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World War 2 Two II WW2 WWII
My mother used to tell me the story of how evacuees were placed during the war. We lived in the town of Penrith, Cumbria (Cumberland as it then was). The children from Newcastle and other centres were simply driven around in cars. The Department people came up to the door and asked "How many can you take"? My other said "One" and that is how we came to have Brian Brakey (I understand later Dr. Brian Brakey) in our home. My only memory of him is when he and my brother were fighting over me (as a 2 year old) and in the struggle I finished up being pushed onto the front of the hearth and getting a burned behind! I have always thought how devastating to be those children, unceremoniously taken from their homes and given to families without any check-up as to the suitability of the home. I'm sure Brian's stay with us was peaceful and I know he was able to attend school because my mother tells me how she loaned him my Dad's leather briefcase and Brian kicked it all the way home! No doubt he had many feelings of hurt and anger.
Jennifer McKinney
I was born and lived in Northern Manchester,in a suburb named Higher Blackley. I finished school at the age of 14 years and my first employment was as an Office Boy,working in the office of the Chief Engineer of all of A.V.Roe who were at that time building the twin engine Manchester bomber,which later developed into the Lancaster bomber. After approximately 6 months,I became bored with my work and decided to become an Apprentice Electrician,working for a Company in Rochdale, Lancashire. One day in February 1943,I met a former class mate, Garnet Bostock,his birthday was just 6 days prior to my own.At the time of our meeting,he was wearing a uniform and when I asked,he told me that he was a Steward on a Merchant ship and had just returned from his second trip aboard a tanker,the s/s Athel Duke,this ship was later in the war torpedoed. I asked Garnet how he had managed to join the Merchant Navy and he informed me that he had attended a 10 week course at T.S.Vindicatrix in Gloucestershire.I obtained the address of this establishment from him and wrote away for the necessary application forms.
Prior to this time.I had wanted to join the Royal Navy as a Boy Seaman,which entailed signing for a 20 year stint.My Parents would not entertain even the thought of such.I then one day noticed in the daily newspaper, that the British army were forming a new Regiment,The Mechanical & Electrical Engineers. They had a scheme whereby they would accept young men of 16 years as apprentices.Upon my expressing my desire to join,once again my Parents would not even consider my joining.
Needless to say,this lack of understanding brought about a considerable amount of animosity between myself and my Parents.Upon reflection today,I wonder why they did not simply paddle my backside ! I must have brought about a certain amount of unhappiness to my Parents at that time,naturally,as their eldest Son, they not only were concerned for my wellbeing but had no desire to see their Son go off to war,well before he was required to do so !
However,wanting to become an active part of the war,I began to achieve my aims by sulking ! I would come home each day from my work,but only speak if I was spoken to, I showed my respect to my Parents but it was very obvious that I was not very happy.Finally,my Grandmother,who had lost her only Son in the First Great War,told my Parents,if he is so unhappy,then let him go ! After some time,they finally agreed !
I had in the meantime made application to perhaps be accepted as a Junior Engineer,however was turned down because my Electrical experience was not enough to satisfy the requirements. After applying for the necessary forms which my Parents finally signed,I was accepted into the Sea School,T.S. Vindicatrix.I departed Manchester by rail on the morning of 8th May 1944,finally arriving at Sharpness docks at 5pm.A bus awaited us at the station and approximately 80 to 100 young boys were driven to the Vinicatrix camp.After all of the necessary paperwork,we were housed into several newly built huts,perhaps 25 to a hut.We were all strangers and I made friends with a young fellow who had arrived from London where he had been driving a taxi.We were informed,that we had three days to accept our new mode of life.If we did not wish to continue,we could just quit and go home again.However,after 3 days,this option was no longer in effect My new found friend decided after three days that nothing was up to his expectation,and so he quit ! !
To be perfectly honest,I too found conditions not to be up to my expectations,however,there was absolutely no way that I could quit and return to my home after being such a pain in the backside and causing so much misery to my parents to obtain my wishes.It was simply a case of "Grin and bare it ! After a month of living in the huts and marching each morning down to where the ship,Vindicatrix was moored,our intake was eventually moved onto the vessel itself.Vindicatrix was an old hulk,from days of yore. Devoid entirely of any forms of comfort.The bed deck was formed of probably 100 - 150 bunks,the two classes of trainees being Catering ( Stewards,Galleyboys ) and Deck ( Junior Ordinary Seaman, DeckBoys ) I being in t he Deck Dept was formed into one of the watches. I particularly remember being wakened at 3:45am by the light of an oil-lamp for my 4-8 watch.The fellow who woke me placed the lamp upon the deck to allow me to dress.When I looked,the whole deck was absolutely alive with thousands of cockroaches !
