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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Ivan Franks, and has been added to the site with the author’s permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

These memories are taken from a special edition of a newsletter kindly submitted by Longstone Local History Group. It was edited by Liz Greenfield and published in Autumn 2002. Longstone was a village which sheltered evacuees and was comparatively unaffected by air attack, although the night sky was often lit by the fires of the Sheffield Blitz.

Longstone Local History Group - `I was dropping supplies and paratroops into Burma' Servicemen remember

by
Ivan Franks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Other parts to this story are at:

Introduction: A7887487

Roy Finney’s Story: A7887784

Frank, A and S Hurst: A7888396

Flames of Sheffield: A7888657

Molly Thornhill’s Story: A7888882

Tony Greenfield’s Story: A7889133

Martin Simon’s Story: A7889557

Stella Holmes’ Story: A7889971

Home defence remembered: A7890230

Norman Hoare’s Story: A7891004

Norman Hassal’s Story: A7891202

Women’s Institute: A7891888

One family’s War Part One: A7892562

One Family’s War Part Two: A7893534

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I was at Lady Manners School when war broke out and I was living in Little Longstone. I sang in St. Giles’ Church choir and was a member of Great Longstone Boy Scouts' troop led by the vicar, Mr. Reeves. Mr. Reeves was a very nice man and it was a great tragedy for the whole village when he died in a terrible accident.

I left school at 16 and started work, as a trainee statistician, with the Columbia Picture Corporation at Cressbrook Hall. It had moved there from London to escape the blitz; staff members were billeted in the surrounding villages and there we had great social evenings, particularly at the Monsal Head Hotel and al the Bull’s Head, Tideswell. All the staff took turns fire-watching on the roof of the hall. After a while Columbia Pictures moved back to London and I went with them. I joined the naval cadets in Croydon, as I wanted to be in the navy when I was called up. I had already been in the Air Training Corps but I wasn't keen on this branch of the forces.

On the day I was 18, I was called up and went to Butlin's Holiday Camp at Skegness. Here they concentrated on getting you fit; a typical day consisted of a large cup of cocoa at six in the morning, breaking the ice on the swimming pool and jumping in, PT, gunnery and bayonet practice, route marches, unarmed combat, hair cuts and tooth extraction and fillings. In the evenings we had tombola and beer. I trained as a signalman here and then went to Holy Loch, Scotland, the present day submarine base, for further training. From there I was posted to the Second Submarine Flotilla, HMS Wolfe, in the Far Eastern Fleet based at Trincomalee in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

After the war with Japan was over, I was posted to a German naval base at Baxtehude, near Hamburg, where I worked on teleprinters. This was the headquarters of the Flag Officer Western Germany. The Black Watch was based here too. My demob date was coming up and the navy wanted volunteers to sail Lease-Lend ships back to America. I volunteered and my first ship was a frigate-type destroyer, HMS Bahamas. We sailed from Londonderry to Boston (Mass) where the Americans welcomed us with open arms. It was the end of the blackout too; with wonderful colourful neon signs lighting up the skyscrapers.

From Boston it was a four-day train journey to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from here I sailed back to England on one of the passenger liners, which had brought GI brides to America.
When I was demobbed I came back to live in Little Longstone and met and married Irene, an Ashford girl. We now have six children and 12 grandchildren.

Pr-BR

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