EM Shelley’s Wartime Experiences part 2: Training in Whitby, Broadstairs & Chatham

It was here that I was to be trained as a wireless operator and taught to drive Army trucks. First of all, everybody began to call me Jock because of the Scottish Tam-o-shanter headgear - and me from Tipton. It was soon changed for a standard forage cap.

The course was to last three months and involved every aspect of radio work, maintenance, communication procedures, learning the Morse Code, telephone operations including cable laying and repairs. The driving was all about learning to be a driver, with practice on a variety of vehicles including small 15cwt trucks up to 3 ton lorries, and also how to carry out regular routine maintenance. We were tested on every aspect of our training in due course, including having to pass a driving test. All of the driving took place outside Whitby, over country roads and the Moors towards Pickering, apart from the to and fro from base in the town.

Accommodation was in the empty tall houses, without furniture or heating, sleeping on the floor with the paliasses. In the absence of a proper parade ground we were marched about in the streets and to our meals in a mess hall that had probably been a large cafe half a mile away on the same North side of town. Almost opposite was a large Hotel - 'Metropole ?' - on the high promenade; it was empty of any fixtures other than Army tables and chairs which were used by us for lectures and training in signals work. Every day practically, we had sessions on the Morse code as well. Not too bad, excepting there were no windows because a stray bomb had fallen on the hotel car park some time before and all the main windows were smashed. As we were there in the early part of Winter it was a cold experience, but we were young and got on with it.

On most Sunday evenings I would go to the local Methodist Church with others and there would be a large congregation of Service personnel. There were two Ministers as I remember and for about half an hour after the service we had a session of favourite hymns. At 8pm we would always be called upon to sing the well known hymn 'Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah'. It was said that wherever we went in the world after our training we could always be united in spirit by remembrance of this at 8pm on Sunday evenings.

The people of the Church were kind enough to invite some of us into their homes after service for a cup of tea and cakes, which gave us a welcome break from Army life.

After passing the signalling and driving tests in due course there came the next move to a regular regiment. My posting was to the 62nd Light Anti Aircraft Regt at Broadstairs. These postings involved a journey by train, for which you were issued with a railway warrant, given train timings and expected to get there.

Following the passing of the relevant tests we were now recognised as Driver/Operators, shortened to Driver/Ops or Dr/Ops, and could wear 2 cloth badges on our left lower sleeves with one in the form of a steering wheel with the one above it being crossed signalling flags.

The move to Broadstairs was on 27th January, 1943. Other Dr/Ops had been sent there from other training bases but there was no Regt. as it was already in North Africa and we were likely to follow. Here again we were accommodated in empty houses, without furniture, but not for long. We were next moved on to join 116th L.A.A. Regt, based outside Chatham about a couple of miles along the road the road to Maidstone. This was on the 1st February, 1943. We were met by Regimental transport lorries and taken to the base, which had been a Council Estate, utilising the empty houses for accommodation.

It was here that I first met Jim Packer, who served with me as one of the three members of a signals truck for most of our time. He and I were together thereafter in different Units for the rest of our Army time until demob in 1947. We shared many experiences in England on manoeuvres, in Europe after Normandy (where we had our first taste of action on Hill 112), then on to the Middle East including Egypt and Palestine.

Opposite the base was an airfield with a factory where Short Bros made the famous Stirling Bombers. We often saw these planes being tested in flight from this place.

Our time was spent on manoeuvres at intervals over the South of England, all in preparation for the much talked about Second Front.

The only relief from our NAAFI canteen was a YMCA in a house on the road to Chatham, where you could get a snack. It was here that some WRNS used to meet also, and where Jim met Elsie, who in due course became his wife. He didn't seem to bother much about girls at the time and had been persuaded to go and make up a foursome on a blind date. They were married after demo and settled in Elsie's home town of Fleetwood. We had used to get week-end home leave occasionally, and even a whole week about every few months. Our Battery chief, Major Sugden, was fairly reasonable in granting the necessary pass. They always had to be applied for, in writing, requesting leave of absence, and not always granted.

In the early part of 1944 we began to have new transport and were trained to prepare them for what was termed wet landings. This meant protecting the engines so that they could be partly immersed. Later on the whole of the South of England was declared a security zone, and all leave was stopped. Next we were paid in special currency of France, (Liberation Money?), so we knew it would not be long before the Second Front started.

At this time the first 'doodlebugs' appeared at night directed towards London. In the beginning the flame of the jet exhaust lead us to believe it was a small plane that had been hit, and the direct flight path was because it was a suicide pilot. Some of our own Bofor guns fired at them, without success, and more of a danger in knocking off the chimney pots of the houses we were in.

This story was entered onto the People’s War site by Jenni Waugh, BBC Outreach Officer, on behalf of EM Shelley who accepts the site’s terms & conditions. For the other 3 chapters, see www.bbc.co.uk/ww2/A5090933, A5091022 and A5091077A

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