Upon me arriving at my post by the gangway,I looked across to Sharpness docks to find that it to be completely empty ! ! The evening before,it had been crammed with vessels. Later,about 6am the radio announced that D-day had arrived ! all of those ships had left to become a part of the Invasion. Twenty days later I became 17 years of age and at the end of June finished my course at the Vindicatrix and returned to my home in Manchester. In spite of my Parents trying so very hard to prevent me entering into the war,it was very obvious that they were extremely proud also.
Dennis M.Crosby
Malarkand Client: Mersey Docks and Harbour Board
Location: Liverpool Docks
Hazards: Unexploded Ordnance
On 1 May 1941 the most sensational of all enemy attacks on Merseyside took place: the blowing up of the SS Malarkand.
She was lying in the Huskisson Dock, with 1000 tons of high-explosive shells in her holds, due to sail to the Middle East. Incendiary bombs set her alight but, contrary to local opinion at the time, this was not what caused the ship to explode. A partly deflated barrage balloon, which had broken free, landed on her deck and set her rigging on fire. Incredible as it may seem, the captain and crew managed to subdue the flames but while they were busy, the shed next to the ship caught fire and only then did they abandon ship
The Malarkand was aflame from stem to stern and acted as a beacon to the incoming bombers that took great advantage and soon the whole of the dock complex was on fire and, indeed, the city itself was an inferno. It was at this point that the first explosion took place.
When it had subsided later that night an oxyacetylene burner was sent for to cut a hole in the side of the ship in an attempt to scuttle it and save the rest of the cargo from exploding. A Dock Board burner called Sam Hopley went in a small boat to cut through the ship’s plates as near to the waterline as possible. Unfortunately a combination of rusty plates and the damp conditions made a successful cut too difficult and the attempt had to be abandoned.
The main explosion took place early the following morning causing terrible damage to the surrounding area. The force of the blast threw the ship’s 5 ton anchor four docks away where it landed on the Silvio sinking her. Pieces of plate were recovered from 5 miles away and some of the superstructure finished up in the grounds of the Southern Hospital. A 3 ton mobile compressor was found lodged between two cranes four docks away 80 feet from the ground.
Routledge’s was called in to handle the salvage and, most importantly, clear the dock that was desperately needed for the war effort. During the second explosion the ship had finally sunk and it was assumed that all the bombs on board had exploded; it seemed impossible that any had survived the ferocity of the blasts. However, John Routledge senior was convinced that some bombs could still be intact. Although he was being urged to start the salvage as quickly as possible he was more cautious. It was only when a couple of full barrels of oil floated to the surface that others realised that he could be right. He then decided that damming the dock was the only way to proceed. When the dock was finally drained it was found that several hundred bombs had survived and the bomb disposal experts had to be called in.
The postscript to this story is that Sam Hopley left the Dock Board very soon after this incident rather disgruntled by the fact that there had been no official recognition of his bravery on that night. He came to work at Routledge’s where he taught the younger men how to burn (it was still a quite new technique) and stayed with the company until he died 40 years later.
Rob Routledge.
Copyright © 2000 J.Routledge & Sons
As a 4 year old during Christmas 1940 and living in Salford, Lancs. our family mother father and elder sister would take to the air raid shelter in the back garden, it was always wet inside even after my father had pumped it out during the day, on Christmas Eve 1940 the sirens sounded around 10pm, at this time we were living on Odetta Ave off Lancaster Road, three bombs fell close that night, one hit the semi across the road, one knocked the sirens off the fire station at the bottom of Lightoaks Road, and the other fell into the playing fields for De la Salle school on Lancaster road. I remember even in those early years I used to collect pieces of shrapnel that we found in the road, and kept them in a box in my bedroom. During the day I attended a kindergarten school called Park House just off Eccles Road, and I remember the sirens going off during the day (usually a false alarm). We would all be herded into the basement,and each person had recite a poem or sing a song I guess to keep a stiff upper lip.
I remember coming home one day holding my sisters hand and mother greeting us at the door with "where's your school cap?". As the war years rolled on my sister and were taken each night to Teapot Hall on Racliff Park Road it was a nurses home then and I guess they thought we would all safe there, until one night it got hit by incendiaries, then it was a big panic to get us all out.
After this we would be picked up each night and transferred to Salford buses and given sandwiches and a small bottle of milk and blanket then driven up on the Pennines until daylight then back home.
Other memories: On VE night I was woken up by my parents to join in the celebrations, and the following days we had a street party on Burnside Ave, months later we all stood on alert as the army removed a 1000lb unexploded bomb from the playing fields on Lancaster Road.
One vivid memory is the ack ack gun that the Salford Corporation used to run around the neighbourhood and fire a few shots into the air, and my mother saying, "there's our lads giving them hell".
