WAR FOOTING

[Jcarbor]

My father went off to war in 1940 very much against the wishes of his father who had been seriously wounded at Arras in WW1 and had a leg amputated as a result.  That was meant to be .the war to end all wars..  
Father trained at Anstey with the RAF and received his Wings there and was then sent to  Newfoundland, followed by Edmonton near Calgary followed by Pensacola where he trained on Catalinas under the Towers scheme.  He was trained as a pilot,  a navigator and a wireless operator and after a couple of years was sent back across Atlantic in 1943 in an unescorted ship with 1600 others who had been fully trained over the same period.  imagine it might have changed the course of the War if that ship had been sunk by a U Boat..!
He ended up at Davidstow in Cornwall in 280 Squadron on Coastal Command flying Wellingtons and later Warwicks dropping huge lifeboats and dingys to people in the Channel and Atlantic.  I still have his log books, his bubble sextant and a large compass taken out of a Wellington at the end of the War.
Mother was taken out of school at 17 in 1941 and joined the WRNS and was based at nearby Treligga near Port Isaac where they had a practice target field for rocket training for Typhoon pilots.  The WRNS had to run out from behind a bunker and replace the target before the Typhoon came around again ( before the days of 'Elf an Safety!)
They all went drinking at the King Arthur's Arms Hotel at Tintagel and that it where Ma and Pa met and they were married for 63 years.
I was amazed to find not only all the records of father's operations but also photos of my mother driving an ambulance and fire tender, all at the Davidstow museum.
In her last year in her nineties, she had dementia but the one story she kept repeating was the time when a B17 Fortress came around the airfield at Treligga in foggy conditions.  The airstrip there was grass and only about six hundred yards long and was only meant as an emergency strip for the Hawker Typhoons to land in the event of their rockets throwing up debris and damaging the engine.  
The B17 circled with its wheels down and the leading officer fired a flare to warn it away, but it came in and landed quite easily being a tail dragger and a good pilot.  The WRNS went out to greet it and they turned all the guns on them.  They had no idea where they were and thought that they were still in France!
The next day they had taken all the bombs , ammo and anything that could be taken off and lined the B17  up at the start of the runway.  At Treligga there is quite a steep cliff going down to the sea.   All the WRNS held their breath while the four engines roared and the machine headed off towards the cliff.  It lumbered over the cliff and disappeared from sight and everyone held their breath waiting for the explosion but started to breathe again when the plane roared into sight again climbing fast!
The extraordinary thing was exactly the same thing happened on the same date a year later!
 
Jcarbor and Mike Hill talking of South Africa reminds me that my Mother's father, a Scotsman, was brought up in Bloemfontein and at the age of sixteen joined the Brand's Horse to put down the 1915 Boer rebellion there. He then went on with them to defeat the Germans in Namibia (Deutch Sud Vest).  In 1916 he caught measles and was sick for most of the year so missed the carnage of the Somme but he joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1917 and went on to fight at Ypres.  He had his horse shot from under him twice and gained an MC  gazetted in 1918 and survived the war unscathed.
 
Amazing I now have the time in this lock down to write all this!!

Billhook that a fantastic dit, there were some absolutely amazing hard characters in those days, and some extremely luck souls. Thanks for sharing.[emoji106]

[David Cropper]

2 minutes ago, Jcarbor said:

David that’s good to see and thanks for sharing. Royal has many stories to tell like that, the lofoten isle raid to destroy the nazi glycerin factories, corporal Tom hunters VC attack on a german machine gun post accompanied by SBS commando Major Anders Lassen VC both who made the ultimate sacrifice, the raid on top Malo house in the south Atlantic campaign by the artic cadre to name but a few.
Lots of countries around the globe wish they had a force like the Booties, some have tried to emulate them , but only the Norwegian and Dutch have got anyway near to them. Being a royal has certainly help me through my life.

