Memories of Frank Yates Chapter 2

Memories of Frank Yates CHAPTER 2

September 2nd. 1939. Brother Don, Myself, and Cecil Ramsbottom, from next door, set off down Springvale Road, leaving an emotional mother, who had lost a husband and two sons, in the space of a fortnight, waving goodbye, at the front gate.
On arrival, at Edmund Road, we found a long queue, stretching almost all the way round the drill hall. During the two hour wait, I had time to wonder, with some apprehension, what the future held, for me and, for that matter, all of us. Worries were soon forgotten when we reached the front of the line and found ourselves in the throes of registration and a medical inspection, by doctors in uniform, presumably called up, like us.
The medical was fairly perfunctory, chest, eyesight, feet and “Drop your trousers and cough!” We were judged A1 and went outside where a truck was running a shuttle to our first station, a large mansion at the junction of Ecclesall Road South and Abbey Lane, called “Parkhead” We noticed , on arrival, a couple of marquees, already erected on the lawn, in front of the house. One being the canteen, afterwards always called the NAFFI. It seemed that, at the start of a global conflict, a priority was the availability of a glass of beer!
Most of the rest of the day was occupied with sleeping arrangements, being allocated to one of the rooms in the house and issued with palliasses (Long bags, shaped like single mattresses which we filled with straw from bales, stacked in the stables), then tea and corned beef sandwiches, followed in the evening, by a reasonable stew, followed by an inedible rice pudding, the civilian caterers having forgotten to put any sugar in it!
At 11 am, on the Sunday morning, we heard a declaration from Mr. Chamberlain, that we were at war with Germany, an event which although expected, had a sobering effect on us, and, indeed, on the Nation. We had been warned, for years, of the horrors of likely air raids, and everyone had seen newsreel pictures of the German Luftwaffe deploying its “Stuka” dive bombers against defenceless targets in the Spanish civil war. So it was against this background, that our little group found ourselves listed, with several others, on “Fire Picket” on the Sunday night. The dozen soldiers, with a bombardier in charge, were responsible for the night time safety of the battery. We had to move our palliasses and blankets into the canteen tent, at closing time, preparing to use the trestle tables as beds.
Suddenly a gunner, called Jack Hammerton, started to sing, in a remarkable tenor voice, He did wonderful imitations of Richard Tauber, singing “You Are My Heart’s Delight” “Goodnight Vienna”, and many more. We were spellbound and wanted Jack to go on all night, but the recital finished abruptly, when the eerie wail of the air raid warning shook us rigid and brought us back to reality.
The bombardier in charge ordered us out and lined us up, on the lawn in front of the house, with that awful wail still going on. The moon was high and full, and the moonlight very bright and, showing our inexperience, we started to panic and complained that we were sitting ducks, standing in the moonlight so that we could be seen by the German pilots!! The bombardier agreed and we went back into the marquee, where we thought we were safe from the eagle eyed Luftwaffe pilots.
Life at Parkhead was fairly humdrum. We were able to go home frequently, we went on route marches to Fox House, we did foot drill, we played football, we had a series of inoculations, but we had no guns, or even rifles! It must be remembered that the enormous task of equipping a huge civilian army could not be done straight away.
Whilst at Parkhead, I attended a weekly session of dental treatment, at the Dental Hospital. Standards of dental care were poor, in pre war days, and there was no NHS dental scheme. An interesting break was an appearance at the Sheffield Empire, then the principal Sheffield theatre, subsequently lost in the blitz. A popular comedian, by the name of Jack Warner, later to become a household name in post war television, as “Dixon of Dock Green”, hosted a radio show called “Garrison Theatre”. The show was converted into a touring extravaganza, appearing at theatres all over the country, and our unit was asked if they could supply a dozen soldiers for each performance, to add local colour. Many volunteers, including Gunner Yates, took the opportunity to relieve the boredom. On a matinee performance, we were put into a kind of raised platform, at the side of the stage, reminiscent of a jury box and asked to clap the various acts, with enthusiasm. During the interval, bottles of beer were distributed, and Jack Warner regaled us with questionable stories, in his cockney accent.
