Family Memories Birmingham Overview

The Second World War

At the outbreak of the Second World War things for myself had progressed to a more steady and satisfying stage. The salary from work had reached a much better level, a promotion to a better grade had been achieved, savings were being made and altogether before the hostilities began, life had become much brighter and conditions better.

Then the peace of the world was shattered. No-one could foretell the future and everyone was drawn into the maelstrom of those times. At my age of 28 the break was unavoidable. The Auxiliary Fire Service was being organised and I gave some assistance to its setting up. But eyesight could not get me further than office work, as it was with all branches of the Armed Forces which I would have liked to enter, so I decided to wait for the authorities to decide for me. On the 5th November 1940 I was called upon and put in, above all occupations, the Royal Army Pay Corps.

Shrewsbury became my first Depot. The Severn had flooded all around, it was cold and bleak with one inoculation after another. Duties were trivial, there was in those early days little equipment to kit us out for full duties of soldiering. We were billeted out in private houses, my place being near the Abbey church. After six weeks Ilfracombe was my next location. A winter by the seaside. Office work, guard duties (watching the dark cold sea), fire watching, with enemy planes often overhead on their way to S. Wales targets. We could see the inferno of Swansea across the Channel. We were again billeted out and my wife was able to live with me. On my few free occasions we were able to indulge in long walks, on one occasion about 30 miles when we went over hill and dale to Hunters Inn and back. We both remember the enormous quantities of primroses that grew in Devon in spring-time. My wife's brother, during part of our time in Ilfracombe was at nearby Barnstable, where his mortar platoon used Braunton Sands as a practice ground. It was a pleasure for us to visit him and also for him to visit us on our few free occasions.

After about six months I was detailed for Reading. Duties were similar but everything was becoming more tense and onerous. Our offices were scattered all over the town, including places such as the Corn Exchange, part of Huntley and Palmer's Biscuit Factory, Balmore estate with its big house, an office block in Friar Street. Backward, and forwards to these places was onerous when added to training, fire watching, guard duties. We spent about one night in bed out of three in those days. We were trained as infantry which included weekend camps at Arborfield, grenade throwing and rifle shooting on the Berkshire Downs and each week compulsory swimming and cross country runs. It was at Reading that I broke my foot. It was attended to at a very emergency hospital for such minor injuries at a school converted for this purpose in Tilehurst Rd. Reading.

Once more my wife was able to join me. She herself worked with essential Industry at Goodenoughs and Gascoignes Milking Machine Co. In between all our activities we scrambled in good times with exploration of the River Thames and the surrounding countryside. Altogether it was for both of us a very full and active life for a few years.

The War was getting into a more advanced stage. There were air-raids by day and night, severe rationing was the order and austerity to the utmost was in operation. Dockets were issued for all necessities - food, clothing, furniture, very little obtainable and poor quality too. In spite of everything good friends were made, myself with Army personnel and my wife at her work. Our landlady at Grovelands Rd, off Tilehurst Rd became a great friend as also did her two daughters Joyce and Beryl. Joyce still writes to us but alas her mother and her sister Beryl are no more. An incident to remember was the visit to us of John, my wife's brother. He had to take his armoured vehicle to a factory in Oxfordshire and we woke up to find him and his armoured car outside in the street. He was allowed an over-night stay for the task and put up with us. Leave consisted of visits by packed train back to Birmingham.

The years 1944 - 1945 were momentous personal and national. American soldiers, airmen and equipment and planes were everywhere. Beryl Gibbons (the landlady's daughter) formed an acquaintance with an American soldier "Curtis" who later lost his wife in Normandy near Cherbourg. In June 1944 'D' Day took place. Literally thousands of planes, and gliders were overhead almost incessantly. John then in the R Warriors Regt took part, and went over to France just after 'D' Day in June 1944. Roadblocks, gun positions were everywhere, our R.A.P.C. humble allocation was to assist the Home Guard in whatever might occur.

