ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

I left school at the age of 14 and with the formation of the Air Training Corps I enrolled into 1379 (Leiston) Sqdn in 1941. The commanding officer at the time was the headmaster of the school, Captain Blowers. Some of the Squadron officers included Bill Newbury and Mr Franks. We would go on visits to RAF Martlesham and be given demonstrations by the army, before the formation of the RAF Regiment. I can remember when Garretts was attacked but the bombs didn’t go off. I thought this happened because the aircraft was flying too low. I was able to tell that the aircraft was a Dornier bomber because of my aircraft recognition training in the ATC. I left the ATC a little while later to join the Leiston ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Guard. When I became old enough I joined the Merchant Navy. I completed training at TS Vindicatrix. I made several trips to Canada, Halifax, Nova Scotia and St John New Brunswick.
I saw little action but we did depth charge a few U-Boats. When it was coming up for D-Day there was increased military activity around Spithead, where I was at the time. I knew something big was going to happen but it was just a matter of time. We kept waiting and waiting and eventually D-Day did come.
After the Omaha beachhead had been taken we took troops to the area. On one occasion we were taking troops from Southampton to Le Harve, the ship in front, the SS Empire Cutlass exploded, which we thought was the result of a mine attack.
As well as France we shipped troops around the Mediterranean and we also returned former British POW’s from the Japanese POW Camps. I remember the POW’s would never report sick as they were worried that they would not be allowed to go home. Most of them were very thin and infected with malaria.

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