On a memorable day, in October, our Battery Commander, Major Dennis Brown, of HL Brown, the jewellers, announced that our rifles were arriving. They came in wooden crates, unopened from the end of the Great War. They turned out to be Canadian Ross rifles, smothered in grease, the barrels being completely full of the stuff. After being issued with one it took a whole day, with mountains of rags, paraffin, 4 by 2’s, pull- throughs and steel cleaning rods, to make them presentable. (A 4 by 2 is a piece of cloth measuring 4 in by 2 in, which is torn off a long roll and inserted in the eye of the, yard long, steel cleaning rod, used to clean rifle barrels). To avoid a blockage, any other cloth was forbidden.
The main differences between the Ross and the standard British SMLE Rifles were;
The barrel of the Ross protruded several inches beyond the wooden stock, unlike the SMLE, the barrel and the stock of which were of equal length.
The Ross took .300 ammunition, with a parallel cartridge case, American style, the British .303, tapered cartridge being incompatible.
Although I never fired one of these rifles, they provided the wherewithal for hours of rifle drill. Sloping, grounding and presenting arms being the same, whatever the origins of the weapon!
Shortly after we got our rifles, we received two GUNS! Not, however, the expected 25 pounders, but an 18 pounder, vintage 1915, and a 4.5 Howitzer of similar age. I never found out what we were going to do with these museum pieces, because an event happened, which changed the direction of my army career, and I suppose, my life.

The following appeared in Battery Orders:
“No soldier who has not reached the age of 19 by Dec 31st. 1939, can be posted to overseas service. Arrangements will be made to transfer these young soldiers to another unit forthwith. Note; A younger soldier may elect to stay with an elder brother, in the same unit.”
Don and I spent some time discussing the last sentence and agreed that it would be better not to have both of us together, in the same mob, on the principle of halving the risk. I, although apprehensive about where they might send us, had about 70 companions, including Buster Bell, to keep me company, so I waited for things to happen.
One morning in late October, two motor coaches arrived, to take us into the unknown, which, very mundanely, turned out to be Gainsborough, on the Trent, where we debussed at a brand new drill hall, in Ropery Road. We were paraded inside the barracks and informed that we now belonged to 107 Light Anti Aircraft Battery, given a meal and issued with palliasses, and told that we would sleep, on the highly polished floor for two nights, before being sent to our final destinations. During this brief stay in Gainsborough we learned a bit about our new unit.
The Battery Commander, Major Farrer (or was it Farah?) was the incumbent of Eaton Hall, in the “Dukeries” area of Nottinghamshire. He was married to Angela Kaiser, of the family which co-founded the famous Sheffield firm of Kaiser Ellison Ltd. The officers, and most of the other ranks, were also recruited from the estates in that part of the world, being generally, gamekeepers, farm workers, ostlers , herdsmen, etc. Another common factor, obvious to us teenagers, was that they were all pretty old!
To my eternal shame, I report that, on the first night out, I succumbed to the demon drink, Buster and I visited a local hostelry, where, after a half pint, I had a whisky, my first ever. When we went to bed, a new experience manifested itself: The drill hall started to rotate, slowly; at first, gradually picking up speed. Closing the eyes did not help, because, on opening them, I found the room spinning in the other direction. A mad dash to the toilets followed, where I was very sick. Before I went to sleep, I swore to myself that it wouldn’t happen again! It did, but four years later! I wonder now whether I perhaps had more than one whisky that memorable evening!
The following morning, a truck arrived and about 25 of us embarked, alighting at Scampton, an RAF Bomber station, situated on Ermine Street, four miles due north of Lincoln. We entered a large wooden building, full of iron bedsteads, with proper mattresses and, to our utter astonishment, WHITE SHEETS, the first we had seen since the start of the war.
Sergeant Green, the Troop sergeant, paraded us for dinner and told us that we would not need the mess tins, which we had got out of our kitbags. We were marched to the RAF OR’s. mess, where we had our best meal of the war, so far, finishing with bananas and custard, all on nice white plates, which we had to take to the counter, to be served by WAAFs We did not realise that we would not see another banana for nearly six years! After this repast we thought that we were probably in the wrong “mob”!
