I Remember ..... Chapter Two

Chapter Two

The Call Up

Notices were displayed in towns requiring persons who had attained the age of 18 and a half years, to register for military service and I was ‘called up’ on the 16 July 1942, having had a medical examination at Taunton Cricket Ground. Young women either went into one of the three Services or joined the Land Army. You had a preference for the army, navy or air force but that did not matter much. I was sent to Dorchester and became Private 14237222, of the Devonshire Regiment. I did six weeks initial training, chiefly square bashing (drill), then on to Colchester, for a 3-inch mortar course, as I had excelled at an agility test. I left there to join the 8th Battalion of the Regiment and billeted at Burnham-on-Crouch Yacht Club, Essex. Whilst there, we were inspected by Field Marshall Montgomery who commanded our Eighth Army in Eygpt, Libya, North Africa, Italy and through to Germany. They were known as the ‘Desert Rats’. From Essex we had a quick move to North Yorkshire, at an estate belonging to Major Dugdale, in a small village Craythorne, near Yarm where the first steam train by Stephenson had run. (Stockton-on- Tees was our nearest town.) We were a drafting battalion which reinforced the strength of other battalions of our Regiment and took in a new squad about every eight weeks. Our Company received about 90 soldiers, to do a six-week extensive training, followed by embarkation leave and then posted to our other battalions. Many went straight into action, places like the Anzio Beach Head in Italy, Malta, India and others to battalions preparing to return to the Continent, the Second Front. As I was too young to go on overseas draft, I stayed at Craythorne for seven months.

For a short period, I became friendly with Len Lanning, a policeman from Dorset. We were on guard duty one night, marching to the gardener's lodge and back; outside the lodge we turned about. The Company Commander was Captain Marker (a motor racing driver before coming into the army, from Honiton) who had a bed there. The following morning, we were called up for Company Commander's Orders, by the Sergeant Major, Dickie Clowns, thinking we had done something wrong. Captain Marker congratulated us on our timing and excused us from any further guards. I suppose we had disturbed his sleep! The upshot of that, was I was placed on guard duty in the daytime. If anyone important visited us, we called it ‘B B B’ (Bullshit Baffles Brain)! Unfortunately, Len Lanning was killed in the Anzio Beach Head, a few days after leaving us.

As I was spare, I had to go and work in the cookhouse and also look after the mess in a Nissen hut (a tunnel—shaped hut of corrugated iron with a concrete floor). I use to 'shout up' at meal times and prepare haversack rations when the Company was on all day schemes, route marches etc. We use to go down to the village post office, run by two charming ladies, the Kendrick sisters, who produced cakes etc through the Women's Institute; often getting 30-40 men in two rooms was some feat. Our Company’s strength was greater than the population of the village of Craythorne. It's not surprising that we 'blotted our copy book'!

One night, we were invited to a 21st birthday party in a barn at Hulton Rugby, about 4 miles away. On return, some took a number of milk churns off their stand and placed them across the road; only, the next person to be coming back from the party was none other than the vicar, who came off his cycle and fell into the road. The next morning, the Sergeant Major had us on parade and said in sympathy, we would all be on church parade the following Sunday! It was a pleasant stay at Craythorne, rather ‘out in the sticks’. On another occasion, the cookhouse staff, Corporal Dowse, Eddie Weltner and Bucket Cann, accompanied by Buzzer Harris and Screwey Newt from the stores, set off to the river below us, to get some fish. If one goes fishing, you don’t wear workhouse whites! The intention was to fire a .22 rifle at the fish. Having espied a fish, off the rifle went. The fish was partially stunned and went up stream with the speed of a motor boat, half out the water. We chased it, only to find the Company Commander around the corner fishing! On orders next day — ‘Other ranks are reminded that poaching fish is prohibited’! Whilst at Craythorne, my home at Teignmouth was badly damaged in an air raid and my mother, father and sister, Joan moved to Wooburn Green, near High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, where I spent my leave.

The war had become global. All over the world, Russia, America, China and members of the Empire, which in those days covered a third of the world’s surface, were involved. England had become an arsenal of weapons, including aircraft tanks from America, with the hopes of returning to the Continent against Germany.

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