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WAR MEMOIRS — JOYCE NEALE

Joyce Neale is my mother, now 79 years of age.

Like so many people of her generation, World War Two shaped their lives more than the rest of society can possibly appreciate. For those of my generation, my children’s and thereafter their children, our most defining experiences will be largely domestic and parochial. For people like my parents, theirs was participation in not only a conflict, but one which, whatever the outcome, would change the course of history.

While my mother clearly remembers, and to some extent cherishes, her wartime memories, my father has a different perspective. Like so many men of his age and era, he was posted overseas, and fought the war in Burma. His comparative silence, and to be truthful a degree of simmering resentment, is sufficient testimony to the very darkest side of war. For men like my father, he was robbed of what should have been the best and most formative years of his life (he was 18 when war broke out), and I suspect he saw and witnessed things that he really wished he could not remember.

By her own admission, my mother came from an unremarkable working class background, where both her parents worked tirelessly to make ends meet, and in an environment where, for her at least, there was next to no education. She was, by all accounts, a simple (but emphatically not stupid) girl caught up in a momentous time in history, and the life lessons she encountered shaped the rest of her life.

What follows, in three parts, is her own story, in her own words, completely untouched by anyone else’s influence, guidance and suggestion.

Alan Neale

Part 2 Follows

War Memoirs — Joyce Neale.

Part 2

We now had to learn the discipline of Forces life, which consisted of learning to march, carry out orders, and do so many other things. We were told if given an order which did not make any sense we had to do it, and ask questions after, and so began a round of marching, saluting, and marching in formation getting ready for our passing out parade. A lot of us were suffering from vaccine fever from the injections, but carried on as we did not want to get separated from the friends we had now made. We were all confined to camp, as they were concerned that we could give away secrets to the enemy, which was silly as we did not know any thing; I think plans were afoot for another invasion, as this was after Dunkirk. Our square bashing lasted for about six weeks, and so came the day of our passing out parade, which we all dreaded, it was a case of counting each step, and all of us hoping we did not pass out, as a few did. Today if you have joined the armed forces, all your family can come to your passing out parade, but we were not to see our parents for a whole year, as our confinement to camp lasted for quite a long time, even after we were posted.

We now knew the next thing was going to be a posting to god knows where and would mean a lot of our friends would be going to far flung places, and this was a worry for Sybil and I as we wanted to stay together. One girl in our group was posted to an airdrome about one mile from our home, and we were jealous, but of course was not near her home! That was forces life for you. The next day we were told to pack up all our equipment, ready for our next posting, and we had to climb onto these lorries, which believe me was not very easy carrying a kit bag etc. We then arrived at the railway station and another journey to where? In fact our destination was Redcar in Yorkshire. We all climbed into another lorry and were taken to some old houses on the front, facing the sea, about eight girls each to a house, the iron beds were set up in each room, the houses were about three to four stories high, and had not been used for ages. We found there was not any hot water, as it should be heated by this very old boiler in what was originally the kitchen, after a few days some of the girls collected some wood and managed to get it going, and a couple of hours later found a little hot water, and then there was a fight to see who was going to get the first bath with about one inch of water. We all took it in turns to get the old boiler going for a short while, so we could get a bath of sorts in the very old bath, which had to be scrubbed before use.

The next day we had instructions on what was expected of us, learning what we were expected to do in the future, which to this day I cant remember, as none of it made sense. We had a few Americans in our group most of them quite a bit older than us , as this was before America came into the war , and they were good fun. While on route marches they would sing to keep us in step, which we did quite often, I don’t think they quite knew what to do with us. We could not go onto the beach as it was wired off and in some places we were told it was mined. One night we saw a fight going on a little way out at sea, between our motor torpedo boats, and German gun boats, they were firing at the coast, and a few shells landed, but I don’t think much damage was done, as our boys soon chased them off.

I cannot really remember how long we were stationed at Redcar probably about three months, before our next posting. We found out very soon that this was to be 16.Mu, which was a maintenance unit for all the Air Force. There were quite a lot of these dotted around the country, supplying parts for ground vehicles, but mainly to keep air craft in the air. This maintenance unit was in Stafford in the Midlands, the first night was interesting to say the least. I found in my bedding a lot of beer bottles, as this had been a hut for men, before we were housed in it. Also in the middle of the night my bed gave way and tipped me on the floor, and I had to wake Sybil and ask if I could share her bed until the morning. Needless to say neither got any more sleep that night. They replaced the bed the next day. We had to go outside to get a bath in a hut about forty feet away. In the winter it was an endurance test, the only heating was from the hot water pipes, icicles hung from the roof but the water was nearly always nice and hot, so you got into the bath as soon as possible. We started our training the next day, which unfortunately was on another site about half an hours march away. Our job was making out request forms for parts for aircraft; each part had to go on a separate small slip, and were collected three or times a day. The hut we were in was quite big with about three hundred people in it. The NAAFI van came twice a day with tea and cakes, which of course meant we all put on weight, as it was mainly starch. One day while we were at the NAAFI van we heard this noise and looked up, the sky was black with all these planes all towing gliders. We were to find out the very important reason for this later, as we were still kept very much in the dark about what was going on with war.

