- Contributed by听
- London Borough of Newham Public
- People in story:听
- Alfred B Cracknell
- Location of story:听
- Kings Cross
- Background to story:听
- Army
- Article ID:听
- A2501092
- Contributed on:听
- 07 April 2004
As told by Alfred B Cracknell
I was standing on the platform with my friend Tommy Rosser seeing family off on a train. As it disappeared around the bend in the track I turned to Tommy and said, "what are we going to do now". Then jokingly I said, "Let's join the Army" and to my surprise Tommy said, "OK".
So we went to the local recruiting office to join the REs (Royal Engineers) like my father had been in, but we told that they were full. This was the answer we got in all the places we went. So at the last one we asked the chap what he recommended. He said he wasn't allowed to influence us in any way, so he gave us a big thick book that had all the regiments in and told us to sit and read it.
While we were there a corporal came in with two lads that had just had their medical and put a lot of leaflets on a table. So Tommy being a nosy so and so went to have a look and we found a buff envelope with NUTTALLS 684 construction Kings Cross on it. So we walked out of the recruiting office leaving the poor chap with a puzzled look on his face.
When we got to Kings Cross we couldn't see anything because the office was underground. We were a little surprised but went down anyway and sure enough there was a chap down there from Nuttalls. We told him we wanted to join the REs, but they were full. He told us that this was a unit they had started themselves and he thought they had enough, but he would take our names and let us know. Two weeks later we got a message to go to Southampton to join the regiment. The directors were captains, the workers were sergeants and we were just hangers on.
So in December 1939 we left Southampton for Le Havre from where we were sent to build an aerodrome in Loos, but before it was completed we were shipped out again to Austria and to this day we haven't heard anymore about the aerodrome.
The strangest thing about my time in the war was I don't remember how I got back home. My first memory was walking past Chapman's laundry looking for WINTON ROAD which was the new house my wife had found for us to live. And to this day I don't know how my wife managed to get a place in such a posh area.
Alfred Benjamin Cracknell 25
Army no. 1913823
Tommy Rosser 23
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