Totally agree. My nephew on my wife's side, left The Royal Marines a couple of years ago. Played football for the Corps. He's just done a back to back marathon from Glasgow to Edinburgh and back for the Royal Marines Charity. When I left the Army I worked as Emergency Response Supervisor for BP Wytch Farm Oilfield.  Our response base was just lower down from Royal Marines Poole.

[Jcarbor]

Just remembered a couple of stories that father told me not long before he died.  As many have said on here,people did not talk about their war and father had been no different up to the point in his old age that he decided to write down his memories.
He then wanted me to put them on the computer,  knowing full well that I would read them, but he still could not tell me these stories directly.
When he was training doing circuits and bumps, he was going solo but under strict instruction when doing the final landing to pull off to the side and let any following aircraft land.  It was a Court Martial offence to move once pulled off.  This time the following aircraft lost control and the prop took away the whole tail section of father's plane.
I think that as many pilots were lost due to accidents, either weather or pilot error, as to enemy action.
The second story used to haunt him.  He was called out in the Warwick to rescue the crew of a B17 that had ditched in the Channel.  When he arrived he could see most of the crew of ten swimming near the wreckage.  He was under instruction to not drop the large lifeboat too close, but he was a good judge of distance and dropped it less than fifty yards away.  They circled and watched as one by one the crew slowed down until they all were floating lifeless.  The combination of crash injuries, battle injuries, and the freezing cold sea all took their toll, and there was nothing that father or his crew could do to help.

Harrowing story that, you often find that people from that time didn’t want to tell their experiences, you were privileged for him to share them with you.
When I was a paramedic I got friendly with a little old fella, about 5 foot 6 called Ernest Tolley, you wouldn’t give him a second glance if you saw him.I got into a conversation with me in the back of the ambulance on the way to hospital, he asked me what I did before I was a paramedic, I told him I had been a Marine, at this point he told me a story that absolutely amazed me and made me realise that I was in the company of an incredible person. He had joined the Army as a boy soldier at the beginning of WW2 and had gone on to serve with general Wavell in the long range desert recon group , he then meet Donald Sterling and became his personal driver and body guard. His wife told me that his medals are at the SAS museum at Sterling lines Hereford, she also informed me that he had never spoken to anyone about his service other than to her and his fellow colleagues.
I felt very privileged that he had shared his past with me. What a bloke. I met him on a few more occasions and he told me some amazing dit’s about raids that he had been on. This was in the early 90s an he and his lovely wife will both be long gone now but it really touched me that he wanted to share that amazing part of his life with me.

[Jcarbor]

Totally agree. My nephew on my wife's side, left The Royal Marines a couple of years ago. Played football for the Corps. He's just done a back to back marathon from Glasgow to Edinburgh and back for the Royal Marines Charity. When I left the Army I worked as Emergency Response Supervisor for BP Wytch Farm Oilfield.  Our response base was just lower down from Royal Marines Poole.

David I was based at Poole for a while, I used to go to the holiday camp next door for the disco at the weekend, was it called Rockley sands? It was an awful long time ago.[emoji23]

[David Cropper]

8 hours ago, Jcarbor said:

David I was based at Poole for a while, I used to go to the holiday camp next door for the disco at the weekend, was it called Rockley sands? It was an awful long time ago.

Yes, caravan park. Dirty boy! 

[daveindales]

I run a website about the WW2 Hunt class destroyer, HMS Wensleydale. I met a chap called Reg who served on the ship, and previously served on HMS Bulldog. In may 41 Bulldog along with a couple of other ships captured U-110. Reg was ordered into a boat and rowed over to U-110 before she finally sank. Below in the U-boat the found and recovered the boats enigma machine. The first time a U-boat had been boarded. Reg still had a few mementos he took from the boat. It's quite well documented what breaking the enigma codes did to shorten the war.

[echoechoecho]

Both of my grandfathers served in WW2.  One was a merchant seaman who helped with the evacuation of Dunkirk aboard a tug, and went on to make trips across the Atlantic bringing supplies from the US and Canada.  

