| Members Memories |
United Kingdom in 1940
written by Leslie (Known as Len) Baynes
After Dunkirk, With The 1st Battn. The Cambridgeshire Regiment
Having joined the 1st Battn. The Cambridgeshire (Territorial) Regiment about a year before the war, after its commencement there was a long spell when the regiment saw little or no action; that was during the so-called ‘Phony War’ in the early 1940s. We were stationed at the time in Weeting Hall, Near Brandon, Norfolk, and I was getting bored. So when they asked for volunteers to serve in a special force, although not knowing what that entailed, I volunteered. After a tough medical I was posted to 'No.11 Independent Company', stationed in bell tents on The Dell Football Ground in Southampton.
They told us that Churchill had decided to form these highly mobile groups to land across the channel, sabotage enemy installations, and return safely (in theory). We were issued with binoculars, compasses, and Thompson Sub Machine Guns (Tommy Guns), all items that were in very short supply, generally.
There were not enough of these to go round. Captain (Bang Bang) Cannon was our troop officer, and Corporal Baynes (me) his second in command. Cannon was a 'wide boy', and he would send me out in the middle of the night with a couple of volunteers, to filch equipment from the next troop, commanded by Capt. Hockey, also from Cambridge.
Eventually the penny dropped, and he was heard shouting in the officers' mess tent, something about "Snowie Baynes and his forty f****** thieves."
We trained hard during the daytime and after dark, and were taught by The Royal Navy to row whaleboats fast and silently, as these were the means we were going to use for our proposed landings.
Eventually, we boarded a warship ship at Dover with our whaleboats, and awaited orders to sail, with some excitement, and even more apprehension.. Before that order could be given, we had to disembark, as Gerry was found to be assembling a fleet, as they thought, to invade us from across the channel.
We were then reformed and amalgamated with other similar companies, and renamed No. 1 Commando. It seemed at that time there was no ground defense in Cornwall, and it was hurriedly decided that we should fill this gap. We moved into a hotel in Carbis Bay (near St. Ives), in Cornwall, ready to repel any German attack in that area. There were no sea defenses, and we spent the first weeks filling sandbags, and carrying hundreds of them up onto the flat hotel roof, as well as making gun emplacements with them at ground level.
I was promoted to sergeant, given the task of teaching unarmed combat, and also did weapon training. I was far from happy with my new NCO companions. Sergeants were not allowed to pal up with other ranks, and my new companions were nearly all regular soldiers recently returned from India. They seemed to me like a crude and callous lot, with a language of their own (nearly). Our RSM was (Tuppeny) Rice, a fierce diminutive warrant officer from the Norfolks; his right-hand man was a blackguard, Sgt. (Sahib) Fuller, both more used to browbeating natives than leading Englishmen.
After a couple of months the invasion scare died down; that was after Hitler decided to attack Russia instead, and I was able, among other things, to play Rugby for the Redruth Miners Team. Then they moved us once more, this time north into the requisitioned Sedburg School premises in the Lake District, with a different, unannounced, project in mind. There we were issued with more weapons, including the new Boys Anti-tank rifles, and spent our time climbing up and down mountains, mostly in the rain, laden with half a hundredweight and more of weaponry and equipment. We were being toughened up for fighting in hill country, where we had no idea.
Then, without warning we were moved up to Gourock (near Glasgow), and boarded a recently used cattle boat. It had what was about a twelve feet wide passageway right round the outside of the boat, below the waterline, where the cattle was meant to be berthed tied to hooks on the inside of the hull. Our first task was shoveling up the dung and carting it up top to dump it over the side. Then we each washed down his steel bedspace.
We had no cooks or facilities to cook, so each of us was issued with a box of McConnachie’s tinned Meat & Vegetable Stew, and told that our rations would be three tins each a day, eaten from the tin, cold.
After anchoring at sea somewhere off the mouth of the Clyde, we were told that we were awaiting our naval escort, which was to take us to occupy the port of Narvik, in Norway. Time passed incredibly slowly, and what seemed like weeks passed, but which was in fact only about five days, when the action was aborted. Aerial reconnaissance had shown that the Germans, who had already started to occupy Norway when we boarded ship, had now taken the whole country. It seemed that any project we were given was doomed before it began.
Our boat turned round and we sailed back up the Clyde to Glasgow. There we disembarked (without regret), and were marched to Bellahouston Park, where we were issued with ancient bell tents.
There were no recreation facilities of any kind to help us pass the time away, and as before mentioned, I had no friends among my fellows. The only consolation was, men from the forces could travel anywhere in Glasgow on the trams for one penny, and those who were not on duty were allowed out of camp evenings and weekends. Which meant that they went out in groups down town to the pubs.
My troop was on guard duty that first week, and when my first free time came, having no friends to go with, I decided to have a look round the city on my own, and perhaps call in somewhere for a drink, I had very little spending money, having allotted most of my pay to my mother to save for me, thinking I would have been going into action before now.
The tram deposited me somewhere near the centre, and after wandering around for an hour or so, I called in a small pub in a side street, intending to buy myself a beer. At the bar I found myself standing next to a horsy looking woman. She planked down her glass together with two pence, and without speaking the barman filled it with a red liquid I assumed to be wine. Thinking the shilling in my pocket would go a long way here, I said “Same for me” and proffered my shilling. Sure enough I received my wine and change.
I took a sip; the red beverage just tasted sweet, not alcoholic at all. Eventually I think I must have had five of these, and remember thinking that I must keep a penny for my bus fair, ambled out into the street. I remember no more of that evening. I awoke as it was just getting light, lying on my bunk fully dressed, and feeling more dead than alive. It transpired the tram’s conductor had stopped near the guardroom, and collected a couple troopers to carry me into camp. By a stroke of luck those on guard knew me (I was not unpopular with the men), and kept my unwise adventure to themselves. At twenty-one, this was the first time I’d had too much to drink. I was ill for a week, and swore it would be the last.
As there was nowhere to bath or shower in the camp, once a week we were marched off to the municipal baths in The Gorbels. There were always long queues of poorly clad children waiting outside one of the doors, mostly bare-footed. I asked one of the staff, a nurse, what they were there for. She told me that they were deloused and their clothes sterilized regularly, although it and a waste of time, as they would be the same again within a few days. Moreover, she explained that there was no excuse for it as their fathers earned good money in the shipyards, but spent it in the pubs.
We were only in Glasgow for a few more weeks when, having been warned they were shortly to go into action, being short of capable NCOs, Major Mapey The Cambridgeshires’ second in command, sent for me, and I returned to my old regiment. Ultimately, to finish the war as a prisoner in the hands of The Imperial Japanese Army.
|
click here to email Leslie (Known as Len) Baynes about this Campaign/Arena
Members Memories List | Members Memories homepage
|
|
| Latest Military Discounts |
25% Off Breakdown Cover
There is nothing worse than breaking down. But if you do, the RAC have more than 1,500 patrols ready to rescue you, whether you are at the shops or on the motorway. They will always try to fix your vehicle at the roadside, but if they cant they will make getting it repaired as painless as possible.
Click Here For More >> |
|
