The War Kept me a Civilian

Hitler stopped me from joining the forces. (Was he scared to have me on the other side?) Sometime before war broke out, like others approaching their twentieth birthday, I had signed on for the two year compulsory period in the Militia. I had recently changed jobs and was at the time working at making press tools although I was a comparative beginner at this trade. Then along came Hitler and the uneasy peace after the Prime Minister came back from Munich waving a piece of paper and crying, "Peace in our time".

I was at a St. John Ambulance first aid class on the Sunday that another Prime Minister announced that we were at war just two months before my twentieth birthday. I resigned myself to having to face Herr Schicklegruber soon but no! It seemed that of all the jobs I had done since leaving school, Press Toolmaking was a reserved occupation and I was 'forbidden' to join up. I jokingly said that I would wait for Hitler to come over here and deal with him then. Little did I know that not so much later, I would be putting out incendiary bombs with sandbags and diving to the ground as high-explosive bombs dropped from the skies.

One of my friends who had been called up for service had been posted to a comparitively safe billet came home on leave. He was amazed. What with rationing, nightly bombing and working seven days a week, it seemed that I had been affected by the war more than he had.

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