大象传媒

As a member of the T.A.,I was called to the colours on 2nd Sept. 1939. Because of shortages in the Regular Army, my Signal Section (160 Inf. Bde. of 53(W)Division)was detached at end of September and embodied into the 5th Infantry Division.
In May 1940 I was thus a member of the 17th Infantry Bde Signal Section.
Having been in France from October '39 to May '40 we moved south and found found ourselves on the dockside at Le Havre. There we prepared our vehicles to embark for England, thence to Norway. One of the three brigades had already gone!
Suddenly, all was cancelled and we were on our way north again.The the "balloon went up" and the Germans invaded France.I.with my assistant wireless operator, Sig. Bert Jones, headed in our Wireless Car to join up with the 2nd Battn. Northamptonshire Regt.. Here we were greeted like alens from outer space. We had never seen them before, and they hadn't seen us.They looked at us as if wireless had just been invented. This wasn't their fault as I later learned. Apparently all exercises involving wireless transmissions had been banned by the French in case the increase in noises in the aether would give the Germans the impression that they were about to be invaded!
So we headed into Belgium and eventually the Battn. H.Q. Group set up station in a farmyard.
Here the "fun" started. Just about lunch-time six fighter aircraft circled above us. We took no notice as they couldn't possibly be the enemy!Then they dived "in line ahead" and little flashing lights appeared from them with the accompanying zing-zing of (presemably) bullets. Without bothering about lunch, I tossed aside my mess-tin and dived under a farm cart.Every time bullets hit the car or the tiles on the barn roof I was convinced I had been hit.Suddenly it struck me that "Jonah" was by the truck in an open field with no farm cart handy so as soon as the birds had flown I dashed down to the field and found him crawling out of a ditch. "Thank God",says I,"howdid you manage?" "Oh", he said," it was all right as long as they came at me in line ahead'cos I got behind that tree and I kept the trunk between me and them for a while. Then they came from different directions and that's how I arrived in that ditch."
Remarkably, the Wireless Car didn't have a mark on it.