Wartime miscellany

Hey, you found it! Wow, I can hardly believe it was 11 years ago that I put that film up on YouTube!

Didn't realise it was one of yours Rob. It came up as a link on Facebook and I couldn't remember seeing it before.

I'm always staggered by the danger of those Drop Press Machines!

Yes, Steve and I both commented on how dangerous that looked! I wonder how many employees left with fewer limbs than they started with?!?

Oh, I don't know, you could probably count them on the fingers of......

I worked a 500 ton press straightening bars of steel ready for turning and grinding also the finished product - a Wormscrew. On one night I had to straighten an urgent job for turning, the bar 8ins thick, 10ft long and only about 20 thou out of true. Easy? Set the press up, pulled the safety cage down, pressed the foot pedal to bring the press down and started to wind on the pressure. I could not believe how far you could bend a bar of that thickness. I had forgotten to set the down stop so the press would stop just above the bar. The press was set for a 2in bar. I hate to think what would have happened if the bar had snapped, it must have weighed about a ton. It then took me all night to get it straight again. Oh, the bar bent that much it dropped out of its holdings and fell on the table - just as well we had overhead cranes. I had to sit down with a cup of tea to recover because I knew I was lucky the bar had not shattered, also that it had not fallen off the table onto me.

1938 and war was looming, and the youth were going away to return in uniform; by 1939 the bulk were enlisted, but sometime they added that all 16 to 40 year olds would have to register. The register asked them to say which branch of the armed forces they would choose, and what order, then which occupation they preferred and so forth - they asked of any illness, so they had two years to sort out where to place you. When you went for a medical and tests, again the selection. When it came to my turn I knew I did not have the education for aircrew so I plumped for Parachute Regiment (Specialist). The NCO said, smiling, "Then I definitely need another mob to transfer you to". I should have said, "I'm a Coventry kid, just watch me". I was about seven weeks into training - about 7.30 am an NCO came to my hut. "OK, you're not training today, take your rifle to the armoury, come back here, and double". My platoon vanished to training. "Right, strip off your training gear, take everything out of your pockets, money, watch, rings, pay-book, put on your uniform, nothing in your pockets". Ready, we got to hut nine (hut nine was a further unit inside the regiment I had joined), handed over to another NCO. There were two more lads I joined. "Right, listen up. On the table is a slip of paper, on the paper is four words. You have five minutes to read, digest. You will find the place on the paper. Contact the person, bring back his message. In a moment we will send you on this mission. You have 48 hours, you will not belong to the army. The army has forgotten you for 48 hours, after that time if you're not back we will come looking for you. Now read the paper". We read the paper. 'Twisted Spire Queens George'. He looked at his watch. Two minutes later he took the paper and crumpled it up. "You have three minutes to swop ideas". I said, "I'm from three spires". The other lad said,"No, I live a few miles from Chesterfield, it has a twisted spire". The sergeant looked at his watch. "Go. 48 hours unless you have the message". We walked outside and froze - doodle bug about to go by. It passed over. A big sigh of relief, that could have finished everything.

At the beginning of the war, the government knew they would not be able to bring everyone home in a few weeks, so as you enlisted they gave you a demob number. They also started to register 16 year olds - questions; which arm of the forces do you prefer, in what order? You put down in the order you preferred - infantry, artillery, regiment. Females - factory, nursing etc. They now had two years where they would place you in the event that the war would last two years. If they had too many for one arm they took so many to a second string, so they had a steady stream where they wanted them. It took them three years to get people back to civvy street, and a number of ways to do it.