 

My other grandfather was an RAF radio operator, captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as a POW.  He was moved from various camps around Java, then sent to Changi in Singapore for an unknown amount of time before being transported on a hell ship to Japan, where he worked as slave labour in a Mitsubishi copper mine near Osaka until they were liberated in September 1945.  He never recovered psychologically and until his death in 1978 would not talk about what he experienced - I've managed to piece together what I know mainly from POW archives. I am aware that he was tortured by the Kempeitai (Japanese equivalent to the Gestapo) as, according to my father, his back was brutally scarred.

 

[Stubby]

1 hour ago, echoechoecho said:

Both of my grandfathers served in WW2.  One was a merchant seaman who helped with the evacuation of Dunkirk aboard a tug, and went on to make trips across the Atlantic bringing supplies from the US and Canada.  

 

My other grandfather was an RAF radio operator, captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as a POW.  He was moved from various camps around Java, then sent to Changi in Singapore for an unknown amount of time before being transported on a hell ship to Japan, where he worked as slave labour in a Mitsubishi copper mine near Osaka until they were liberated in September 1945.  He never recovered psychologically and until his death in 1978 would not talk about what he experienced - I've managed to piece together what I know mainly from POW archives. I am aware that he was tortured by the Kempeitai (Japanese equivalent to the Gestapo) as, according to my father, his back was brutally scarred.

 

People forget how much we owe them .

[daveindales]

Both of my grandfathers served in WW2.  One was a merchant seaman who helped with the evacuation of Dunkirk aboard a tug, and went on to make trips across the Atlantic bringing supplies from the US and Canada.  

 

My other grandfather was an RAF radio operator, captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as a POW.  He was moved from various camps around Java, then sent to Changi in Singapore for an unknown amount of time before being transported on a hell ship to Japan, where he worked as slave labour in a Mitsubishi copper mine near Osaka until they were liberated in September 1945.  He never recovered psychologically and until his death in 1978 would not talk about what he experienced - I've managed to piece together what I know mainly from POW archives. I am aware that he was tortured by the Kempeitai (Japanese equivalent to the Gestapo) as, according to my father, his back was brutally scarred.

 

I've read quite a few books about Changi, the copper mines and the aptly named hell ships. Your grandfather must have gone through a truly hellish experience. The way they were treated was shocking.

I once read a book called 'One for every sleeper' about a POW"s experiences at the hands of the Japanese. I got so absorbed in it, I read it from cover to cover in a day.

[Rich Rule]

3 hours ago, echoechoecho said:

Both of my grandfathers served in WW2.  One was a merchant seaman who helped with the evacuation of Dunkirk aboard a tug, and went on to make trips across the Atlantic bringing supplies from the US and Canada.  

 

My other grandfather was an RAF radio operator, captured by the Japanese in Java in 1942 and spent the rest of the war as a POW.  He was moved from various camps around Java, then sent to Changi in Singapore for an unknown amount of time before being transported on a hell ship to Japan, where he worked as slave labour in a Mitsubishi copper mine near Osaka until they were liberated in September 1945.  He never recovered psychologically and until his death in 1978 would not talk about what he experienced - I've managed to piece together what I know mainly from POW archives. I am aware that he was tortured by the Kempeitai (Japanese equivalent to the Gestapo) as, according to my father, his back was brutally scarred.

 

On both side my Grandparents were farming stock so no direct war stories apart from my Great Aunt was knocked up by an American GI who was stationed in their farm and subsequently I had an Aunt who was actually my mothers cousin...  child out of wedlock and all that malarkey.

 

I did however have to do a project for GCSE English when I was at school.  We had been covering the War Poets and we had to interview someone who had served and then write an essay on the discussions.

 

As a baby the old couple over the road had acted as baby sitters and were almost like Grandparents.  Old Joe had served during the war so my mother suggested I interview him.  
 

I sat down with him, and asked the first question.  This old man who I had loved and looked up to as a child just sat down and put his head in his hands and started sobbing uncontrollably.  
 

His wife later said that he had been captured by the Japanese whilst in Burma IIRC and served 3 or 4 years as a Japanese POW.  
 

I never did get the interview.  
 

That is why we should never forget!