After six weeks, on October 4th, I was posted to the 53rd Training Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), which was then situated at Catterick Camp, near Richmond in Yorkshire. There, I was to be trained as a driver-operator and my training was to consist of five weeks general training, an eight-week wireless course, two weeks of gunnery, one week of mechanics, three weeks driving instruction and one week wireless revision; an aggregate of twenty weeks.
For the first five weeks we were engaged in RAC training that consisted of such components as pistol drill, tank compass, map reading etc. One day, while out map reading, I saw my first dead body. The squad was out in two fifteen-hundredweight lorries and I was in the rear one. We were proceeding at a moderate speed on a narrow lane up a slight gradient when two sergeant despatch riders came round the corner at about thirty miles an hour. They both saw us. The first fellow wobbled into the ditch, but the second one was not quite so fortunate and fell inwards. The first lorry ran over his head with a sickening crunch. Our lorry pulled up within ten yards of the poor fellow. I jumped out of the lorry to see if there was anything I could do, but before I knew it, a stream of vivid, red, steaming blood was pouring over my boots. The poor chap’s head was crushed like an eggshell and grey matter was splattered on the road. One of his eyes was squashed out, a few inches from his head and covered in chippings. The wheel of his motorcycle was still spinning. At first, I felt violently sick, but I soon got over it. I learned later that the sergeant was forty-eight years of age and had a daughter of sixteen.
I remember clearly the first forty-eight hours leave I had from Catterick. It was the first time I had been home since I went into uniform. Dorothy was waiting for me at the station and I distinctly remember wondering if she was as excited as me. The return journey will take some forgetting. On arriving at the station to catch the 5:30pm Sunday train to Leeds, I found it had been taken out of service only the week before. The result was a big flapping effort. The only solution was to ask my uncle John to take me to Leeds on his motorcycle. I often wondered what monsoons were like, but I got an idea that night. When I eventually arrived in the barrack room, I was drenched to the skin. But such is the price of leave.
After five weeks general training, I had my first nine days leave. I remember very little about this leave, except that I had a deuce of a good time and was more than sorry to come back. Then came the eight-week wireless course, which was fairly extensive, covering as it did elementary electricity theory, theory of wireless waves, Morse code up to fifteen words per minute, flag signalling, radio telephone (R/T) procedure and, of course, operating. Wireless schemes [1] in utility vans continued in spite of several inches of snow and once, we were actually stuck in a snowdrift. Whatever the route of the scheme, we always seemed to find our way to the National Army Air Force Institute (NAAFI) at Scotch Corner. Our instructor was a former schoolteacher with an MA degree. He was an exceedingly nice fellow. On completing the course, we were given a simple test, which I passed with a fairly high percentage.
In the fortnight gunnery course, we delved into the intricacies of the Besa, six-pounder gun, Bren, Browning, Tommy gun [2] and Mills Grenade. The miniature range [3] was a great attraction and the RYPA [4] range another. The week’s mechanics course was very elementary, but interesting. It was followed by a putting the theory into practice course with three weeks of driving and maintenance. It was then that I first learnt to drive and after three days ‘on the concrete’, I was passed fit for the road. I was lucky and never hit anything, although I did once run over a newly cemented road. Apart from that, my three weeks driving instruction went without incident and at the end of it I passed out as a more or less competent driver.The week’s wireless revision passed fairly quickly, experimenting with the ‘38 Infantry wireless set’ and this completed my training in the 53rd Training Regiment. Several people in this Regiment are worthy of mention. I had several intimate friends. The first was Jim Cane, a former clerk of 4 Montreal Street, Dansom Lane in Hull. As he was also a driver-operator, we went through our training together and became firm friends. In fact, when he got married at the completion of our training, he asked me to be his best man, but circumstances made it impossible for me to accept. He was a competent pianist and had a basic knowledge of ‘boogie-woogie’, but couldn’t ‘busk’ at all. I often accompanied him on drums on the stage of NAAFI. Next comes Graham Stewart, aged twenty-three. He came into the Army from Oxford University, where he was studying English and English Literature. A tall, handsome fellow of excellent physique, he enjoyed his pipe and was by nature slow and deliberate. His tastes in music were fairly extensive, but he favoured Bach and Beethoven. He introduced me to a lot of good literature and I used to be ‘two up’ on most of his books. His companion was Charlie Woolgar, a Londoner, about thirty-two years of age and an out-and-out Communist. One night, Graham and I went to a symphony concert at the Gaiety Theatre at the camp centre and by one of those remote coincidences that make the world seem such a small place, I bumped into Angus Dunn, an old Ermystedonian. [5] I saw Gus many times after that as we had the ‘old school tie’, our hometown and many things in common. Then, we met Jack Kirk, another ‘old boy’. He was in the 60th Training Regiment, adjacent to ours. We had many good times together, usually meeting at the camp centre. Lance-Corporal Nye was, and as far as I know, still is, a very interesting character. He was older than the rest of us, approximately six feet tall and very handsome, behind a well-trimmed, black moustache. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel and he himself had served for four years as a CID sergeant in the Palestine Police. He had a fluent command of French and Arabic and his English was perfect. By nature, quiet and reserved, he was the perfect English gentleman with a unique store of knowledge and experience.
