大象传媒

My father John Thomson was an L.N.E.R. railway Inspector in charge of rail freight movements off loaded from ships docked at Albert Dock Leith during the entire period of WW2.He had many adventures including being bombed but one of the most interesting and enduring memories was when the Yankee Liberty ships arrived from 1943 on.Miitary stores, weapons, and vehicles were unloaded almost daily for transhipment to various wartime depot sites.Then in came the U.S.troops-mainly colored-they were from a Materiel Division and thier job was to assemble Jeeps and uncrate Packard and G.M.engines for tanks which were being assembled at a bus depot near Edinburgh.As time went on my father got on well with the troops and was kept in cigars,coffee and sugar from the P.X.
Then in the Spring of 1944 the Yanks began to pull out in preparation for D day and typically they began progressively to smash and burn stores they no longer needed.These included the remainders of the crates the Jeeps were shipped in My father asked if he could have some of the timber to build a garden shed.Certainly he was told and aday later my street awakened to the arrival of two complete crates accompanied by a Negro sergeant and two PFC's.All this on the back of a huge U.S.Army truck.The crates were carried in by the men and deposited in the back garden.Then out they came with candies for myself and other kids who had arrived for the spectacle! I wonder if the soldiers survived th War?
The garden shed was duly built also a rabbit hutch and a greenhouse although we no longer live in Edinburgh one of our old neighbours told me (I'm74 now)that the hut is still there and the Ford stencil still legible.There was a further bonus when dismantling the Crates a complete toolkit was found in one,most useful as I was about to start an engineers apprenticeship I still use the AF spanners for DIY on my car or domestic equipment.

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