In June 1944 the Allies launched D-Day, but about 10/15 miles from the coast lay the mighty Panzer Corp in the Ardennes Forest. The allies needed to stop them from crossing the bridges to give D-Day a chance, so they dropped the 6th Division of the Parachute Regt to take and hold the bridges. It was a mighty battle, huge losses on either side. In September they dropped the 1st Division of the Paras at Arnhem to take bridges so the 2nd Army of the Allies could cross - a success for the Paras but the 2nd Army failed to reach and cross. February 45 and I was one of thousands being trained to replace the lost men. Hitler had come up with new weapons, the doodlebug and the V2 rocket - no need for crews, they flew over the fighting below and hit London etc with devastation. Now it is my theory (with a lot of knowledge) that the Army needed to drop special small numbers of highly skilled men to knock these sites out of action, with or without the help of Free French people but they would have to make contact, to cross no-mans land after, either to get to the advancing army, or home. I was almost trained and ready, but I needed to be able to cross enemy territory, so the Army devised some small tests that they thought would fit the bill. Chesterfield was the first one for me. So three of us had to find and bring back a message - we had no money, from the south coast to Chesterfield was around 400 miles, there and back. One lad set off hitching, one to the station - his father worked on the railway. I set off the other way to Folkestone - there was a transport cafe. On the forecourt I looked at the lorries, and got lucky. I walked into the cafe and said loudly "Who is the driver of the Coventry van?" He was middle aged. He said, "Me". I said, "Are you going to Cov or Folkestone?" He jerked his thumb north. "Get a tea, I'm not quiet ready." I hunched my shoulders, "No money, but I've just had breakfast, thank you". "I'll be a min, and you obvious don't have a train voucher." He got up to go, we got outside the door, stopped. "You jumping ship?" He was about to refuse me. "Look I'm on a manoeuvre, that's why I have no money." He walked a few paces, stopped again. "Look, never heard of a manoeuvre that takes you home". S**t! I desperately needed the lift. "No, I'm travelling farther on, this will be a big help." He hesitated. I pointed to my badge, and said, "You heard a few minutes ago", pointing to the sky, "someone's got to find them, and..." He said "Jump in". I had a lot to think about. After about an hour I said, "Will you visit that cafe again?" "About every month, six weeks." "Do you trust the owner?" "I'll buy you a meal, for the Coventry kid, that ok?" He smiled. "No need to do that, but thanks." From then on we were fine. He lent me a fiver, to repay at the cafe. We stopped a few times, and just outside Cov he got me a lift with a guy going to Manchester. I think it was about 6.30pm when I walked in the Queens Hotel.

We were taken to a mock village "Listen up. The Germans are in that block of buildings across the road. You two, take some cover down there and you two, just down there [pointing], and fire into the block when I shout 'fantail'. Give him cover." He tapped me on the shoulder. "How many mags you got?" I said, "Four". He said, "And you, race to that corner. Once they start firing, lay on the pavement, flat position, and fire rapid fire down the streets. Alternate, close to the doors, but don't do it so they can read it, and remember, you all have live ammo. Right, you four go and get into position". A few minutes, he shouted and guns erupted. I sprinted with a Bren gun, and started firing. Fired about two mags and the gun stopped. I inched forward to check the gas regulator, and did the classic stupid thing of touching the red-hot barrel - like touching a boiling kettle. But I fixed it before the corporal returned. Five years later, I'm in the Coventry fire brigade. The officer tells me to check the upstairs of a burning building, full of smoke. Race upstairs in all the smoke, put my hand out to touch the landing wall and put it straight on one of those brass plates that were all the rage in the fifties!

Rob. Info... The airborne only had two divisions, the 1st and the 6th - the number 6 was to fool the Germans we had a bigger airborne unit than for real. The 6th dropped at the Ardennes on D-day June1944, the 1st at Arnhem. Both lost a lot of men.

Thanks Kaga - I had no idea we only had two airborne divisions. I wonder if the 6th used the technique known as Operation Window, which was to drop bundles of silver foil strips, cut to a specific length (half a wavelength, for those interested), which would float for ages in the air and virtually blot out German Radar, making it look like there were swarms of planes everywhere! Our planes could then go where they liked without the Germans knowing which were real reflections and which were fake - until it was too late!

Rob, If you haven't seen it there was an interesting programme about 617 Sqn. and all of their special missions on TV. One was about how they used window to fool the Germans that a seaborn invasion fleet was on its way to France, as a feint, It was very clever and intricate. If you haven't seen it it is bound to be on again shortly (that is why I now usually call it DV instead of TV - Deja Vu, seen it before). I believe the programme was on the Smithsonian channel.

Rob. No, I believe that was left to the pathfinders, but tinsel, propaganda leaflets, and all kinds of things, but we did drop dummy soldiers with firecrackers to fool them, and we did use hand-held click-clacks known as frogs to find each other in the dark. There was a major with a hunting horn, and Humphrey Lyttelton was known to go up the beach, rifle in one hand, trumpet in the other. Rob, last Saturday, big band sounds of wartime - Gene Krupa, Snakehips Johnson and all the legends.

'Snakehips' Johnson was killed in the Blitz playing at the Café de Paris, London if I recall.