Bill Clark's War 1 of 8 Chapters He was Captured 4, Released 1, Escaped 3

As a young man of twenty years I was fancy free and rather irresponsible, with a liking for the nightlife of dancing, drinking and taking in the odd show. In the period from 1937 to 1939 I was in lodgings, which varied to a startling degree, but it was all experience. I had moved to St. Albans from London, partly because of the opportunity of better wages and also because my home had broken up and my brothers and sisters had gone their different ways. A friend told me of a vacant situation in St. Albans where I worked until the commencement of World War II.

It was a happy time for me. I got involved in the social activities, took on the job of the Cycling Secretary with an active membership of sixty, which enabled us to see a lot of the country. This situation continued until 1939 when, like others, my mind took a more serious view of things.

My landlady had taken in two children, refugees from Poland and I took them for a walk round the lake near St. Albans cathedral. It was September 3rd 1939 and as we approached the little bridge an old man came up to me and said, “I wouldn’t go far mate, they are declaring war at 3 o’clock.” I thought it amusing at the time, (as if it would make any difference to me, I thought,) but on returning with the children to the lodgings I felt that strange tension when Chamberlain made his speech; the laughter had gone and everyone was quietly serious.

Where I worked in the ‘rag trade’ plans were now being made to dig trenches and a rota was put up for spotters on the roof.

I was now twenty-three years old and my work was making army battle dress and great coats. I thought that, as my landlord was a Special Constable in the City of London Police that I would join him and put in the time before call-up with the Police in the City of London.

At first I found it very interesting, although I was unpaid and what with the fares from St. Albans to London and the duties invariably 11p.m. — 3a.m. or midnight until 4a.m. the whole thing was too demanding, (I still had to start work at 8 a.m.). I was obliged to give it up and join the forces. This was a bit tricky. The call-up hadn’t reached my age group yet so I was able to make a choice.

My landlord urged me to join the Military Police as they got a stripe (Lance Corporal) and were paid five shillings and sixpence per day. An ordinary soldier’s pay was two shillings per day. His persistence got the better of me and so I applied and was told to report on the following Monday. Telling my friends of my intentions, I heard stories of how Military Police in the 1914 — 1918 war were hated and were shot in the back at any opportunity by their own troops. Although I still took all this with a pinch of salt I decided that the Military Police were not a very popular bunch of men. So I made my way to the Recruiting Office where I was told that men were urgently required for the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and no Naval or Royal Air Force men were needed at that time.

I had never heard of the Ordnance before and later discovered that I was to handle ammunition from .303 rifle bullets to six-inch shells during my stay in the army.

So, on two shillings a day, I made my way to Portsmouth, instead of the Military Police at Hounslow and embarked on the momentous part of my life.

My generation had heard a lot about Sergeants and Sergeant Majors and for the recruit the reports were very true. As the ‘rookie’ gained experience so the adaption became complete and the bad times forgotten.

After the initial fourteen days and three lots of inoculations, I was moved to York for another fourteen days and from there to a large ammunition dump at Bramley, near Basingstoke. There I committed a cardinal sin; I volunteered to be a dispatch rider with a draft of ten men, one Warrant Officer and a Second Lieutenant. Fortunately I came out of it very well, as we were to go to Old Warden in Bedfordshire, quite near to St. Albans, to prepare for a Base Ammunition Depot and while there we had an intensive course of ammunition examinations.

Another stroke of luck was in the Warrant Officer who was a regular soldier and held the highest rank possible for a non-commissioned Officer. (Conductor) Most of the commissioned Officers I saw in those days stood in awe of him. He was so knowledgeable. Anyway he took us twelve men under his wing and in three weeks we had all become ammunition storemen, First Class, which meant another three shillings a day and we were in line for stripes.

When this Base Depot was established, I and the other eleven mates had all made sergeant within six months of enlisting and I never did get the job of dispatch rider, although I got a motor bike for Passive Air Defence work. (Poison gases etc.)

We had, at this time, moved a few miles to Shefford as this dump extended over most of Bedfordshire.

During this time London was heavily blitzed and we were working flat out to keep the supplies of 3.7” and 4.5” Ack Ack ammunitions flowing. Also there were regular drafts going abroad. Such was the situation that after about eight months in the Army you felt like an “old sweat” and that you didn’t know any other life.

I was getting restless now; the Germans were bombing most nights and were passing overhead on their way to Coventry and the Midlands . Some moonlight nights you could see them clearly, a continual roar and nothing stopping them, (There were no night flights at this time).

I performed another cardinal sin and volunteered for the next draft, which was to leave in October 1940.

A lot of preparation was required, I had the job of Orderly Sergeant and had to know the names of one hundred and five men and all about them, but they were a good lot and I got out of a lot of trouble with their help. Everything was hush-hush. First we had pith helmets and shorts, and then they were taken away and given back to us the day we embarked. No letters were to be posted, although some of the chaps gave letters to the railway workers to post. We eventually got to Greenock (port in Scotland) where we embarked on an ancient merchant boat. There were five decks, including the boiler rooms and the fifth deck was where the Ordnance Company was put. Each man was given a hammock and told to find a place to hang it. Fortunately being a sergeant I was able to share a small storeroom with three other sergeants.

The first three days were horrific, everyone I saw was sea-sick, violently so… As orderly Sergeant, although on the boat, I had to report all present and correct each morning, but I couldn’t find the men. They crawled into all sorts of places, and with five thousand men on the troop ship it was impossible. Fortunately the orderly officer was also violently sick so he wasn’t bothered anyway.

