蜜芽传媒

You asked for ww2 stories. They do not all make good reading. Here is mine and I have a large file with official records which will verify my story. I left my home in Nottingham about Christmas 1937 on a rail voucher to Birmingham, to enlist in the RAF, I was asked what I wanted to do and I said 鈥榓rmourer鈥� because my grandfather had been one in India. I had no particular preference, I was only desperate to leave home. I was trained at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey and slept in the same bed which T E Lawrence had used some years before. There was a notice over the bed to this effect. I was earning 14 shillings a week (70p).
I subsequently retrained as a fitter armourer which paid slightly better.
In April 1942 I was a sergeant with an immaculate record. I was arrested and placed under close arrest for an offence of which I was completely and absolutely innocent. Despite advice from my CO and my defending council, I consistently insisted on telling the exact and honest truth. After 5 months incarceration in the guardroom, I was court-martialled, reduced to the ranks and released. My CO assured me that I would quickly be re-promoted. I was subsequently posted to RAF Duxford, and on arrival there, was immediately re arrested and once again found myself locked up in a cell. I was not very happy. I had had enough and refused to eat. I was repeatedly threatened with a further charge of SIW (self inflicted wound) which carried a penalty of two years in the glasshouse. There was no way I was going to give in and after 11 days on hunger strike, I was finally escorted to the Adjutant鈥檚 office who dismissed my escort and then asked me if I would care to join him for a drink in the village pub that evening. I remember very clearly that he had a file of papers on his desk which he held up and slowly and deliberately tore to pieces. I was 24, and a completely changed person, you may care to read a little 鈥檖oem鈥� which I wrote last year, at the end of my letter. A few months later I volunteered for a small Combined Operations unit - an RAF Servicing Commando Unit. We landed in Arromanches on Gold Beach, Normandy just before dawn on the day after D Day. I had taught myself to speak French reasonably well and my services were much in demand for the next few months. VE Day took place whilst we were in Holland but there were no celebrations. After my return to England, I wrote to the RAF Records office in Gloucester to find out why I had not been re-promoted as promised. A day later I was summoned to some office by the station Tannoy and there, a sergeant slapped a signal from Records on the desk, in which they denied any knowledge of the CM and according to their records, I had been a sergeant since 1941.
This was the day before I was to be demobilised, I was promoted to 鈥榗orporal鈥�, backdated 6 months. I did not consider it worthwhile to sew on my newly acquired 鈥檛apes鈥�.
My return to civilian life was extremely difficult. As an ex-regular I was refused any assistance from help centres such as the Resettlement Advice Bureau etc. I was unable to find any reasonable employment and spent some four years working on the land, hotel work, digging graves, and several other dead-end jobs. I went back to France where I was arrested by the police in Paris. After a night in a police cell, I was escorted to the British Consul and deported.
I would like to say that during these bad times, I met some truly wonderful people who made me realize that not the whole world was run by idiots like those in the RAF and the MOD who had managed to completely wreck my life.
I have amassed a large file of letters some of which have demonstrated the utter stupidity and ignorance of the officers who run our armed forces. I have a photocopy of my service record which has omissions and mistakes. I have a letter telling me that I served in the Middle East. Must have been my doppelganger. I have no recollection of this.
Never an apology or an admission of any mistake. Oh no, of course not.
Yesterday I watched the 蜜芽传媒鈥檚 programme on the anniversary of VE Day. You can imagine my reactions. But I have to say that I was not actually sick.
Time heals, they say, but it doesn鈥檛 - it covers up and things fester. I managed later to make something of my life and found some satisfaction in demonstrating a camera which I had designed and patented to the US Atomic Energy facility at Los Alamos. Whist there, I met scientists who had worked on the Manhatten project, including Edward Teller, kown as the father of the atom bomb. I watched all the US nuclear bomb tests in 1963 on Christmas Island, where I was taking measurements. Somebody finally trusted me.

David Procter. Corporal. 548106.

REALITY

I am very old now, and I鈥檝e learnt a thing or two,
Here are three words of wisdom which will help you to get through.
I shall not write of beauty, faith, hope and charity,
They are all illusions - this is reality.
Don鈥檛 dream of arms around you or Someone in the sky,
You鈥檙e on your own, a bit of flesh, you鈥檙e born, you live, you die.
Don鈥檛 think that so called wise men, the doctors priests and sages
Can change your lot one tiny jot, they鈥檝e been talking now for ages.
They鈥檙e just the same as you and me - just stumbling in the dark,
Surrounded by a wilderness that鈥檚 cruel cold and stark.
No different now from what it was ten thousand years ago
And the man who lived in the other cave was not your friend, but foe.
My words of wisdom are only three - stand with your back to the wall,
And shout for all the world to hear, my Message:
鈥淔**k 鈥榚m All鈥�.

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