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Before volunteering to serve in the RAF at the age of 17 in 1945, right at the end of the war, my war had consisted of a brief evacuation to from my home in Clapham to Eastbourne on the south coast in 1939,my Dad (James Stiff senior) being killed in a bombing raid at Nutwell Street, Tooting, in May 1941, and constant ly being bombed out of houses in the Tooting and Clapham area, we moved 10 times in all.

I was nearly 16 and working for the County of London Electric Supply Company when I had a letter from the Ministry to say that they were compulsory recruiting people, including lads for the mines, what were known as Bevan Boys. I didn’t want to know anything about going down mines so I volunteered for the Air Force in late 1945. Nothing happened until March 1946 when I went to Hither Green for my medical for the RAF and was passed A1 health although I wore specs — A1 meant you were breathing and could stand up straight!

After another few months my National Service ‘call up’ papers came and in June 1946 I went to Padgate, on the Cheshire borders, an RAF recruitment centre, for 3 weeks and I don’t think I saw the sun shine once — it rained and rained; it’s probably still raining there now! Air Force life was totally alien to me. Instead of having a bed and room to yourself you had a hut with 20 or 30 other blokes in it and surprise kit inspections in the middle of the night - it brought you down to earth with a bump and broadened your mind very quickly. I was then posted to RAF Training Squadron at Compton Bassett, Wiltshire for ‘square bashing’ as it was known — taught to march, use small arms and given some discipline. In Nov 1946, I was posted to an aerodrome at Errol in Perthshire, Scotland. This was RAF Errol Maintenance Unit No.260, an aerodrome for mainly Dakotas and storage, where most of the work loading and unloading the aircraft was carried out by German POWs who were billeted about 3 miles away and held by the Army. We were able to use them as and when require for chores. I had quite a good time there, it was the winter of 1946/1947, one of the worst winters even Scotland could remember and we employed about 200 of these Germans to dig the snow off runways and roads in the area. At times the snow was so heavy it was coming down faster then they could shift it. It was a really hard winter and at one time they were even thinking of dropping foodstuffs from other parts of the country to us. We had some laughs and I got to know some of the German chaps quite well although at that time we weren’t allowed to fraternize with them; we gave orders and supervised their work and they just had to do it.

After the initial bad weather a couple of Dakotas came in with a load of physical training equipment including vaulting horses, which they stored in a blister hangar (metal construction with canvas back and front). The German POWs unloaded it all and we supervised. About a fortnight later some of the equipment was going to be taken somewhere else so we went to the hangar with a 3 ton truck and 2 or 3 POWs but when we got there we found that the leather had been stripped off one of these vaulting horses and it just had the white canvas showing. The Sergeant said ‘that’s not right’ and the next thing we knew everything came to a halt, phone calls were made and a couple of RAF SPs (Station Police) reckoned the German POWs had nicked it. The POWs would take Perspex from the aircraft and anything useable and make you stuff out of it you see. A Provost Marshall came to the base from Perth to investigate the matter and decided to get an interpreter and interrogate these POWs but he got no joy and never did find out where the leather had gone. In their wisdom they decided that as punishment they’d have the 20 POWs who’d been working in the area at the time the equipment was unloaded kitted out with picks and shovels and they made them dig a trench right across the grass area of the airfield. This went on for half a day and we had to supervise them, it was freezing cold with still a lot of snow about. Anyway, the German POW Commandant decided this was wrong in these conditions and he called in the Red Cross. Everything halted until the Red Cross came and they decided that it was against the Geneva Convention and that POWs shouldn’t be made to do the work. That was the last we heard about the bloody vaulting horse!

The German POWs got up to all sorts of things — if you got them Perspex, old sacking and bits of material they’d make you anything you wanted: cigarette cases and lighters, animals, teddy bears and things like that. They were quite industrious and clever and must’ve had quite a little industry going on in the camp they were billeted at. Anyway, for 10 cigarettes (issued to us free), they’d make you anything. There was a young German POW, called Kurt, he was younger than me, only about 17, and he’d been taken prisoner when he was 16 years old. He’d intended to be a tailor and used to do alterations to uniforms for us. He said he’d make me up an elephant - our Squadron crest was an elephant you see, so I had an elephant made up for 10 fags. It was made of felt and a bit of material used for their POW uniform material (black/grey course material) with a big coloured patch on his back, blanket stitched with embroidery on his head and floppy ears and ‘Errol’ stitched across his side. I don’t know what he’s stuffed with. I’ve still got him but he looks a bit worse for wear nowadays, well he is 60 years old!

From Errol I was posted to RAF Lords Bridge Bomb Disposal Unit, Cambridgeshire, in Spring 1947 doing basic bomb disposal training and travelling round the surrounding counties clearing bombs from Air Force bases that the American had departed from by 1946. It had been a Eighth Army bomb storage depot for 2 and 3 Groups of Bomber Command and We had to dispose of various gases and chemicals there too, such as mustard gas. In Summer 1947, we had to go to West Wratting, Essex, for nearly a week when a train carrying mustard gas derailed and we had to go and decontaminate it all. I’m sure local people must still remember this. We were fully kitted out in what was supposed to be gas-proof heavy duty rubberised suits and masks and in the Summer this not very funny! Another time we went to Wratting airfield to pick up two 500lb bombs that a local farmer had found lying in a hedge; at that time the airfield was decommissioned but the living quarters were being used for displaced people from eastern Europe. The Americans left all sorts of munitions lying around, buried in hedgerows and when people, particularly farmers, came across them we had to go and sort them out. I went from Lords Bridge on attachment for about 8 weeks to RAF Polebrook, an American airfield near Peterborough, and we had to remove quite a number of various sized bombs and take them back to Lords Bridge to dispose of them. Most of the armaments at Lordsbridge were 250lbers or ‘Blockbusters’ and were loaded onto railway wagons and shipped from there to Stranraer, Scotland, loaded onto vessels and taken out into the North Sea and dumped. Lords Bridge base in now owned by Cambridge University, fenced off and is covered with radio scanning dishes and satellite dishes.

I was posted down to RAF 4MT Unit at Kidbrook, the main RAF transport depot for the London area, in early 1948 and from there I was sent to 238 MU Marine Craft Maintenance Unit at Mount Batten Flying Boat Base, Plymouth. I had a great time there, it was like a holiday camp — we used to make up a fishing sieve and when going over to Drake’s Island on our Liberty boat we’d leave the sieve overboard for 2 or 3 hours and catch lobster and crab — the local fisherman used to complain like mad that the Marine blokes were stealing their catches!

I was de-mobbed from Mount Batten in August 1948, eventually being sent up to Squire’s Gate near Blackpool, to get kitted out with my ‘civvies’ which consisted of a suit, pair of shoes, 2 shirts and a tie and a raincoat and a Trilby hat. The Navy and Army were allowed to keep their greatcoats but I wasn’t allowed to keep my nice Canadian, fleece-lined one. I was then taken down to the railway station where ‘Spivs’ waited outside wanting to buy your suite etc off you for a couple of quid; a lot of chaps sold their stuff — I didn’t, it was the only suit I had! I was given my warrant and sent home to Clapham South.

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