War in Weymouth, Dorset

This story is about my late father whgo at the time of the war was a happy go lucky school boy who liked nothing better than climbing trees and scrumping apples with his friends. All that changed however when a ittle man called Hitler decided to invade Poland and start WW11. Weymouth and Portland as a place was very instrumental to the war as Portland (which is an Island connected to Weymouth by a causeway) has one of the largest and deepest natural Harbours in Europe. The first thing my Dad really knew about the war was when his father who was iun the Army was shipped over seas to fight which left my father and his five brothers to put in an orphanage or foster homes untill the end of the war as his mother had gone to live in Australia a few years earlier. This as you can you can imagine was a bit of a shock to a ten year old lad. As the war progressed and the Lufftwaffe began its reign of terror over the skies of England my father oftenb found himself hiding under a railway arch as a German plane strafed the road his was walking along to school. Thankfully, the Battle of Britain won this stopped after a while and life got back to semi normality for a while. That was untill the 'Yanks' showed up. This was a bit of a culture shock for most of the people in the area, but most of the young lads (including my father) had a hey-day. They were given chocolate, rides on the Americans vehicles and so on. Best of all they went from scruymping apples to scrumping stuff off the back of Amereican trucks!!! One day which dad told me a story about with fond memories was when he and his friends took what they thought to be a box of candy but actually turned out to be french letters (condoms). Dissapointed with their hall they proceeded to blow them all up, and set them afloat down Weymouth Harbour!!!
The whole of Weymouth and Portland at this time was like one giant G.I. camp they were everywhere, you couldn't move for them. One day however in early June my Dad wsopke up to find the whole area deserted by the Americans, where had they gone. No one knew, it was not untill later that day they found out. The invasion of fortress Europe had started. It was D-Day.
Eventaully my Dad's father returned and things got back to the way thet were, but my father never forgot his days during the war.
James Wellman

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