大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People's War by Anne Thomas on behalf of Donald Anderson and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

War actually started my life. A territorial officer on leave from Flanders impregnated his landlady(my mother) in a camping punt on the Thames, Whit Sunday 1917. I was born in a nursing home(behind Thatcher's grocers shop) at Grantham, and my mother's father persuaded the Registrar to record that my parents were married. When my father was discharged from the army he went back to his German wife and we never saw him again...

All memebers of my lower school were required to join the Scouts and all upper school to become officer cadets. By the time I moved up some of our sports field heroes had taken off to fight Franco and I persuaded the Scoutmaster to keep me on as ASM.

Once Hitler was chnacellor I decided to join the RAF Volunteer Reserve(the weekend flying club) but discovered that I did not have the choice of fighters rather than bombers. So once I had finals in Agriculture I registered as a conscientious objector.

I was employed as secretary to a large estate on the Sussex coast breeding pedigree cattle. Many of the troops coming back from Dunkirk passed by us by road and rail, the Battle of Britain that I had been prevented from taking part in was starting overhead. Pillboxes were being built in every field and my mother was helping the homeless in the London docks. Finally a Messerschmidt flew in low over our garden wall and I had a clear view of the pilot's face as he opened fire.

So I decided that it was time that I got into the war. I was firmly told that because I was a CO and in a reserved job this was not permitted. It was ultimately achieved by discharging myself and signing on at the Labour Exchange for six weeks. I then volunteered for bomb disposal and arrived at Liverpool in time for their blitzes.

For the next four years, thirty of us worked together without casualty in Bristol and from London to the Wash. This was the premier run for picking up new bombs, because it was where the Luftwaffe jettisoned their load if they got hit over London.

Everything good comes to an end and with the use of self-propelled bombs our occupation was gone. We spent an entertaining few months using fire hoses to play tiddly-winks with our own land mines on the Norfolk beaches, but were disbanded and I found myself orderly room clerk at an Italian POW camp in Sussex for D Day - practically where I came in.

So I insisted on joining the real army. No vacancies for any sort of engineer only infantry to finish off the Japs. It did not appeal but the powers were determined to make an officer of me. I started my cadet course on VE day and passed out on VJ day.

Then I did some personnel selection until my number came up. I was given the job of putting the field firing ranges of East Anglia back into agriculture. so like my Dad I married a German and she didn't quite make our diamond wedding.

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