Coming of Age: 1939-1946

Part 1

Copyright (C) 2004 by John Cox.

COMING OF AGE

1939-1946

BY JOHN COX

(Please see the HTML version of this eBook for 19 photographs)

CONTENTS

Foreword.

Rumours of War. March 1939-1940________________________________1

Plymouth. March 1940-July 1942________________________________10

Bowden Battery. July 1942-August-1942 ________________________14

Oxshott. July 1942-August 1942________________________________34

Aldershot. August 1942-December 1942__________________________37

Going South. January 1943-April 1943__________________________42

India. May 1943-June 1943_____________________________________53

Iraq. June 1943-August 1944 __________________________________57

No. 5 Advanced Base Workshops. June 1943-August 1944__________63

Desert Life. June 1943-August 1944____________________________68

No. 1 Base Workshops. August 1944-August 1945_________________74

Tel-el-Kebir. August 1945-January 1946________________________93

In the End. January 1946_____________________________________105

FOREWORD

Now that the Second World War is some 60 years past this would seem to be a good time to collate all the various chapters that I've written over the last few years and present them as an entity. No war can really be described as a "good" war especially by the families of those who didn't return or by those who returned maimed but in the sense that I went through it from the start until the finish and emerged unscratched I suppose that mine could be called a "good" war.

Though I spent just under three years in the Middle East in Iraq and Egypt I was never engaged in any action and what follows in these pages describes the more mundane side of military life. I didn't start writing these chapters until about 50 years after the war and have relied heavily on memory, with some photographs but no diaries; the content is substantially accurate. Dates are included in the Contents page; the starting and ending dates are true and the intervening dates are not more than a month out.

John Cox Ottawa, Canada March 2004

RUMOURS OF WAR

It was 1938 and the Spanish civil war was still in progress; Germany was flexing her muscles having effected an Anschluss with Austria and having out-manoeuvred Britain and France over the matter of Czechoslovakia. It was obvious that a war was coming but Britain had allowed her forces and armaments to run down and was in no position to engage in one. At that time I was 20 years old and was working as a draughtsman in an engineering firm; I believe conscription had started though I'm not certain exactly when and there was always a possibility that my job would be classified as a reserved occupation. To this day I don't know whether or not I would have been called up because together with my school friend I joined the Territorial Army.

With war looming closer and closer new units were being formed everywhere and No. 2 Company of the 5th AA Divisional Signals was born at The Wayfarers Club on Worral Road near the top of Blackboy Hill in Bristol. My friend and I had been very interested in radio or wireless as it was called in those days and it seemed to us that a signal unit would fit in well with our hobby, we might even be of some use to the army. Many others had the same idea especially employees of the Post Office which was at that time the sole legal agency in Britain for all communications, so the recruiting hall was full of potential soldiers on the night we went to sound things out. Among the dozens there we found many of our old school friends and some of the members of our church. We didn't join up that night but thought things over for a day or two saying nothing to our parents who might have raised objections then made a second trip to enlist.

Some lads we knew were already commissioned and were to interview us before we signed on the dotted line. Our commitment to the force obliged us to attend for drill on two nights a week and to spend two weeks at camp each year; our employers were compelled by law to give us the two weeks off from work with no penalties To start with it was a case of the myopes leading the blind, true there were a few ex-WWI veterans and others who had been members of their school Cadet Corps but we could hardly be called a highly disciplined group. We didn't enquire too deeply into the nature of our duties or what exactly we were getting ourselves into but were content to let life unfold in its own way.

Part 2

After answering a few perfunctory questions the swearing-in followed with our right hands on a bible; some jokers later told us that we were not really soldiers because we had been sworn-in on a dictionary but that was a tale I heard many many times. Then came the issue of equipment, this was rather sparse, all of it being of WWI vintage or earlier, khaki tunics with brass buttons, drainpipe trousers, second-hand boots and what seemed quite remarkable brown leather bandoliers for the 50 rounds of .303 ammunition with which we were never issued. Were we then to be cavalry? A tin hat, forage cap, webbing belt with bayonet frog, bayonet and scabbard completed our equipment though later on we were given collar badges and brass letters to affix to our epaulets proclaiming us to be Royal Signals.

My parents when told of my enlistment had different reactions, father said little, probably thinking of his experiences in WWI but mother who would not let me join the Boy Scouts or the school Cadet Corps because they were too militaristic said, "you're a fool!" At the time I thought that was a bit hard but six months into the war and I had to admit she had a point.

One or two with recent military experience gave us rifle drill with the two SMLE (short model Lee-Enfield) rifles allocated to our unit and we did a bit of marching and saluting. Our CO, Captain Sommerville, told us that our saluting resembled that of a disgruntled taxi driver giving thanks for a small tip but we did improve. After a few weeks of desultory drilling we were told to report to The General Post Office in Small Street to get acquainted with teleprinters. Good, we thought, now we'll get our hands on some electro-mechanical equipment and learn the inner workings of the Creed machines only to be disappointed to find that the primary purpose of our being there was to learn to type. The Creed teleprinters were only capable of transmitting 66 words a minute but this was academic because we didn't advance much beyond the "hunt-and-peck" stage.

About this time the regulations were changed somewhat; our two weeks at camp were extended to four weeks and I was due to go to Southsea Castle on September 3rd 1939. I think it was about August 28th that the Territorial Army was embodied (that was their term for mobilisation). At 4-30 am father was awakened from his slumber with a knock at the door and Corporal Reg Pinnel stood outside with the engine of his motor-bike combination still running to tell me to get up to HQ right away; then off he sped to awaken others. I dressed hurriedly, had a cup of tea and a bite and then walked up to Worral Road, walked because it was too early for the bus service to start its daily routine.

When I got there it was a bit of a shambles really with dozens of men milling around trying to sort themselves out and generally getting themselves organised. At about 9am I walked along to the end of Worral Road to the bank of phone boxes then existing near the top of Blackboy Hill and phoned my office to tell them that I would not be in that day nor in the foreseeable future; that was a little prophetic because I didn't return there to work for six-and-a-half years.

In the first few days we learned a little of the set-up; HQ was to be the gun operations room, the GOR, from which the AA guns surrounding Bristol would be directed. Some of us would be GOR personnel, others would form the Line Section maintaining communications with the gun sites, while a few would be responsible for the Quartermaster's stores and general clerical work. How many of us there were I can only guess, probably upwards of two hundred because we also had to supply similar groups to our detachments at Plymouth and Portland.

To get some experience of aircraft plotting six of us including me were sent to the RAF at Filton where we were housed in splendid isolation in an otherwise empty vast hanger; daily we reported to the Operations Room where we became acquainted with the strange jargon of the RAF, Angels, Bandits, Red Leader, Tally-Ho and the like as mock raids and interceptions were practised. If we had been on duty for the night shift we found sleep very hard to come by the next morning because fighter planes were constantly taking off and landing, even when they were stationary their engines were ticking over. For some reason or other there was an Avro Anson attached to the station that took off and landed periodically; it once caught fire as it landed but the fire was quickly extinguished.

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