大象传媒

Royal Army Ordnance Corps Army number:7648535.
Born Ardwick, Manchester 1916.

This is the story about my experiences during the 2nd World War that relate to swimming. My daughter, Linda, has transcribed the reminiscences for me, and helped me put them on this web site.

I have always enjoyed swimming, and I belonged to the South Manchester swimming club, Victoria Baths, before the war. Part of the enjoyment of being in the army was the occasional opportunity to have a swim. Here are a few of my experiences.

After training at Shrewsbury with the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry I was posted to Didcot, Berks with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps into the Beach Ordnance, which was dealing with supplies for beach landings. I was at Didcot on and off for two years; Didcot was their HQ.

In 1941 it appeared on orders that any competitive swimmers should report to the orderly room. Because I had belonged to the South Manchester Swimming Club and had also taken my ASA Swimming Teachers Certificates, I decided to go along. The next day several of us went to the Oxford baths to be tested to see how fast we were. Only two of us turned out to be club swimmers and were good enough. We were then sent to Nottingham to join a team. We were to go to London to take part in an army gala. At Nottingham we trained and were there for two or three months. We went to the baths everyday for a swim. My speciality was 50yds front crawl. There were six in the team. One of the team was a colonel; he never came down to train with us. He was called Colonel Friday. However, when we went to London for the gala we found that the gala's importance was the team race between Colonel Friday's team and another officer's team, with whom he had made a 拢5 bet. When the colonel came to swim instead of swimming down the black line, he ended up in the side of the baths and came to a standstill - so the bet was lost. I swam in three events - back stroke, breaststroke, and front crawl and came first in them all. I think I got three cigarette lighters as prizes. Since I didn鈥檛 smoke, I sold them. There was also a plunge competition - in which you dived in and then went as far as you could without swimming a stroke. I came second in that. There were no butterfly events at that time.

One of this team came from Bolsover. His name was Hoten and he had swum for Bolsover Swimming Club. I knew one of the clerks in the office and he could arrange to get a weekend pass every weekend. I would get the pass on midday Friday, hitch hike to Manchester, and on Sunday evening I would hitchhike back to Chesterfield, then Bolsover, and stay there on Sunday night with the Hoten's family. He and I slept in a double bed and thought nothing of it! On Monday morning the father, who had a petrol ration because he was an manager at the local colliery, he would drive us down to Nottingham in his car and we had to be back by 6.00am.

While we were in Nottingham we also taught non-swimmers breaststroke. We taught from the side of the pool and we would get in sometimes and teach them in the pool. There were no floats or anything like that for the learners.

After that I went up to Stirling for the Beach Detachment training in 1941/2 for six months. I did swimming teaching there once a week, and would teach the non swimmers of the beach detachment. On one occasion we were all in the baths practising swimming in our full uniform. The kit was put into an oil skin and it floated and the rifle was on the top of it. You pushed the oil skin and gun in front of you. Captain Joe Sidely was in charge and said that he would do it. Perhaps he thought it would be easy. Well, instead of going from the deep end to the shallow end, he went the other way, and by the time he was exhausted he was out of his depth. I was supposed to keep alongside him in case he got into difficulties. He ended up letting go of the oilskin, which was supporting him, the gun sank down to the bottom of the pool, and he raised his arms towards me to rescue him, and he sank straight down to the bottom. I pulled him out and he sat down in his wet battle dress said, " That took you bloody long enough to get me out, corporal!"

I had taken my time to get him out actually because of something that has happened not long before. We had been on a 25 mile route march just before with him, and in addition, to our rifles, we had to carry a bren gun (22.5lbs) each in turn. As soon as I got it to carry, he gave the command to "double" (ie run). I ran as far as I could and when I was exhausted - without waiting for an order - I stopped. I was in the middle of the platoon of thirty. The 15 in front carried running. The other stopped with me. Eventually, the 15 in front stopped. I had a right telling off, and his language was very choice! Captain Sidley was someone who had just come up from the ranks.

On one occasion when we were at Didcot it was very hot and the orderly room decided that we would go down to the Thames for a swim. We marched there. The captain said that there needed to be a life saver on duty. I volunteered. When they all came out, he gave me permission to go in. I dived in a swam across to the other side of the Thames - about 50 yards . When I got out at the other side, I could see the officer going berserk. When I got back he said who gave you the authority to swim over there!! He thought I might go AWOL.

Another time, I was detailed with another soldier to got with 'small arms' (with a bayonet). We were to got to Scotland Yard to pick up a soldier/prisoner who had been picked up without a pass in London. I decided we would go for a swim first, and then have our lunch at the YMCA, and then go for the prisoner. We turned up at the military police, and we got a right telling off because they didn鈥檛 want to be holding on the prisoner till the afternoon. I didn鈥檛 tell them where I had been though - I just kept quiet. I picked up the prisoner - he was only 18 years old and then got him back to Aldershot - but it was a day off!

When I was in Bone in Algiers, I was billeted with the engineers at the Ecole Trottier. I worked down at the docks at the time. Myself and my pal, Private Arthur Robinson (Robbo), who was also in the Ordnance Corps, decided we would go to some Turkish baths. The baths had no reception and no where to pay. There were several Arabs sat at the entrance doing nothing. There were no Europeans in there. In fact we didn鈥檛 see anyone at all, when we go in there. There was lots of steam. We got undressed and went into the baths. My pal Robinson said to me, "What are we going to do if the Arabs steal our clothes?" So we got worried, we changed our minds and got dressed again. We ended up meeting again in Naples.

My last experience of swimming in the army was in May 1946, when the war had ended. I was in the Lammie transit camp at Naples, waiting to go home to England. I heard that there was going to be a gala at the Lammie camp. REME had built a new swimming pool. It was part of the Lammie transit camp - the reception area for the soldiers in transit. There were 10 events in the gala. Our team was from the sergeants mess and we entered a freestyle relay race - race number 5. Our team was called '557 BOD' ( Base Ordnance depot) . I was the last man in, and when I went in, Royal Army Service Corps (RASC) were half way up the pool. We had to do two lengths each. When I went in, the RASC team were at least half way up the pool. I caught him up at the turn, and kept in front and won. The photo shows me when I had just won - someone was slapping me on the back! The army newspaper reported it the next day and said that, "the last man showed a remarkable turn of speed!". I still have the programme for the gala, and if people want a copy please contact me.

I was about to go back home to England home, and said I'll swim with you if I'm still there. It was on a Saturday afternoon and in fact I went home the next day - after six years in the Army!

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