ĂŰŃż´«Ă˝

My wife Winnie and I were married on Aug 12th 1939 and had Christmas and a few months together before I volunteered for the Army. I’d been practising my Morse code with Winnie’s help, but there weren’t any training places available for the Signals Corps, so I was enlisted in the Royal Army Ordinance Corps in Dundee on the 26th Feb 1940, and became Pte. John T. Stewart (No 7624479).

I spent 6 weeks at Hilsea Barracks for basic training (square bashing) before being classified Storeman 1st Class.

Somebody apparently went AWOL, and I was chosen to replace him and was sent straight to France - without even embarkation leave!

I arrived in March at 1BAD (Base Ammunition Depot) in forest country close to a small town named Blaine (if my memory serves me!) near Nantes.

After a couple of months or so, the main allied forces in the north were evacuated from Dunkirk (May 26 — June 4th) but my depot worked as normal, and we were told that reinforcements were going to arrive and hold a line across the country to our North.

Despite the arrival of Canadian troops to help do this, after the fall of Paris it was clear that we wouldn’t be staying very much longer.

Sometime around the 15th June, I went to bed — dog-tired — and awoke to a great commotion, but being an old hand by now, decided it was nothing to do with me and went to sleep again. When I did get up, I found that the depot was deserted and had been evacuated except for twenty or thirty of us left as a rear party, two sergeants, a couple of corporals, and the rest of us privates.

No officers at all - they’d all set off home.

Our orders were to disarm or destroy all the munitions before we left, so that the Germans couldn’t use them. However, troops were still turning up at the depot wanting ammunition, so we continued to supply them until a party from the Argyles turned up asking for ammo. We had a commandeered beer lorry with an RASC lance-corporal driver, which we started loading with some small arms, mortar bombs, and grenades for them.

We’d half-loaded the truck when suddenly we saw one of our sergeants running down the road towards us shouting

“They’re here! They’re here!”

Somebody shouted back “Who’s bloody here???”

It was the Germans, apparently half a mile up the road.

The RASC driver said that he’d heard that troops were being evacuated at St Nazaire, and that he was off to try his chances there, and that we were welcome to go with him.

The group of us who had been loading the truck — a few privates and, I think a corporal — jumped in the back, and off we raced.

The driver said that we were pretty overloaded, so we chucked out some of the ammo whilst we careered down the road.

Next we were flagged down by our depot’s sanitary corporal — Lance Corporal Kessel, a real old soldier who’d spent his twenty years of service all over the Empire, and he got in with us. We also picked up various stray troops who’d been making their own way towards the coast. Kessel and I were to stick together for the rest of our journey.

As we got further towards St Nazaire, we rounded a corner, and saw a group of soldiers — we recognised them as sappers - standing by a bridge. They frantically waved us on across the bridge, and then, immediately after we had crossed, they blew it up.

We got to St Nazaire and headed straight to the docks. As we approached the docks an RTO, in charge of the evacuation, told us that there was no way that we’d get on board the HMT Lancastria, which was by now completely overloaded.

He suggested that we went away and returned the next day, and that by then there might be another ship to take us. We split into several groups, and a few of us walked to the outskirts of the town where we found a little café bar where they were willing to serve us food and beer!

In the café there was also a group of French soldiers, who we talked and shared a few beers with — like us they were pretty fed up — being as lost and abandoned as we were.

We spent the night in the bar, sleeping on chairs and the floor.

Early in morning, at five or six am, we set off for the docks again to try to get out. When we arrived, we heard that the Lancastria had been bombed and sunk.

We learned that two coal boats from England had arrived, and that they were anchored offshore and that we might find a place on one of them, if we went to the dockside. Two Royal Navy destroyers arrived to pick us up and take us out to the coal boats — we stood at the edge of the jetty, and the sailors reached over the sides and hoisted us on board without the destroyers stopping — for fear of bombing. There was a Salvation Army lorry serving tea and biscuits to the soldiers while they waited their turn to be lifted up. A sergeant asked the Salvation Army officer what he was going to do with his truck when we all left. The SA major said he didn’t know but didn’t want to leave it for the Germans. The sergeant asked him to get all his kit out of the lorry, and then called a group of our lads across. They tipped it over the side of the dock into the sea.

When my turn came, I was hoisted aboard the destroyer. The sailor who pulled me aboard, said “Take off your gaiters, and open your boot laces — you might have to jump for it yet!!” which didn’t exactly boost my confidence.

We were taken out to sea and we transferred to the coal boat by climbing up scramble nets. When the coal boat was as fully laden as possible, we pulled anchor and set off — the Captain got out a loudhailer, and pointed out some planks of wood in the well deck. “If you can’t swim” he said, “you can hold on to these if we get attacked and sunk”

He told us that to escape the Luftwaffe he was going to head out to the Atlantic, before heading back in to the Channel and home. He then explained to us that he had only sufficient drinking water for his own crew (maybe 10 men or so). Like all good soldiers, we mostly had full water bottles, and the Captain said that with luck he could replenish the bottles once a day. Lance Corporal Kessel advised me to swill my mouth out with some water and then spit it out — the coal dust was everywhere!

We were probably at sea for three to four days — thankfully without sight of the Luftwaffe. When we arrived at Plymouth we were met by a naval launch which told us that there was no chance of us getting in to land and that we’d have to go on to Southampton. Our Captain told them in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t going to leave until we had food and water! In a surprisingly short time another launch arrived with sandwiches and water!

We went on to Southampton, where things were much better organised. The WVS and Red Cross were waiting for us with a proper meal, and we were all given free telegraph forms to send on to our families and loved ones to let them know we were safely home. The dock authorities had arranged makeshift shower facilities for us, which after three days on a coal boat with little water were pretty welcome! The medical teams were also in attendance for those who needed them. I remember all their kindness with gratitude.

I was home.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.