大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people鈥檚 War site by Zoey
From St. Nicholas C of E Primary school in New Romney and has been added to the website on behalf of William (Bill) Cragg
With his permission and they fully understand the site鈥檚
terms and conditions.

I was in my last day at Spalding Grammer School, Lincolnshire. in July 1939. I and 13 of my contemporaries realised that war was imminent. We had all volunteered for one of the 3 services. We all wanted to fly and to serve our country. We agreed to meet again when the war was over.
For the war years we lost touch with each other. When the time came for our 鈥渞eunion鈥�.
Of the original 14 there were 4 of us left!

I was serving in the Home Guard. Had a good education I was given a commission and soon found myself training civilians to become soldiers. One day I was demonstrating a grenade thrower called the Northover projector. We were in thick mud and one of the trainees attempted to load the projector; he had taken the pin out when he dropped the grenade into the mud. We had 4 seconds to take cover. I ordered the team to lie down. Luckily the grenade had sunk into the mud and most of the blast went straight up. Only one of us received any injury and that was slight.

While I was serving in the UK I got involved in a forces concert team I played the double bass and the ukalele.
I remember the night when a member of a US air crew
could face no more. His CO spoke firmly but kindly explaining that as part of the team he was essential to the rest of the crew. In the event they did go off on an operation next day. They never returned.

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