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Memories from the 40’s

My war started one day while I was riding my bike home, when I saw a newspaper placard with the words “War Declared” which at the time, as a eleven year old boy did not been a great thing. I was at the time living in “Sunny” Rhyl, with my parents, who were running a chain of shops throughout North Wales.

As one gets older, you only remember certain passages of your life, while other parts seem to wither on the vine. The first thing I remember was the time of Dunkirk, when a lot of the soldiers were billeted in all the boarding houses along the front in Rhyl, and on that Sunday, after Church my father picked up nine soldiers, and brought them home for dinner. After dinner all the solders gave me their cap badges, and everyone was from a different regiment, so you can see how chaotic it was at that period of the war. My next recollection was coming home from school, and hearing a noise of machine guns above my head, upon looking up, I saw a Heinkel bomber, and a Hurricane flying toward one another firing their guns, but there was no dog fight, they just kept on flying, as if they were scared of one another.

That winter we had a visit from the Luftwaffe which used to fly over the Rhyl area on there way to bomb Liverpool, you could always identify the German bombers by their distinctive sound, and who on one occasion left us a couple of samples, one falling in a school field, and the other hitting a house, but luckily there were no casualties. About this time, there were numerous practices by the ARP, letting off tear gas, to make sure that you were carrying your gas mask, and new how to use them, also along the front they started building pillar boxes, which were disguised by wooden structures, and painted up, as Ice Cream kiosk’s. As we came into 1942 I joined the 1340 squadron, the local branch of the ATC, and was taught the popular sport of the time, square bashing, and the way to short out the Germans, “Kick them in the googlies” as prompted by an ex-sergeant major from the First World War. That summer we went on a week’s camp to RAF Llandwrog, which was a gunnery and navigation school to learn what life was really like in the RAF. It was great fun to be kitted out with a parachute, and have a flight in an Avro Anson,
although if you sat next to the pilot, it was your job to wind up, and down the undercarriage, which was done with a handle next to the pilot’s seat, and which seemed to go on for ever. Some Sundays we used to go in a van to RAF Hawarden, which was a holding station for the replacements for the losses incurred at the various bomber stations. There seemed to be every type of bomber there, Lancaster’s, Stirling’s, Halifax’s, Wellington’s to mention just a few. We used to have a competition as to how many different planes we could go on, but this all came to an end, when one of our cadets, was caught sitting in a mustang, which was still on the secret list. One of our duties was, when it was War Weapons Week, we had to guard some of the exhibits, and I remember during one of these weeks having to guard a Spitfire which had been parked on the front at Rhyl. We had to be on guard by midnight, so I remember walking over the vale road bridge at ten to twelve, with the town deserted, the flags, and bunting stirring slightly in the breeze, and the sun still shining, for during the war we were on double British Summertime. I found it very cold on the front, so I got into the Spitfire, and tried to dose off, but the illumination of all the dials kept me awake, I had reasoned that if I was sitting in the plane, no one could take it. It was about this time that we had our first fatality, one of our cadets, who was on camp at RAF Mona, on a training flight came down in the sea, and was drowned, the rest of the crew were all saved.

I move on now to our cousins from across the sea, the yanks had arrived, and seemed to be everywhere in Rhyl, I seemed to recall a squad of them marching down vale road, not one in step, in fact I remember thinking what a shower, and they are our Allies. It was about this time that they had blocked off the duel carriageway between Rhuddlan and St.Asph, which was filled with all manor of trucks, and Tanks, which were parked side by side, and which were waiting for D-Day to start. I think it was Christmas 1943 or 1944 my father after church, drove along the front in Rhyl, where there were dozens of German and Italian POW’s milling along the promenade, he picked about six of them up, and they came for a Christmas Dinner.

Before I close the chapter on the war years, I should mention that there seemed to be a lot of aeroplane crashes around and about, Beaufighter coming down at Rhuddlan, a Mosquito in the sea, lots of balsa wood being washed up, just the thing for making model aeroplanes, and of course loads of oranges from the cargo of sunken ships.

In 1946 I was called up for National Service, joining up at Padgate, posted to Compton Bassett for recruit training, and on my first leave, on my return to the camp I had a motor cycle crash which resulted in me having six weeks sick leave. On my return to the camp, as my draft had completed there training, and had been posted, I was sent to RAF Kirkham, but was only there for two weeks, before I was sent on a three month shorthand, typist course to RAF Hornchurch. The course was held in a civilian school, just around the corner from Westminster Abbey, which necessitated an hour’s journey every day on the tube, getting on at Elm Park station. The accommodation at Hornchurch was pre-war, so all the blocks were brick built, but unfortunately the winter of 1946 was one of the coldest, and you were always cold, even with everything piled up on your bed, even the mug of tea next to your bed used to freeze. The other problem was that it was the time of the fuel cuts, so that you would get on the tube, travel for about ten minutes, then the power would be turned off, and you would be stuck on the train for an hour or two, with no heat. When we went on this course, we were told that we were being trained to go on the Control Commission in Germany, but of course being the services, it did not happen, they decided to send civilians, and after completing the course, they had us clearing the snow from the camp. After a month we were all posted to different units, I ended up being posted to H.Q 40 Group Maintenance Command, where I had to take shorthand from God himself, an Air Marshall, or that’s what it seemed like, me the lowest of the low, just an AC2 and he an Air Marshall. I was not at the station very long before I got a posting to 277 M.U. RAF Llandwrog, the station where I had a weeks camp with the ATC, which was situated about six miles from Caernarfon.

This was a small station, commanded by a squadron Leader Goggin, with a strength of about 250 airmen, who were engaged in dipping thousands of German Nerve Gas bombs in Lanolin to preserve them, but I lean’t later that they ended up in the North Sea in a sunken freighter. The station was non-operational as the main runway was cover about twenty high with cases, and cases of these bombs, being worked on by these AC2’s, mainly Irish extraction. It was a dispersal station, our billets being half a mile from the cookhouse, and two miles from our work, so everyone had a bike to ride. As I was the only one, who could type, I was put in charge of the orderly room, being now a corporal, or can carrier as we were called. I ended up for a few weeks as acting Sergeant, as no one else could type, so I think it was a form of blackmail to stop me getting demobbed, but I am afraid that it did’nt work, as when my card to came through to report for demob, I was first in the queue.

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