I had a letter from my mother to tell me a young man that worked with my father ,who I knew quite well, as we had been to some social evenings together, and been in Air Force about six months longer than myself ,was stationed quite nearby which was bomber command, and was on bombing raids in Germany. She wondered if we could meet up some time. He did write to me and I hoped perhaps it would happen, but with the restrictions it was never to be, and I heard some time later he was missing on a raid over Hamburg, and was never to come home. He was an only child, and had ambitions of having his own farm one day. I don’t think his mother ever got over this great loss, he was a very nice lad, and handsome. I remember he played drums at one social I was at.

I had my 19th birthday while stationed at 16 Mu Stafford, so we decided to have a little party in the hut. My mother had sent an iced birthday cake with a lot of rations she had scrounged from friends, and a few other little snacks. We had to ask every one to bring their own mugs, as we managed to make tea with some bits and pieces we had got from the NAAFI canteen. We had about ten people and played a few games, it was good fun, and cheered us up. The camp was very big, to get to the main gate took about half an hour walking, we were now allowed off camp, and would walk to town, which would also take about half an hour. If we had enough money, we would go to the cinema, or go upstairs in the co-op store and have a good cup of tea and a toasted tea cake, we quite often pooled all the money that we had so none of our friends were left behind, all for one, and one for all, that was real friends. None of us were looking forward to spending our first Christmas away from home, and it was a very severe winter that year. We had two small round stoves to each hut, and it was up to us to keep going with a little coal that we could get and any wood we could find, and we took it in turns to keep it alight, and things were very short all over the country that winter. Of course most people wanted a bed near the fire, and we would all sit round to keep warm, if you had a cup of water beside the bed, in the morning it would be frozen solid.

Christmas day arrived, and the next thing we knew all these men dashed in and turned every one out of bed, with the beds on top of us, it was a good laugh, once we all joined in the fun. They were not allowed to stay long, and the hut NCOs soon put a stop to that. We had quite a good Christmas lunch which all the officers served us with, and we even were given a printed menu, which I have to this day - Turkey with all the trimmings, followed by Christmas pudding, though of course not up to my mothers standard, but we all enjoyed it. It was a very hard winter that year, lots of snow, and very cold. I went out one Saturday afternoon into town to the cinema which we were able to get into for half price, and it was always warm in there. When we came out it was snowing hard. While we were in town it was easy to find our way, but as soon as we were on camp it turned into a nightmare, I think it is called a ‘white out’. It came down in thick sheets, one of our friends was quite short and kept falling into snow drifts and we had to keep pulling her out, her nick name was tuppence. I thought we would never find our way back, we decided to aim for the NAAFI as it always had lights on, and it was easy to spot. Eventually we thought we could see it in the distance, and made a bee line for these lights, which lucky for us did turn out to be the NAAFI, and we were not the only ones that thought we were lost for good; a lot of people were lost in the snow storm that day, but all survived to tell the tale.

In the huts we had tannoys which were like loud speakers that were on nearly all day, playing programmes that were on the radio - housewives choice, Dick Barton a serial, also the RAF dance band called the Squadronaires who were great, and quite often played Glenn Miller music. Anne Shelton was also a great favourite, and of course Vera Lynn. If a favourite programme came on the radio, it was quite a job to get the whole hut to be quiet. We sometimes had to perform night duty, to answer the phones , we had what were essentially telegrams: IOR’s, Immediate Operational Requirements, which were not so urgent as an AOG’s, which was Aircraft On Ground, then there was panic stations, to get the part for that aircraft on ground as soon as possible. That meant waking people up in the middle of the night. Another duty in the night was to wake up the canteen staff, who if on duty, had to get to kitchens to start breakfast for the whole camp, at about five in the morning. One night it was my job to wake a female kitchen staff, I was told to count five beds along on the right hand side, and give her a gentle shake. Needless to say it was the wrong girl, I thought she was going to kill me - it should have been seven beds along.

One day quite a few of us were told we were being posted to another station. It turned out to be, Sutton Coldfield, which had been a barrage balloon camp, but as they were not used as much now, had been turned into a maintenance unit. The huts were more modern and much warmer, as they had a form of central heating. Ablutions and baths were all under cover, we just had to walk along a corridor to get to the baths, and the ablutions were at the end of the huts. I made a lot of new friends, the work was much more pleasant, and we also worked with a lot of ex bomber crew, as they came to the end of their missions - they had flown a lot of missions, from which a lot of their comrades did not come back. They were treated very badly on camp by some of the officers, they had not before had to go on parade, and march in formation, so they larked about quite a lot. They had risked their lives nearly every day for us, but the ground staff officers tried to make fun of them, which made us very angry, we all thought they had done their bit, and were now just waiting for the end of the war. Some of these men came home to find their wives or girl friends had other men in their lives, some had received Dear John letters, which meant they had been replaced by new partners, which was very upsetting for them. We had one that my friend Peggy and I worked with, we both rather fancied him, he was nice and had some exciting tales to tell, he had to ditch in the sea twice, as his plane had been so badly shot up on a raid over Germany. He was waiting for his demob and we wondered what would be his home coming would be like. When his demob finally came through he had a party at a nearby hotel. Of course we were invited, but we knew a lot of the air crew would be there, and felt rather shy to go in, and hid behind a hedge in front of the hotel. He came looking for us , and must have spotted us behind the hedge, two hands shot out and grabbed us, and took us in, we had a great time, and every one made us welcome, but we were very sad to know he was leaving.

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