Geoff Johnson
I was living in Collyhurst, Manchester during the war and I can remember going to visit my aunt with my mother. My aunt lived in Hayden Street over Queens Road. As we got half way there the sirens started up and we had to run as fast as we could to my aunts house to avoid being bombed. When we arrived we joined the rest of the family under the stairs. The bombs where pretty close and you could hear them whistling and then there would be a silence and you just waited for the bang. That day it hit the next street from Hayden Street so that was pretty close. We also used to go in the air raid shelters when we had the time to get there. After the war I remember we used to slide down these shelters as the ones near Collyhurst flats had a lovely slope on them but the one in Erasmus Street was just a flat roof. I can also remember the old gas masks which was not very comfortable to wear and you could smell the rubber on them.
Pauline Hesketh
I was a five year old child, living in Davyhulme, near Manchester, in 1939. Recollections of those times are as follows:-
The Right Honourable Neville Chamberlain's announcement that we were at war, which came over the old HMV valve radio. The adults seemed to be very grave and serious at the prospect of a war, whilst we, as naive juniors, thought it was very exciting.
The first barrage balloon which went up from a specially fenced off area in the local park.
My father, as an air raid warden, and the local hut where the wardens discussed their strategies. To me, it was a smoke filled den with a dart board and other items of "secret men's business"!
The rubbery smell of the gasmasks, which we were issued in square cardboard boxes. Later, we acquired more "up market" carry cases which didn't bruise and knock the daylights out of you when running to be in time for school.
The frantic digging, in which we all joined, to erect the corrugated iron air raid shelters in our back gardens. And further digging (for Victory) to plant potatoes and other vegetables in the gardens and allotments.
At school, we had regular drills and some real evacuations to the air raid shelters which had been hastily sunk into the Urmston Grammar School football pitch. This was next door to our Junior School. We had certain allocated duties, like carrying the toilet seat or the first aid box, when we repaired to those damp, urine scented dugouts. It took several years beyond 1945, when I commenced attendance at the Grammar School, to restore the football pitch to its former function.
The double daylight saving, to enable us to dig for victory, that made it broad daylight after 11pm in the Summertime. The concept of faded curtains as a result of daylight saving, which became an Australian joke in later times, never seemed to merit consideration in the early 1940's.
The scary journey to and from choir practice, as an eight year old in the blackout, in Winter months. There were monsters behind every rhododendron bush on the way, and there was no influence from TV horror shows in those days either!
The acquisition of all the metal gates and fences in the area to provide material for munitions etc and the not-so-patriotic householders who removed their ornate gates into storage for the duration of the war.
The discovery of yet another missing house and new craters after a heavy night of bombing and the competition between the kids to have the biggest and best collection of shrapnel.
The flamelit sky when the Manchester oil refinery was hit and the silhouette of an airman parachutist as he descended between us and the flames in the distance.
The arrival of the Americans when they took over our local Park Hospital (now called Trafford Hospital). This started a new collection craze for U.S. cigarette and chewing gum packets and wrappers. It also gave rise to the kids' plea "Got any gum chum"? Then there was the reciprocal question - "Hey kid, do you have an older sister"?
The expression on my Mother's face when I showed her the white 'balloon' with a funny extension to it, that the Americans had left on the hospital fence and which I had inflated to take home. I cannot recall having seen her so angry and I received a stern lecture on the dangers of picking up 'things' in wartime.
We entertained some of the G.I's in our home from time to time - they appreciated the home cooking and a change of scene from the large tents in which they lived. The young lady next door became a G.I Bride and sailed off across the Atlantic at the end of the war. I thought the names selected for her two baby boys, Buster and Wayne, were a little unusual.
During the height of the Manchester Blitz, my sister and I were evacuated for a few months to a delightful country village called Parbold (near Wigan). I missed the excitement of the bombing and the occasional dogfight overhead, but this was compensated for by not having to go to school.
The subsidised British Restaurants, which sprang up around the district, made a welcome change of menu from the standard school dinners we were subjected to in those days.
Towards the end of the war, a whole estate of prefabricated houses sprang up to accommodate those who had been bombed out. They were colloquially known as the "prefabs" and I recall that we were a little choosy about letting the prefab kids join 'our gang'. But then, kids can be quite cruel, can't they?
The street parties and bonfires that we had to celebrate VE and VJ days in 1945, brought an end to six long years of worry for the adults and six short years of excitement for the kids.
John Soden,
Brisbane, Australia.
In 1940 at the age of 13 years,I lived in Hr Blackley, a suburb of Manchester. Each day during the school lunchbreak, I walked home for lunch,after which, my Mother sent me to the local Bakery to buy 4 cream cakes, one for my younger Brother, one for one for my Mum, one for myself and the other for our Germanshepherd Tony. I remember one day while walking across the road from the shops. The air raid siren had already sounded, when suddenly an aircraft came roaring out of the sky at about 100 feet ,immediately above me, I could plainly see the crew in the nose nose and cockpit.
