hard being a civilian there because I felt left out, I was practically the only one not in uniform and every couple of yards I was asked for my I.D.

My company had the contract to build 5 American Hospitals in Malvern, each had 1000 beds. One of the ones I worked on way called Woodfarm and its now Worcester Golf Course.

We then had to go down to Chipping Camden to Northwick Park which was owned by a cousin of Churchill. He allowed all the land to be built on. The problem was we had no petrol to get there. Joe, my mate had a car and he managed to get some petrol so he picked up the 4 of us and took us to Tewksbury so we could meet a coach at 7am in the morning.

We were working at RAF Honeybourne and they were doing target practice. The shots rained down on us and wrecked the roof of the hospital that we had just erected! That was the nearest I came to being shot.

I took great satisfaction if I had to go and wire up a new wing of a factory that was doing war work. I felt that at least I was doing something towards the war effort by keeping them going and helping them expand.

This story was submitted to the People's War site by Jacci Phillips of the CSV Action Desk at 大象传媒 Hereford and Worcester on behalf of Wilf Mound and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.