John's regiment became part of the 5th Highland Division and he took part over several months in the general consolidation and advance through France and Belgium into Holland. On the 4th November 1944 he was wounded in the shoulder, put in hospital at Eindhoven and flown back to the military hospital at Cardiff. Christmas was a worrying time for us all and on Boxing Day of that year, his wife and my wife, his sister, visited him. It was a co-incidence that it was on the 5th November 1944 that found me on the transport ship for Malta. We sailed from Greenock in convoy. The "Highland Monarch" was a refrigeration boat converted for troop carrying. Our load was a mixed one, sailors, soldiers and some WRNS all kitted out for accidents - with life belts, star lamps and emergency rations. To be in convoy is an unforgettable experience. A line of transport with an aircraft carrier at the rear and two or three destroyers always on the move at the front or rear of the line. Our avoiding route was right out into the Atlantic and then over at the back of Ireland and then a bee-line for the Straits of Gibraltar and through to Malta. A journey of eight days which is now done in less than eight hours by air.

On the 27th July 1945 my daughter Jean Frances was born. My wife had returned home to Birmingham and worked for my firm, the Birmingham Electric Supply for a while. Jean was born in the Nursing Home in Beeches Road, West Bromwich. For the first and only time in my life at a distance of over two thousand miles, I fainted, even before the news actually had reached me.

The Army Service on Malta was brightened by interesting interludes. We still had leave periods. One year our week was spent on the neighbouring island of Gozo. Another time I was lucky to be able to go to Catania in Sicily where a so-called "rest-home" operated. We went up Mount Etna, visited Taormina with its Greek theatres and saw the hundreds of crosses at the graves of those who had fallen in the advance of the 51st Highland Division. The journey across to Sicily was made in captured Italian Destroyers, built for speed with their steel deck plating only ¼ inch thick. It was unforgettable how these ships cut through the seas at their high speed.

At long last the War finished and with it demobilisation. My batch went by boat, no convoy this time. Our first stop was Naples. The Italian crew had become unruly through shortage of rations and we took on a replacement crew. We saw Vesuvius but only from our anchorage. It was too risky to allow us on shore as things were at that time. After two or three days we sailed this time for Toulon. Here we were housed in transit camps, very primitive in set up. I remember the scented air from the perfumery factories around the District. We went from Toulon to Dieppe by train, a journey which took nearly three days. Railway tracks and bridges had suffered and their first aid repairs slowed down the speed of the train to walking pace at many places. At each stop we were besieged by French inhabitants for anything we cared to spare. Soap was either non-existent or in very short supply to them and excellent bargains were made for trading a bar of soap. Cigarettes too fetched a good return.

Aldershot was eventually reached with final details of demobilisation and complete on our "strange to wear" demob suits we reached home. The change from the Mediterranean warmth to the frost and cold of Northern France and England was badly felt and then 1945/46 proved a winter to be remembered for its severity.

John was demobilised later. He had recovered sufficiently not to be discharged but to be posted to a different regiment, the K.O.S.B. In Edinburgh he worked on duties of a lighter nature.

During the War years our homes in Birmingham were subject to prolonged Air Raids, with all the destruction and casualties that went with it. My wife's father pursued his vital War Work with the G.W.R. and his wife was secretary for a street Savings Group. Refuge or sleep was obtained in the Anderson Shelters when Air raid sirens sounded which were extremely frequent.

At Headingly Road, my mother's income was supplemented by an allowance from myself. At the age of 78 she went at first to her daughter Winifred at Hereford. She returned and then was evacuated to Great Glen in Leicestershire with Mrs Young, my brothers' mother-in-law. She again returned and then went to the Forest of Dean at Cinderford where she lived in Valley Road with Mrs Pace. Whilst away a bomb had fallen in the next Road (Rookery Road) at Handsworth, resulting in casualties and several deaths. Our own windows were damaged and structure weakened.

I did not return to Headingly Road but lived at Newcombe Road with my wife and daughter and my wife's parents. In due course my mother had returned home and lived alone. Fortunately we were only a short distance away from her.

1945 was an eventful year. With the birth of my daughter, Jean, the death of my sister Winifred occurred. It was also strange that the birth of Mavis my brother's last child (Lionel Knight) occurred at the same time as the decease of my sister.

From this time onwards it was a completely changed world personally and otherwise that my wife and I had to face.