'Stretcher-bearers': (7) Stalemate in Britain

Stalemate in Britain

My father died suddenly in April, 1941. He was only 59 and the family was shattered by the event. .
In April 1941, our Field Ambulance was stationed in Hertfordshire. My mother went to live up north with my eldest sister and gradually life returned to normal, except for the blitz when London was being bombed regularly.
My younger sister, aged 24, a firm pacifist, felt morally obliged to remain in her job in House Property Management in the east end of London and went through some very bad times.
I remember travelling up to London to meet her on a week-end pass, the morning after London had been pasted during a heavy night air raid. The roads were littered with bomb debris and shattered overhead tram lines. People were surveying their smouldering houses. From a few miles outside London I hitch-hiked to the nearest tube station and reached her flat. My sister had volunteered to fire watch at Southwark Cathedral that evening,where we spent a noisy but safe night.

Months later, with Richard Burrow, I started a fresh round of applications, this time asking for service abroad in a Field Ambulance unit. I had previously applied for service in a hospital ship, but it had come to nothing. This time again there were months of delay. Our frequent visits to the 0rderly Room and our written applications again bore no fruit. Eventually we told that our latest application had been lost. We must apply again. We did so.
On November 10th 1942, Burrow and I learnt that we should be posted overseas. We reported to the Orderly Room where official documents lay, some punctuated with "Urgent" and "forthwith", but we soon discovered that we were not being posted before the end of the week. There was ample time to pack our swelling kit bags.

Dick Burrow and I were taking our last look at the unit library, recently reorganised by Carrundy, when we heard a loud report and looked out on a sky lit up by a bright orange glare, throwing our Nissen huts into relief, like huge caverns. A plane had crashed upon a small coppice about 100 yards from the camp. Lighted wood was crackling all around and machine gun bullets were exploding in flaming stabs.
We were not the first on the scene, for men were standing around in groups, the more cautious sheltering behind a wall, their freshly adjusted steel helmets reflected in the glow.
Shamed by our fears we headed across a potato field into which one of the plane's engines had fallen and joined a group searching for survivors.
We should have known that chances of finding anyone alive in the twisted mass of metal were nil, but we kept hoping that one of the airmen had been flung clear. There were were no cries to direct us. Just then one of the fuel tanks blew up with a muffled roar.
We came across a leg in part of the wreckage and someone pulled it out. Then we tried to beat out the flames in the vicinity, but found nothing more.
I still hoped to find someone alive, so Dick and I pressed on further into the wood and found a huge landing wheel intact, parts of the wing and a collapsible dingy.
As we drew nearer a cry went up a body was found burning , huddled unnaturally at the foot of a tree. It was obvious to all that the man was beyond help.
Some twenty minutes after the crash the local fire brigade arrived with a two wheeled water cart drawn by four men. They managed to extinguish part of the fire, but some petrol still blazed until they brought a chemical extinguisher into use.
We passed on and saw another body blazing, a heap of broken bones and burnt rags. Some REs (Royal Engineers) had found it and were now searching for salvage.
"I've got some ammo. There's plenty of ammo here", said one of them, picking up a belt of machine gun bullets and boyishly exhibiting it to his friends.
At that moment the colonel arrived and ordered everyone back to the road. He did not suggest a wider search and must have assumed that all the airmen had died in the crash, as was the case.
The following day we learnt that the plane was a Wellington bomber, manned by only three men flying on night manoeuvres without bombs. The crew were French Canadians.
On November 13th, 1942 at 5.50 a.m. I arose, dressed in the dark , washed, shaved packed up the remaining oddments of kit and called at the cookhouse for an early breakfast.
Here I met Dick Burrow who was already making the mist of a mug or tea and some tough half-cooked liver. We did not eat much.
6.45 a.m. arrived, our signal to awaken Corporal Stot who was sleeping on night duty on the orderly room floor. He bade us farewell, half asleep, looking strangely wild without his dentures and spectacles., but we shook hands upon exchanging documents and wished each other luck before he crept back to bed.
Returning to Hut 12 I found Hibberd dolefully awaiting me. The night before he and Gage had taken us out, as a farewell celebration, to that depressing film "How Green was my Valley" and now Hibberd stood like a sympathetic gaoler at the last dawn and I felt miserable to be breaking away from the unit after two years.
Hibberd grabbed my small pack and large valise, taking them to the staff car. There was barely time to run round the three "A" Coy huts to bid farewell to men in different stages of undress before Dick arrived and we drove away from Kennel Coppice.
Our kit bags weighed heavy as we crossed the subway leading to the south bound trains. They felt heavier still as we changed at Harrogate and half ran, half staggered to catch our connection at York.
All this time we were shrouded in a cloud of mental chaos, from which some few facts and many queries emerged. We had lost all our army friends. How long would we remain in England? Would there be embarkation leave? Where on earth did 103 General Hospital come in? We had both applied explicitly for service overseas in a Field Ambulance Unit. Why were we being despatched to a General Hospital? It was quite impossible to dismiss these thoughts and equally impossible to find their solution..
Still, at least we knew that we had made a move towards more active service.
The Salvation Army provided us with a welcome hot meal at Kings Cross for one shilling. It also offered us gratis several dire warnings about the kingdom of God and fighting the good fight.

My sister who was working in London was taken to hospital suffering from pneumonia. After a few days she died.

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