Eventually we settled down and got some order, and life became bearable. We had boat drill at regular intervals and our positions on the ship had to be established so that the ship wasn’t overweight on one side. Somehow we had a feeling something wasn’t quite right. The navy men kept us informed, and first we struck north towards Iceland, then we were heading for Canada, after two weeks we were turned back and were heading for the Azores.

This convoy was a very large one. There were, as far as I was able to make out, about thirty merchant ships carrying stores (tanks etc). One could see the tanks and lorries lashed to the decks. A cruiser and two destroyers were running in and out of the convoy like greyhounds.

Imagine our dismay when we came up on deck one morning, after about four weeks at sea, to find that we were utterly alone, and the engine on the ship sounded like a clapped out motor bike.

We started having boat drill every two hours and for three days until we limped into Freetown and caught up with the rest of the convoy.

At Freetown (on the equator) the heat was terrific. Canoes of natives came out to barter and show off their diving skills. Coins would be thrown down and they would dive after them. After a while they insisted on silver coins, but the lads wrapped halfpennies in silver paper and the natives would be furious. — Hence the name Glasgow tanner.

Through our delay we were not allowed ashore and the convoy was on its way again. This time we travelled at the speed of the slowest boat — ours!

Our next stop was at Durban and we eventually arrived after eight weeks. On arrival we got the same treatment that many soldiers got, The Lady in White singing ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’, ‘Lilli Marlene, and other Vera Lynn songs.

We were allowed ashore daily for five days. The hospitality of the English South Africans was overwhelming. Lines of cars were waiting at the dockside each morning to take us to their homes and show us around. It was all over too soon, we re-embarked, this time on the pride of the French liners called ‘Ile de France’ and manned by French Moroccans. As Sergeants we had cabins, four in each, but luxurious in comparison to the previous boat.

We were travelling with barrage balloons now. We headed towards Port Tewfik and Port Said (they lie together), passing through the Red Sea. Disembarking at Port Said, we travelled alongside the Suez Canal, passing the Bitter Lakes where many ships travel along the canal to the lakes, unload and turn about, as happened to our war supplies. We went a further twenty miles to a spot called Abu Sultan, a place near well-known Ismailia.

Abu Sultan proved to be just a place name. The British army made it, installing wooden barracks, artesian wells and a general do-it-yourself appearance.

The water, mostly drawn from the canal through pumps enabled us to have showers regularly.

To the rookies, the new arrivals, the ones who hadn’t got their knees brown, the ritual was the toilet. These were built in rows of twenty spaces and a stream of water flowed through the sewerage well. You can imagine the agitation when a lighted ball of paper flowed from seat one to seat twenty.

My stay at Abu Sultan was very brief; I managed to get to Ismailia a few times. A pleasant spot if you take away the millions of flies and the beggars trying to eke out a living. Hundreds of shoe shine boys who would say to you ‘one acca’ and after shining one shoe would say ‘two accas’, and if you refused would sling the greasy blacking over your uniform.

It was at Abu Sultan that I began to realise that life is not all fun and beauty. The place was an ammunition depot and the station was a junction to run ammunition trucks into the depot. Whilst on duty a train came in and diverted some trucks for the depot. I had to label the contents and I tripped over a boot, - it had a foot inside. It was during this time that I found that for the W.O.G. life was very cheap. It was not uncommon to see dead babies lying in the gutters of the Arab shanty places as we went through in the lorries,.

After three weeks I found my name on Part Two orders that I must get my gear together as I was being drafted. So into the desert I went with five others in a three-ton lorry. We got our orders at the different transit camps. We called at Bardia, Sidi Barrani and Fort Capuccio. The drinking water left a lot to be desired.

We came off the coast road on a compass bearing, where after many hours we came across a tent and one Military Policeman, who directed us to an Ordnance Ammunition convoy — some job he had. On meeting the convoy which had been supplying the Long-range Desert Group, we found we were due to go back on the coast road to Mersa Matru to stock up. On getting to the road - the only one in existence - we found that the Germans had cut it and we were obliged to go to Tobruk.

Now Tobruk was well known to us all, but we found that, apart from a church partially standing, and the tail of Marshal Bilbao’s plane still sticking out of the sea in the bay, the remainder of Tobruk was mostly rubble. We found that Tobruk was well stocked with troops, ammunition and food and had held the reputation of being invincible, such that Rommel had failed to penetrate it on previous occasions. Well, whether it was General Clopper and the fact that the South Africans had the command of the Tobruk garrison, - we who were there felt that the South Africans were more pro-German than pro-British. General Smuts (Prime Minister of South Africa) alone with his casting vote had brought South Africa in on our side of this war.

The German Stukas were bombing at fifteen-minute intervals from E1 Adem day and night (El Adem being an airport nearby). We also had a dawn and evening ‘Stand-To’, so there was very little sleep for us. The whole place was becoming smoke bound, and as the armoured cars and tanks came in for loading so the situation got worse…our own transport had been bombed to pieces, so now we were reduced to manhandling heavy boxes of twenty-five pounders. It was unfortunate that we had Ugandans as a labour force, as every raid we had they disappeared, and by the time they were rounded up, another raid came. At last it appeared that the higher-ups had decided that Tobruk could not be held, and all Empire troops were evacuated, (including the useless Ugandans) so there were about eighteen of us left on the dump to supply ammunition.

The next lot of tanks to be loaded turned out to be German! - so we turned and ran to the ‘Dug-Out’, built under a pylon. Four men were shot, due to bullets ricocheting from the pylon. To give the Germans credit they had our wounded on a truck to Tobruk for medical treatment within fifteen minutes of capture.

So on 20th June 1942, 7630216 Clark W. R., Sergeant, became a prisoner of war.

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