"We're at War, Boys," - Part 3

“WE’RE AT WAR, BOYS!” (Part 3)
(2,583 words)
Unlike that single stray bomb on the Warboys brickworks, there was nothing unrealistic about another massive detonation nearby a year or so later. Although I was later to witness similar peacetime incidents in my adult working life, this was to be my first and only personal experience of a wartime disaster,
The blast jerked our stationary public transport bus on its springs and the very ground beneath us seemed to shiver. The blinding flash and a violent ear-shattering explosion had been almost simultaneous. All around came gasps of shock from my fellow passengers as we automatically ducked and covered our ears.
After a moment I ventured to lift my head. My eyes swivelled back to the window and the wartime airfield scene only a few hundred yards away. The spindly, fragile-looking forward undercarriage of a four-engine Stirling bomber we had all been watching had suddenly collapsed as it taxied along a runway.
Churning propeller blades crumpled like paper windmills as the huge, camouflaged fuselage dropped to the ground with an abrupt thump. Four big Bristol Hercules engines slung partly below the aircraft wings impacted with the solid asphalt, hurling buckled fragments in every direction.
Suddenly the mangled aircraft was engulfed in fire. Then came the boom of that massive explosion. Within seconds, the shimmering grey shape was enveloped in a ball of white hot flame which rose skyward into the pall of a carbon black thunder-like cloud. Secondary flames simultaneously slithered and licked the smoke-shrouded fuselage and wings. A brief series of further deafening explosions followed.
For a moment all of us were dumbstruck by the catastrophe staged in front of us. Then everyone was talking at once. One could only cry out: “Good God...it’s terrible.” Another mouthed: “What happened? Did you see...?” A third: “What was that? A bomb? A load of bombs?”
And yet another: “What of that poor crew? They didn’t have a chance...”
*
It was early 1941. The phoney war, when both the Allies and the enemy Axis pawed the ground and geared themselves for some greater offensive, was ending. Britain was launching what was to become an almost continuous air assault on Germany’s munitions production.
We were aboard the country bus travelling from Warboys to the then county town of Huntingdon, just seven miles away. My fellow passengers were local people, on shopping or family trips into town. Now ten, I was making the same journey on my own almost every weekend. Like me, my mother and sisters had moved on again to another billet, this time back to Godmanchester, a mile distant from the other side of Huntingdon.
This journey was destined to be different, in more ways than one. Our single-deck bus had been halted on the road by armed guards alongside RAF Wyton, another bomber aerodrome just outside Huntingdon. It was the first time I’d known this to happen; indeed the wooden barrier across the road was obviously brand new. I couldn’t help recalling my vastly different outing to that other airfield just a few miles away in the earlier days of the war.
My present route on the A141 road from March to Huntingdon skirted the northern edge of Wyton. Until recently, activity at the airfield had been relatively low key. From the bus I had regularly witnessed the progress of Britain’s warplane development, from the primitive-looking twin-engined Whitneys and Hampden bombers through to the nippy Blenheims and the gallant Wellington - the “Wimpey” of the early night raids. But there was little obvious operational flying to hold the interest of even the casual passing observer.
Now Wyton had become home base to a heavy bomber squadron and was to play a major role in almost nightly gruelling missions over the industrial arteries of the Ruhr and Rhine. The four-engined Short Stirling bomber we could see crossing the near horizon was obviously just returning from one of those early raids. Someone told me was told at the time that the Stirling’s main undercarriage was notoriously fragile, particularly after damage. Though I have never been able to verify this, I was to later to witness several similar incidents with the aircraft though happily with no such tragic result.
Homecoming bombers would normally touch down on the main runway further to the south, so it was essential to keep that and the major part of the airfield operational. Damaged aircraft which still managed to limp home, often to make a forced landing though badly shot-up, could be switched to another, shorter runway, enabling unhindered access to emergency and rescue vehicles. Sometimes, because of that damage, the aircraft still carried part or all of their bomb load.
Because of a rise in the ground, the main runway, running almost directly west-east, was out of view from the A141. But the much shorter secondary runway ran parallel with the public road just a few hundred yards away. It was less than a mile long, but to the returning aircrews it was often a safety lifeline.
The RAF authorities had perhaps concluded that travellers using the A141 would find their grandstand view of gunfire-disabled aircraft demoralising. It was perhaps unfortunate that the siting of the new road block, just beyond the edge of a screening spinney, only enhanced the view of the airfield to passengers and drivers particularly when their vehicles were stationary.
