大象传媒

Transcription of an interview with Vera Johnson, aged 93, of Rochester, August 2005.

(Vera was in her twenties when World War Two broke out, but she also remembers the First World War when she was a child.)

In the First World War I remember my father was in the Royal Marines and we were living with my grandmother while he was away. I was up later than usual (he may have been back on leave) but anyway my father was up in the front bedroom window and he called out 鈥淕et away from the window! Get away quickly!鈥� Grandmother asked 鈥淲hat is wrong?鈥� and he called out again to get away. He picked me up, I was playing on the doorstep, and he threw me in the house. There was a tremendous noise and a bomb dropped from a Zeppelin on a house in Star Hill near the Elim Tabernacle and a man was killed. Not many people remember bombs being dropped from a Zeppelin. The crew was in the basket and they used to throw them over the side.

I was in my 20s when WW2 started and I was a volunteer in the VAD. I am a nurse and a midwife. I was called up just before the war started. We went first to a house in Sittingbourne then I went to Chester Le Mer?? and then to Southwells, Brecon as an Army nurse for quite a while, which I liked. I was stationed in Cardiff during the very heavy air raids. The Maindy Barracks were bombed. I remember running across the road during the bombing.

Then after D Day, I was with the Army as a nurse from Normandy to Germany. It was very different and hectic. We took over empty buildings, we were never in tents. We had up to 400 casualties come in a day, though casualties didn鈥檛 come in every day, according to the fighting which was along way away. They went to casualty clearing. They were often put in plaster and then came on to us. It was very efficiently done, we all had our job to do. Some were air lifted to England on a stretcher, fully dressed in their uniform with a respirator. Others were kept and then sent back. We had a place in Blankenberg where men used to go for a rest, by the sea side. A couple of us went to Blankenberg to see that they were alright. I always remember, we lived in a small hotel run by a family. Quite a lot of people collaborated then you know and the owner said well, I had a wife and a baby and an elderly aunt, what do you do? Can鈥檛 blame them at all.

In Belgium we were near the sea, the Denaman? Sea. When we were going there, we girls were told to go along a road to a boys鈥� school. There was not much roof on it, it was cold. The Germans before they retreated had vandalized it. They left no water, the lavatories were overflowing. There were 10 of us in this enormous room. Anyway, we worked , but it was very difficult. We were in battledress. I don鈥檛 think nurses nowadays would do what we had to do.

At one time, they had surgical places near the sea, the Royal Engineers had made a path for us through the minefield. I think they forgot the sands shifts. We used to go over - it was getting winter, we had to use a torch to use this path to make sure the sand hadn鈥檛 shifted. We went at night. One day I thought the battery was giving up and I said to one of my friends, 鈥淗ow is your battery?鈥� She said 鈥淚t鈥檚 going, so we will have to do something as we鈥檝e got to get back鈥�. She got some glass jam jars from the cleaners and put a candle in with a bit of string and we went across a minefield with a candle in a jam jar. There are not a lot of people who have done that.

I liked Belgium, quite nice. We went into Germany by a troop train. 1000 men and a dozen of us. We went across the Rhine on a Bailey Bridge we had built. That was the most hair-raising thing. We all know that a Bailey Bridge is a temporary thing and the Rhine is a very very wide river.

We had masses of champagne because the Germans had taken it from the French, and left it behind. So we took it, so we had a bottle of champagne. I had some wine glasses that I had bought in Ghent in Belgium. So we sat in the troop train drinking champagne in crystal glasses, crossing the Rhine. That was the worst journey I鈥檝e ever done. I remember also that the German women had taught the children to spit at us.

In the war, we had Army rations. I remember that if you were wounded, or you were moving, you were given Maconachie Stew, tinned rice made with evaporated milk, a cup of tea with some sugar with Ideal milk in it. I don鈥檛 know who Maconachie was but he made a fortune didn鈥檛 he!

We never knew where we were going and when. We were up and away, it was good. I do remember one journey, we had to go along one road to a billet, there was an air raid on , it was dark. We couldn鈥檛 put any lights on. We heard someone calling 鈥淗elp鈥�. I said to the others, 鈥淪omeone is calling for help. Let鈥檚 see if we are all here鈥�. One was missing, so we had to go back along this road and we found one of the nurses had fallen down into this bomb crater. She was only a small girl. They held my legs and I dangled over the side to pull her out. Her name was Daisy and she was alright. It was very funny really. I did keep in touch with some of my colleagues in Belgium and Germany, but there are not many of them left now.

My parents were in Rochester during the war. My father had been in the Royal Marines, he was 50 when the war started, so he went and joined the Naval supplies so he was away. My brother was younger, he was 17 so he joined the Territorials. Before he was 18, he had been called up. He went to Africa. So my mother and grandmother were still living at King Street, at the Star Hill end in Rochester. They didn鈥檛 have an air raid shelter, because they had a cellar. My mother was part of a large family. I have a lovely photo of my grandmother with her 6 sons come back from the war. (First World War)

I came back in October 1945 and went then to work at St Dunstan鈥檚 with the blind people coming back from the Far East. It was moved during the war to Church Stretton in Shropshire because of the bombing - I worked there about a year, then I did midwifery in London. Then I worked in Oxfordshire for some time and then as a Matron in a post in Lancashire 鈥� I did that for 17 years.

I did nursing until I retired in 1973 as a Matron. I came to Medway in 1973 and looked after my mother and father. I look after myself now.

Note: MACONACHIE was a tinned vegetable stew ration, named after the manufacturer.

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