Excitedly I waved thinking it to be one of our aircraft, however,as it flew over, I noticed it to have a black cross on its wings and realised it to be a Heinkle 111 bomber.
The A.V.Roe aircraft factory which at that time produced the Manchester bomber, was situated at Chadderton, about 3-4 miles away and the enemy aircraft was more than likely seeking this target. I do not recollect any bombs being dropped at this time and so assume that they were unsuccessful in their mission.
Dennis.M.Crosby
We lived in suburb of Liverpool which was a regular target of the Luftwaffe as it was the main port for the import of food and supplied from the USA In fact the Battle of the Atlantic was co-ordinated from a basement in the centre of Liverpool and this "war room" has been restored as a visitor attraction. I remember well being dragged from my bed to go to the air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden. We spent many nights there wondering if we would get out alive and many times we surfaced to find all our windows blown out. One night an ammunition ship - the Malarkand was bombed in the docks at Liverpool and we could hear the shells exploding for days. My uncle who lived with us was an engineer in the Merchant navy and was torpedoed twice but survived on both occasions. Don Whitehead
A number of people have asked “why ever did you leave a safe ground staff job to go into the Air-crew one” ?; How do you start to say why ? apart from a couple of loose screws I hope that the following might be considered as a reason....
After square bashing as it was called at Morecambe I was posted to R.A.F Filton on ground defence of the air-field for the Bristol Air-craft factory during which time I survived the intense day-light raid by German air-craft on the factory and the air- field when they dropped a large number of bombs many of which had delayed fuses with the intention of completely stopping the production of the “Beaufighter”....but in less than an hour the bomb craters had been filled and the emergency services were at work.... I don’t remember sleeping for the next four days unless it was whilst I was stood up.
The rest of the time was spent recording and reporting to control room each new exploding bomb....several mates suffered damaged ear-drums and were later to be discharged.
My-self and others were offered training courses I chose to go for Flt Mech. training at St Athans which presented no problems and I was asked to go on to complete Fitter 1 Eng. course.
Next came the day of postings ,you were asked with the usual RAF style; "Where you would like to be posted to?" If you lived down south you asked for Scotland and was then posted to Wales, no-one ever got it right
My posting was to a patch on the Cumberland coast built on sand-dunes and land-mined all the way round the bay, the only safe way out was past the guard-room.
This was Haverigg one of the early Navigator training units , home of the dreaded Blackburn Botha, the air-crew lived from day to day....a good part of the air-field was a grave-yard for clapped out Botha’s and the bay claimed more than its fair share.
It was here that I was to spend my first winter. The snows came and drifted and the only way you could find a road from the village of Haverigg to the town of Millom was by holding on to the phone lines. Everyone was confined to camp 2hrs on 2hrs off snow clearing duty; in the end the Engineering Officer had the tanks of the scrap Botha’s emptied and used it to melt the packed snow. We returned to something like normal after two or three weeks of this.
Next I had a unusual early visit from my sectional Sgt to tell that two urgent postings were wanted for a station work-shops only a few miles from my Home, by tea time I had cleared camp and was on my way back to the Midlands.
This was the start of a long list of unbelievable surprises....I had been posted to a RAF station work-shops that was host to a Polish Fighter training school ,however to improve the situation, I was granted permission to hold a sleeping-out pass, next I was asked to report to the Armoury for my weapons.
The first item was a Pike...a 6ft council brush stale into which the joiners had driven a 8inch nail and the duty fitter had finished this to a pub dart point, the next item was if anything a bigger surprise
I was pointed in the direction of several WAAF’S sat at sewing machines the first one machined a strip of green webbing into a long tube, the second proceeded to fill this with several pounds of air-gun pellets and machine the top closed, the third completed a neat job by machining and attaching a very secure wrist-strap this I was told was my truncheon and I was asked to sign for both.
Before I left I was reminded that I was due to be shown both the mobile gun and the perimeter defences against air-borne attacks, the mobile was from a local breakers yard it was a ex coal merchants flat truck on which a double wall of corrugated iron sheets had been shaped into a square and filled with sand bags, the mounting for the 303 machine gun was a flanged length of pipe securely bolted to the floor.
I was still getting settled when the visit to the outer defences was arranged and it really made my day. We left the camp and were taken to a small wood which overlooked what was described as a ideal dropping zone for paratroopers. I had already noticed strange attachments to the tallest of the Poplar trees, car inner-tubes looped in daisy-chain fashion to form what I can only describe as a every large catapult which if properly loaded would shower the area with deadly shrapnel from the old ammo boxes that were used as the discharger.
Well the time to jump had arrived, I was being given more night duties than the hours spent in the workshops doing the work I had been posted to do.
The answers.....stay put...or....tighten the screws and go for Air-crew.....You have the answer.
Frank Reeve
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