Its brakes screeching in protest at this unfamiliar challenge, the green country ’bus had shuddered to a halt inches from the chequered pole slung across the road. From the verge a khaki-clad figure pointed a rifle at the driver, his finger resting on the trigger guard. Another soldier, also armed, opened the door and boarded. He muttered a few words to the driver and turned to face us.
At just that moment his attention - and ours - switched to the airfield. The shadowy outline of the taxiing Stirling bomber had emerged from the drifting ground mist, less than a quarter of a mile away, beyond the low hedge and the vivid green of mown grass. Its propeller engines thundered as it slowed to a halt.
Then, as we all followed the movement, suddenly came the disaster…
*
It was all over in less time than it takes to tell of it. Crash crews and fire tenders were surrounding the dying conflagration. Military fire fighters were searching the smouldering ashes in forlorn hope...
The soldier finally remembered his responsibilities and switched his gaze from the window. It was as though the catastrophe we had all witnessed was unreal; in the present day it could have been a special effects display from some Hollywood blockbuster. The gruesome show was over. It was almost time to leave.
‘I.D.cards,’ the guard announced peremptorily, and ignoring the questions and comments from passengers he repeated: ‘Identity cards please. Have them ready for me and you’ll soon be on your way.’
The soldier swung the rifle by its strap on to his shoulder. Alone at a near side window seat, I reached into the top left pocket of my jacket, and pulled out the folded piece of cardboard with two fingers. ‘Always carry it with you,’ they had told us. ‘Gas mask and ID card - always have them with you.’ The mask was in its fragile cardboard box on a cord round my neck. I always wore my jacket - so it seemed a good idea to keep my ID card in what I thought of as my handkerchief pocket.
I looked across at my fellow passengers There must have been a dozen or fifteen others making the same journey. I don’t believe I knew any of them; Warboys was a large village.
Anyone of them, I thought, could be a spy. Anyone one of them could produce a false identity card - surely one of the easiest of documents to copy. For that matter, why bother to copy? Any one of those passengers could have stolen the ID card he proffered. As it carried no photograph, a spy, he or she, could have borrowed one from a fifth columnist (a Nazi sympathiser and potential collaborator) whose details roughly matched. I studied each passenger in turn. Could he be a spy? Could she?
Perhaps they thought the same about me. But now the soldier was checking my buff-coloured card as I held it up in front of him. He must have decided I wasn’t an enemy; perhaps because of its colour. Adult IDs were blue, and I hadn’t heard of any schoolboy spies. Breathing more easily, I pushed the card back into my breast pocket.
On the airfield, the flames on the stricken aircraft now at last seemed to be out. Most of the smoke had cleared, and we could see fire engines leaving the scene. Tractors hauled the wreckage on to the adjoining grass strips to clear the runway. A second bomber rolled into view on the runway as finally our bus moved off. Heads turned to watch its safe progress.
*
Some fifteen minutes after witnessing that disaster at Wyton aerodrome, I was stepping down from the bus at the end of Huntingdon High Street. My mother and sisters had been moved from the house where I’d last found them. Now I had to find them again.
I had the street, the number and name of the house but no description. A simple terraced house, even an inviting country cottage with a squeaky wooden gate was what I expected. So I was more than a little surprised when my searching brought me to the entrance of a huge but elegant, 3-storey, red-brick mansion.
Pulling my mother’s letter from my pocket I checked again. There was no mistake. There on the brick-work was the name-plate “Farm Hall” just as my mother had written. Tentatively I stepped up to the imposing front door, reached over and tugged at the bell-pull.
After a minute or two the extra width door - I had noticed for the first time its gleaming paint and brass fittings - opened. A young housemaid, wearing the little black dress and white pinafore of her trade, smiled courteously but with a hint of curiosity as she asked: “Yes?”
“I’ve come to see Mrs Berry,” I replied, “I’m her son and I believe she’s expecting me.”
With an invitation to “come inside,” the housemaid (whose name I learnt later was Margaret) led the way to a sweeping staircase. “I’ll take you up,” she said.
*
The wide staircase was imposing, sweeping in a curve towards the landing, the walls lined with original Victorian sketch cartoons of politicians and celebrities of the day.
My mother was on an upper floor - together with her “brood.” She came out to greet me at the head of the stairs, lightly admonishing me for being “earlier than expected.” But I was studying a hand-painted sign fitted to the bannister rail. It read: “Sweet Berry Lodge, ” and my mother said it had been painted personally by the owner of the house.
She and my sisters, plus seven or eight other schoolgirls about my own age, had been brought together here as a group. I remembered some of the girls from infants’ school a few years earlier before the genders were separated into our own junior schools.
