大象传媒

We lived in Rubery and my fiance was called up on January 29th 1940. The snow was hedge high and roads impassable. My fianc茅 and I walked to the city boundary and took a tram to the station in Birmingham. The train to Rhyl took him 10 hours, owing to frozen points.

After the initial training he became a driving instructor. When the famous Dunkirk evacuation took place all A.I. personnel were told that they were on alert for the Middle East. First they were sent to Ascot race course, guarding taken prisoners. He was granted just 72 hours leave to go home to get married, and on returning to Ascot they were sent to Rushden, Northamptontshire.

In November he embarked in Liverpool and travelled in convoy to South Africa. This took six weeks. Arriving in Durban they were given a couple of days shore leave and Christmas Day was spent travelling by boat through the Red Sea en route to Cairo. In 1941 Winston Churchill promised the Greeks support and a corps, including my husband went to Greece. Of course the Germans attacked via Yugoslavia and they retreated, travelling by night and hiding in the olive groves by day. A boat came in each night and took the men to Crete. My husband was on the last boat and went back to Egypt, all the men who were taken to Crete were taken prisoner. Then it was up and down the desert until El鈥橝lamein. My husband then went to Sicily when Field Marshall Montgomery told them that he was taking them back to start the Normandy front.

My husband went to Normandy July 30th 1944 and reached Brussels in December! The final push started on March 24th 1945.

In the early days letters took 3 months to reach England, then a system of post cards was introduced with a 3d stamp. When you received the letter it was about 4鈥� x5鈥�. It had been photocopied, but delivery was very much quicker!

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