大象传媒

WAR SERVICE CHARLES DENNIS COLLINS

At the end of July 1939 my father died very suddenly and as I was the only member of the Family living at home at the time. It was very hard on my mother, as a few days after the funeral my brother and I went away to Territorial Camp near Cromer in Norfolk. As soon as we returned our Unit, the 48th Divisional signals was put on standby and we were put on a war footing, until we were fully mobilised on the 3rd of September. We then spent about 10 days collecting stores and getting organised, after which we moved to the 48th Divisional mobilising area in the Marlborough, Newbury area. At this time we were very short of transport and some of our section had to travel from Birmingham to Newbury in horse boxes and borrowed vehicles.

I was then 2nd Lieut in 145 Inf Brigade Signals and we joined our Infantry Brigade headquarters at Upcott house in Newbury. We had at first very old Army equipment and hired transport and motor cycles but by December we had the latest equipment and transport, and on Boxing Day our Brigade went off to France via Southampton and Cherbourg. My own means of transport was Motor Cycle and 1939 was one of the coldest Xmas's we had known, and I shall never forget the miserable journey across Northern France, eventually arriving at Waghenies a village a few miles from Henin Leatard, where eventually the 48th Divisional Headquarters were established. The weather was so cold that the cylinder blocks of some of the vehicles cracked; of course there was no anti-freeze in those days. We had our H.Q. in a Chateau, which later became the advanced H.Q. for the British expeditionary Force, when the Germans advanced into Belgium.

Our brigade moved up to Belgium early May 1940 and had our H.Q. close to the crossroads at Waterloo and in the same Farmhouse that the Duke of Wellington used in 1815. It was close to here that the French were overcome by the Germans and therefore our Division had to retreat as we had no support on our right flank. I shall never forget this H.Q. as our section sergeant had been a prisoner of war in the 1st great war and was to be taken prisoner again later on. He had found that the farmer whose house we occupied had put down 4 or 5 buckets of pickled eggs in the cellar and he was not going to let the Germans take advantage of them, therefore he smashed them all with a signal pole. Because of the French retreating we had to retreat most days. It was at this time that I was told to leave the Brigade and report to 53rd Anti-Tank Regt, but my Brigadier would not let me leave, until we had a direct command from Divisional HQ to say that I was to leave in the next 30 minutes; this I did departing with a Lance-Corporal, and thirty minutes after we left, the whole of the Brigade HQ were taken prisoner by the Germans; my first lucky escape. My new section was attached to 143 Brigade and we only got away from being taken prisoner, because of a terrific rainstorm when everything got waterlogged. The whole Brigade HQ and the Signals detachment marched out of our HQs and eventually had to ditch our vehicles and equipment and destroy as much as possible and make our way on foot to the Beaches at Dunkirk, arriving there, if I am not mistaken on the 3rd June 1940. Eventually after being subject to terrific amount of dive bombing and strafing by Stukas and Dorniers we managed with the aid of small rowing boats that had been provided by the Navy we managed to reach a Mine Sweeper that brought us back to Dover where we were greeted by the W.V.S. with hot drinks and sandwiches before being put on trains for various army centres, mine Aldershot. There we were given clothing if necessary and given a few days leave, before rejoining our various Regiments.

The 48th Div Signals reformed at Hereford and later I had my section HQs at Budleigh Salterton, where I met for the first time the local company of L.D.V., later to become the Home Guard. After here we moved to Oakhampton, where I met Anne whose parents lived in British Colombia ,who had come over to train as a children's nanny and was at that time, caring for the children of the local doctor. My brother having been stationed at Oakhampton before me suggested that I make contact with her, and I therefore arranged to meet her at the Rougemont Hotel in Exeter on her day off, coincidentally. After that Anne and I spent a lot of our spare time together, and November 1940 we got engaged, were married in January 1941 at Little Aston church. The snow was so deep that we could not get out of Streetly to go to Stratford, so we spent the first two nights in my sister鈥檚 house.
Shortly after this I was posted to Scarborough prior to an overseas posting to India but luckily Anne was able to come with so and me we had two and a half months together before my draft left for India.
We left Grenock in April in a convoy of twenty-four liners and with a naval escort, with HMS Nelson as Flag Ship. We had a long trip and we called in at Freetown but did not go ashore, later on the convoy split and half went into Cape Town and the other half to Durban. We were looked after magnificently by the residents of Cape Town for three days. The convoy then split up and three ships, including ours went on to India, arriving on May 3rd 1941. The first night four of our draft, all officers, who had been posted to 6 Ind Div Signals spent the night at the Taj Mahal hotel and went out to eat at Green's Restaurant, were I met the only person I knew in India, who was also in the Signals, who was on his way out to Iraq. Incidentally The four of us who were being posted together had been promoted to Lieutenant while on the draft from the UK, as we had seen war service before arrival in India, we found that we were senior than most of the other officers in the unit and we were given our own Infantry brigade sections and promoted again to Captain all at the age of 22.

I was given a section made up of Punjabi Musselmen, but one the other officers section was posted to Singapore, but his section of Sikhs was under strength and we swapped our personnel, and therefore I was left with Sikhs, which were not brought up to strength until late August when we were posted to Iraq. While we were stationed in India we were at Trimulgerry near Secundrabad, Hydrabad Deccan.

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