The entire floor, once the household’s children’s nursery - had been given over by the elderly owner of the house, a Mrs Towgood (pronounced “Toogood”) to provide a self-contained home for London evacuees. As an official helper on the Government’s child evacuee programme my mother had been brought in to become a foster mother to all of them.
The area was like a large self-contained flat. The “nursery” was large enough to become a general living room with a kitchen attached, and the corridor accessed several bedrooms. There was even enough accommodation, Mrs Towgood insisted, for me to have my own room for the weekends I would visit. Later that day she came up to show me the room herself.
The door opened slowly, as if something was holding it back. The room seemed massive, square shaped, with a very high ceiling and two large shuttered windows extending almost to the ceiling. And the windows, which directly overlooked the main road, seemed to be completely sealed, as did the massive marble fireplace, which was covered by a wooden frame securing some form of wadding and adhesive tape.
“We used to call this the Blue Room,” Mrs Towgood told me, without explaining further. Then she added: “But now it’s a sealed room. It’s safe if we ever have a gas attack.” At that time of the war, it was generally feared that any attack on Britain might mean that poison gas would be freely used.
I never really believed that the room could be completely gas-proof. I imagined I could feel a draught from either the sealed window or the chimney place, and I reasoned that if a draught could get in so could the poison gas. But it never worried me. Indeed I felt quite proud of the fact that I had “my own” room - and that it was considered to be the safest in the house.
The former nursery, where my mother and her evacuee family dined and spent much of the day was almost directly opposite my bedroom door, and looked out over the huge garden and a well established avenue of limes in the middle distance. The red brick house was rebuilt in 1746, and was one of several similar gems in the town built about the same time.
Across a courtyard at the rear was the entrance to the servants’ quarters, though at the time there were very few employed full time. I was intrigued to learn that a “secret” double door led there - and also to the stables and garden which we happily explored.
There was, of course, another route to the garden, with its lawns, flower beds, lily pond and walled area of roses and fan-shaped fruit trees. The route was through the main living rooms of the house where Mrs Towgood and her husband spent their days. Alderman Towgood was unwell and an elderly invalid who rarely left his wheelchair - indeed he was to die just a few months later, and he and I only spoke once.
Mrs Towgood who was well known in the town as “lady bountiful” for her kindness and generosity, always made a particular fuss of my sister Beryl, the youngest in her wartime guest household. Every Saturday Beryl would join her in the huge conservatory at the rear of the house to help with the vase arrangements of flowers she or her gardener-chauffeur Mr Cook (“Cookie” to us children - I never knew his first name) had picked earlier. On my visits I was invited too - for tea and cakes, which I thought much more acceptable.
My weekend visits to Farm Hall were cut short however when in September of 1941 I started at my new school. I was lucky enough to win a place at a secondary grammar school, also based, like my junior school, in Islington, London, but now evacuated to the coal-mining town of Midsomer Norton, near Bath — in far-off Somerset.
It was on one of those rare end-of-term breaks that a year or so later my mother told me sadly that she and her extended “family” of girls would soon be leaving Farm Hall. It was soon after my elder brother Harry, on a 48-hour pass from the army, and his bride of a few hours spent their one-night honeymoon at Farm Hall at Mrs Towgood’s invitation.
The Government, my mother said, had requisitioned the house under their wartime powers and all of them, now-widowed Mrs Towgood, her cook, her housemaids and my mother with the girls would have to find new accommodation. Yet again my mother and sisters were on the move. I could only ask: “But why?” over and over again. Everyone, I said, was so happy there.
At last my mother pulled me to one side. Holding my shoulder and looking me straight in the eyes, she said: “You must promise me you will never, never tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”
Then, when she had my promise, she went on: “Farm Hall is going to become a spy school. They are going to use the house and grounds to train agents to send across the Channel to fight the Germans. And you must never tell anyone this because if you do, it could mean some of them could die. Spies over here could follow them and give them away.”
Then I remembered the wartime posters warning us about possible spies in our midst. One of them seemed so appropriate to me. “Be like Dad—Keep Mum.” It said.
I kept my mother’s secret for more than 50 years, just as I had promised as an eleven-years old evacuee. It was only after I read that the “Heroes of Telemark,” had been among those Farm Hall “students” that I knew I no longer had to keep that secret.
After their intensive training course, the team of Norwegian resistance fighters were parachuted into Norway and successfully destroyed Hitler’s heavy water plant at the Norsk Hydro, almost certainly saving us from the eventual production of a Nazi atomic bomb.
But there was at least one other related Farm Hall secret that neither my mother, my sisters, the other girls, nor the honeymooners knew.
*
(To be continued; see: “WE’RE AT WAR, BOYS!” Part 4)
*

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