大象传媒

I left school in 1940 and joined up with the 70th Battn Middlesex Regiment at the age of 17yrs. They put us on airfield defence duties at Northolt and Kenley, both of which were fighter aerodromes. We sat in pillboxes around the perimeter with machine guns, an NCO and 3 men. At the beginning of 1942 they wanted volunteers for radio location work. Nobody really knew what this was as it wasn't until later that it was called radar. I applied and was accepted and after about 6 months at technical college and army training school I was posted to serve on moblie anti aircraft gun sites. I was 19yrs old by then. Being a mobile unit we were under canvas which was cold and uncomfortable in the winter, so we tried to get hold of extra blankets for warmth. We were very much on our own as attached tradesmen with just occasional visits from Radar Maintenance Officers who had generally just finished their training as well.
Later, when air raids tailed off, there was not such a need for radar mechanics so I retrained as a radio mechanic and installed radios in tanks. Eventually I was posted to Avadi near Madras in India. It was very hot and sultry because they were waiting for the monsoon to break. I was working in a radio workshop preparing for the invasion of Malaya but the atom bomb was dropped and Japan surrendered. When I came out of the army in 1946, I went and joined the Merchant Navy for 6yrs. I spent my demob grant on retraining as a radio officer in the Merchant navy.

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