On returning to the barrack hut, we were greeted by our Troop Commander, Capt. Phillip Nicholson; a partner in the large stockbroking firm, G.W. Nicholson & Sons Ltd, which occupied a floor in the Telephone Building in West Street, Sheffield. I found out, later, that he lived at Lound, in the recruitment area of the battery. He asked if anyone had any office experience. Defying the age old adage “Never volunteer”, I became troop clerk and was installed in my own little room, separated from the troop commander’s office, by a sliding hatch. Across the corridor was a similar small room belonging to sergeant Green, who was about 40 years old, and to me, from my 18 year viewpoint, positively decrepit!
Capt. Nicholson drove his V8 Ford Pilot to Sheffield to see his colleagues at the firm, returning with a well worn typewriter for my use. I could type, using two fingers only. Things haven’t changed, 64 years later, I am still using the same two fingers! I could cope with the daily troop orders quite well and I could manage the odd letter or report. 0ur troop was charged with the air defence of RAF Scampton and to carry out the task, our armament consisted of 6 twin Lewis guns, originally used in WW1. At first light the gun crews had to walk out to the sandbagged gun sites each one equipped with a hut, of the garden variety, and mount the guns on the head high mounting. Food was taken to them by truck, at midday. They returned at dusk. It was assumed, reasonably, that a machine gun was of no use in the dark, against an enemy who had shown no inclination to attack airfields.
We had some lectures, during the long dark evenings, on the Lewis gun, stripping it down and reassembling it. I was impressed by this weapon, of which we had two varieties, mostly the one with the tubular cooling jacket, the high velocity gases, leaving the muzzle, drawing cool air through the large tube, surrounding the barrel. The other variety had a naked barrel, probably made for aircraft use, the slipstream efficiently providing adequate cooling for the lighter gun. There were two kinds of circular magazine one holding 50 rounds and the other, again made for air combat, held twice as many. The complicated method of locking the breech and providing the sideways motion, to turn the magazine, was most ingenious.
The Major managed to get hold of a supply of .303 for practice purposes, and, one detachment at a time, brought their guns to the RAF firing range, where they performed perfectly, 600 rounds per minute making quite an impression on those of us who had no machine gun experience! Before leaving my Lewis gun interlude, I would mention that, when putting it together, after dismantling, the final component was a tiny pin which held everything in position, rejoicing in the name of the “Body Locking Pin”. Every Sergeant who has demonstrated the gun has, inevitably, dwelt on this name, suggestively, with crude remarks, Sergeant Green was no exception!
The winter of 39/40 was a particularly severe one, very cold with deep snow drifts, the Hampden bomber planes not flying for days on end. The gun crews had often to dig their way out to their posts, wrapped up like Eskimos, and it was, at this time, that I selfishly thought that being troop clerk, was a good option with my small cast iron stove, burning RAF coal, glowing in the corner! The Battery commander unexpectedly turned up, one very cold day, with two bottles of rum for issue to the gun site blokes. I expect that he had bought them himself, there being no rum issue in the army. Sgt. Green was entertaining his crony, the RAF Warrant officer in charge of the Stores Dept, Two rogues together! The RAF W.O. took a look at the two bottles and said something like “That stuff’s as weak as piss”! Next day he turned up with a large, gallon, stone jar full of Navy rum. It was very dark brown and very viscous, being diluted to “Grog” in the Navy The C.O., embarrassed by the whole business, put Sgt. Green in charge of the rum issue. The container was put in my office, for safe keeping.
Captain Nicholson took me aside and told me that he proposed to keep on spending his nights at home in Lound, but if I heard that the Battery Commander was in the area, I was to ring him, at home, and he would come hotfoot, in his big car. I may be wrong, but I got the impression that he was a bit disillusioned with his lot and that he would rather be back, making money in Sheffield. I also had the feeling that he was not the best of admirers of the battery commander!

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