Four Year In A Lifetime A Lifetime in Four Years Chapter 2

Chapter 2
This was an island just across from the mainland opposite Dartmouth Naval College. I was to work in the Marine section as a Clerk and go for. Mountbatten was a base for Sunderland and Catalina Flying Boats and a favourite bombing run for German planes dropping their loads on Plymouth.
The W.A.A.F’s, not that many were billeted in what had been married quarters, 2 and 3 bedroom, we were in 3 and 4 to and room so on average these were 8-10 in a house. My memory of how many houses is fuzzy, there were probably 12-15, down the road were a couple of air raid shelters, the office stores and quays were towards the bay. My work there was mundane requiring no real skills, reading, writing, answering the telephone, filing, no typing thank God — I didn’t ever train for that, common sense, checking manifests for supplies in and out and watching the planes land and take off. The planes were magnificent I could see quite a lot from my office typing window and loved it when I had to go to the docks etc. I’d never seen anything like those planes or any other plane close to. The boats took cargo and passengers out to them and picked up cargo and passengers and I took any chance I could to help and climb inside. I did get one short trip, I can’t even remember how but I know I was not supposed to be there, but it was exciting and worth the risk of the wrath of my superiors. When we got back our C.O was on the dock and I got into the boat a touch apprehensive but then when we landed at the quay I clambered out with the paper manifests I thin I stuffed them as usual in my jacket and carried on and he said nothing at all, just watched me as I passed him to return to the office, I saluted and sailed on with his questioning stare burning a hole in my back, but that was it.
We got time off and spent a lot of it in Plymouth and there was a house at Newton Ferries (out in the countryside where we could spend weekend leaves in groups)
The bombing in Plymouth was horrific and yes we did get scared but we were too angry to get distressed, we saw terrible things ,the worst for us I think was a bomb shelter was hit, a big command one. We’d got stuck in Plymouth that night when the sirens sounded. We knew what we had to do and went to the nearest shelter to wait it out, it was a bad raid and everyone’s nerves were tested. When the all clear was sounded we came out like rabbits out of a warren, stretching cramped bodies and patting dust off our uniforms etc, there was nothing standing whole around us, the air was thick with smoke and dust, it was my vision of hell. No one seemed able to say anything we were stupefied by what we were looking at, then there was a flurry of activity everybody running in one direction so we ran too. A shelter had been hit and everyone was trying to help. The buildings round the shelter had also come down it was chaos.
All the effort had to be clearing the entrance the top had tons of masonry etc on top of it. The entrance was caved in and covered in debris. The services ….. Fire and Ambulance etc and the rescue services were stretched to the limit so everyone, civilians, W.A.A.F, R.A.F, Navy etc all joined in the effort so there were six of us W.A.A.F from Mountbatten and probably 12-15 men (it was a small station), quite a few Naval personnel (they were land side). We had no tools, just hands, no cover for out uniforms and we were in skirts, stockings and jackets. We all took our jackets and ties off and put them with our hats and placed them in the custody of and elderly woman, goodness only knows what she was doing there she seemed shocked and more than a little bewildered and could not tell us anything about how many people could be buried in the shelter.
We were on passes which ended at midnight Sunday 48hrs, it was now early Sunday morning, we had been in the shelters all night.
Eventually a hole was cleared and the rescue team arrived there were four of them, we all stood back as they investigated. I don’t remember how many people were in there but the first few alive and relatively uninjured were near the entrance. Transport for the injured was stuck down the blocked road and workers were heaving and sweating to clear it so that they could get through. The transport came from local people, lorries, flat bed open ones, vans and ambulances, first aiders and St Johns Ambulances workers, doctors, nurses did their best as they were helped out. First out were children, the first few were dirty, bruised and cut and shocked. They were all so grey they looked like little ghosts, their tears streaked their faces, but they were alive and comparatively unhurt. They brought out the injured on stretchers, planks, gates etc. The rescue services were in the shelter with the medics, the children the first few were brought over to our group with blankets etc, the transport was needed for the injured. I was struck by their silence, they did not speak, they sat huddled together on nearby stones and waited. They cried silently, we cried with them and not just the females.
Some came round with hot drinks and we held them for the children to drink, they were on automatic pilot, I think we said drink every so often and they did, no hygiene rules we drank from the same cups. Eventually a group of people arrived and took the children away. We couldn’t leave, somebody near us muttered something about going but nobody moved.
It was hours later when some Redcaps arrived and some senior Naval personnel and they finally got us moving, we were brain washed to obey orders by then and too exhausted to think so we went.
They Navy took us back to Mountbatten and the men and woman alike all piled into my office area, I think maybe my Sgt told us, he was certainly in the office and I can remember his words to me were “Good God girl you’re a flipping mess” and ordered us all to sick bay to check, but all we really needed was cleaning up, hands and arms were scratched and grazed and cut, legs them same. Our uniforms filthy and some rips and tears, faces grey and streaked, eyes empty. The medical staff cleaned the abrasions and used iodine and I don’t think we noticed and then we were sent to the ablutions to shower, bath, wash whatever. Back in the house eventually we realised that our shirts, stockings and skirts were unusable. It was days before we could talk about it and then not much because we had to go on duty, the raids were going on and on.
About a month later I’d got up a little late and the sirens had gone in Plymouth early morning I think, anyway I was rushing around trying to get myself organised, pushing my hair underneath my hat. I went feet flying out of the house and down the road, I’d just got to the nearest shelter when the crunch came and I was literally catapulted into the doorway of the shelter. I was angry more than hurt, out house was second in the row and only half of these houses seemed to be standing there, luckily the houses were empty people on day duty had gone people on night duty were finishing breakfast before they went to bed. The bombing of Plymouth continued mostly night raids and even on our island we spent a lot of time in the shelters and trips to Plymouth were mostly day time ones, and the odd trip to Newton Ferriers. Another incident that I did not really see took place one morning when a friend and I went over to do a little shopping, stupid really as there was little to buy and very little money and no coupons to buy anything, but we were bored and had a day off.
As we went through what was now a desolate ruin of a town, bomb damage everywhere, we saw a crowd and heard them the voices were angry and loud, so being nosey we went and joined the crowd. It was a very angry crowd, seemingly that morning….if I had been on duty I would have known….a plane had crashed into the sea and boats had gone out to bring the in the three Germans from the plane who had landed in a life raft. The Plymouth Brethren had got wind of it and crowded the key and one of them a stupid man had been alarmed at the crowd’s anger and tired to escape. It was the women there who caught him and held him and they would not hand him to the authorities so they the authorities marched the other two away and the police and Navy stayed to reason with the women who were prepared to hang him there and then and then eventually Police and Navy managed to get hold of him, and this crowd we had joined were still hankering for a lynching party and were furious because they could not get their hands on him. The religious leaders had come out to reason with them and were saying that lynching him had happened it would make them no better than the Germans to which one woman replied that they had no desire to be better, they just wanted the Germans all Germans as dead as so many of the Plymouth men, women and children were dead because of the Germans.
It was time to beat a hasty retreat with as much dignity and haste as we could, so we headed down to the quay and a boat for Mountbatten.
Soon after that one of our women got a posting to Wick in Scotland she was a clerk in the admin office and her home was near Plymouth, naturally she was more than a little upset and had seen the C.O to try and avoid the posting. She was told that someone had to go and the admin office had more clerks than was actually needed and someone else would have to volunteer to take her place, a clerk of course, she was pretty devastated, her husband was overseas and she had not seen him for eighteen months so I went for a walk and had a think. I was a free soul no attachments and far from home anyway so I went and volunteered to take her place. About seven days or so later I was on the train heading north.

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