大象传媒

This story has been submitted to the People's War site by Jan Moore for Kent Libraries & Archives And Canterbury city Council Museums on behalf of Mr. John Fogerty and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I went into the Army in early 1940. I tried to volunteer for the Royal Artillery in Tottenham, London. They said that at the moment the Artillery was full, but was your father in a regiment and he was, in the East Surrey regiment, with barracks at Kingston. There I did my first six weeks infantry training and I had to do the drills, weapons training and kill, kill was drummed into my brain.
I was in the regimental boxing team and won a championship medal. At the end of my training, I was all ready to go to France, but we were stopped because of the Dunkirk evacuation. I was then posted to Richmond & promoted to Lance Corporal, still in the East Surrey regiment. In July 1940, I was posted to Lyncombe in Devon, to form the 10th battalion, a holding battalion to provide re-inforcements to others. I was also promoted to Platoon Corporal, as instructor.
After Lyncombe I moved to Plympton, where I had to go to Plymouth during the Blitz to evacuate residents to the safety of the moors. I then went to St Austell, where I had to pull out the victims from the first house in Cornwall to be bombed.
After that, I was made up to Sergeant with the East Surreys.
I got 14 shillings a week, with 7 shillings going to my wife and 2 shillings going to barrack expenses, so I used my boxing expertise in matches, getting 5 shillings as a NAAFI chit per bout.
This went on for some time.
I drilled all the soldiers, making them into men. I copied my own sergeant, to give everyone the best chance of surviving. All of the training involved live weapons, so everyone had to be very careful. Following that, I did a course as a weapons training instructor.
At the end of 1942, I was posted to Northern Ireland to the 17th PTC at Ballykinler, at the foot of the mountains of Mourne.
I was a Drill Sergeant training all the new recruits, who then went on to different regiments.
At the end of 1942, I put in a request to rejoin my regiment and go on active duty. When the request came through in 1943, I was posted to Canterbury, to Chaucer barracks. At the end of 1943, I was Orderly Sergeant for the day, the window in my room was open with blackout curtains down, when suddenly it looked like daylight. It was a barrage balloon coming down, on fire. There was an air battle going on overhead and a plane came down, with a parachute nearby. It was a German airman, who I then had to take up to London by train, in custody as a prisoner of war.
At the end of 1943, I had to pick up re-inforcements to take them to Italy, in charge of travelling from Canterbury to Liverpool where our boat was waiting, the P&O liner Stratheden. We sailed up the Mersey, the east and west coasts of Ireland to the Atlantic, where the u-boats were waiting. From there, we went to the west coast of Africa, Morocco, to the Straits of Gibralter, with everybody seasick and finished the trip at Alexandria. We went into Egypt and& there we were posted to the second battalion, Hampshire regiment.
To the end of the war and into 1946, I was posted in Palestine and then I was able to come home to England.

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