For three months of my time at the 53rd Training Regiment, I went to Officer Command Training Unit (OCTU) on a part-time basis. It involved elocution, general knowledge, speeches, drill, assault courses etc. Goodness knows how many interviews I had and how many testimonials I had to produce, but on the final War Office selection board, I was turned down as ‘unsuitable for the present’. And so went my hopes of a Commission. It is perhaps just as well.
One of the best-spirited ‘entertainment parties’ it has ever been my privilege to be associated with was the 53rd Valentines, a male-voice choir concert, partly directed by Lance-Corporal Roy Darby. Versatility was their keynote, both in terms of acting and singing. As my drums had been forwarded from home, I was asked to play in a small band to support a musical comedy they were giving at Christmas. See Figure 2 for the programme of the performance. The band combination was piano, drums, alto-sax and clarinet, doubling-accordion. The show ran for three successive nights and, after the last performance, we had a party at the NAAFI’s expense. Two high spots of the show were swing reveille and drill to the bongos.
For the first five weeks we were engaged in RAC training that consisted of such components as pistol drill, tank compass, map reading etc. One day, while out map reading, I saw my first dead body. The squad was out in two fifteen-hundredweight lorries and I was in the rear one. We were proceeding at a moderate speed on a narrow lane up a slight gradient when two sergeant despatch riders came round the corner at about thirty miles an hour. They both saw us. The first fellow wobbled into the ditch, but the second one was not quite so fortunate and fell inwards. The first lorry ran over his head with a sickening crunch. Our lorry pulled up within ten yards of the poor fellow. I jumped out of the lorry to see if there was anything I could do, but before I knew it, a stream of vivid, red, steaming blood was pouring over my boots. The poor chap’s head was crushed like an eggshell and grey matter was splattered on the road. One of his eyes was squashed out, a few inches from his head and covered in chippings. The wheel of his motorcycle was still spinning. At first, I felt violently sick, but I soon got over it. I learned later that the sergeant was forty-eight years of age and had a daughter of sixteen.
I remember clearly the first forty-eight hours leave I had from Catterick. It was the first time I had been home since I went into uniform. Dorothy was waiting for me at the station and I distinctly remember wondering if she was as excited as me. The return journey will take some forgetting. On arriving at the station to catch the 5:30pm Sunday train to Leeds, I found it had been taken out of service only the week before. The result was a big flapping effort. The only solution was to ask my uncle John to take me to Leeds on his motorcycle. I often wondered what monsoons were like, but I got an idea that night. When I eventually arrived in the barrack room, I was drenched to the skin. But such is the price of leave.
After five weeks general training, I had my first nine days leave. I remember very little about this leave, except that I had a deuce of a good time and was more than sorry to come back. Then came the eight-week wireless course, which was fairly extensive, covering as it did elementary electricity theory, theory of wireless waves, Morse code up to fifteen words per minute, flag signalling, radio telephone (R/T) procedure and, of course, operating. Wireless schemes [1] in utility vans continued in spite of several inches of snow and once, we were actually stuck in a snowdrift. Whatever the route of the scheme, we always seemed to find our way to the National Army Air Force Institute (NAAFI) at Scotch Corner. Our instructor was a former schoolteacher with an MA degree. He was an exceedingly nice fellow. On completing the course, we were given a simple test, which I passed with a fairly high percentage.
In the fortnight gunnery course, we delved into the intricacies of the Besa, six-pounder gun, Bren, Browning, Tommy gun [2] and Mills Grenade. The miniature range [3] was a great attraction and the RYPA [4] range another. The week’s mechanics course was very elementary, but interesting. It was followed by a putting the theory into practice course with three weeks of driving and maintenance. It was then that I first learnt to drive and after three days ‘on the concrete’, I was passed fit for the road. I was lucky and never hit anything, although I did once run over a newly cemented road. Apart from that, my three weeks driving instruction went without incident and at the end of it I passed out as a more or less competent driver.The week’s wireless revision passed fairly quickly, experimenting with the ‘38 Infantry wireless set’ and this completed my training in the 53rd Training Regiment. Several people in this Regiment are worthy of mention. I had several intimate friends. The first was Jim Cane, a former clerk of 4 Montreal Street, Dansom Lane in Hull. As he was also a driver-operator, we went through our training together and became firm friends. In fact, when he got married at the completion of our training, he asked me to be his best man, but circumstances made it impossible for me to accept. He was a competent pianist and had a basic knowledge of ‘boogie-woogie’, but couldn’t ‘busk’ at all. I often accompanied him on drums on the stage of NAAFI. Next comes Graham Stewart, aged twenty-three. He came into the Army from Oxford University, where he was studying English and English Literature. A tall, handsome fellow of excellent physique, he enjoyed his pipe and was by nature slow and deliberate. His tastes in music were fairly extensive, but he favoured Bach and Beethoven. He introduced me to a lot of good literature and I used to be ‘two up’ on most of his books. His companion was Charlie Woolgar, a Londoner, about thirty-two years of age and an out-and-out Communist. One night, Graham and I went to a symphony concert at the Gaiety Theatre at the camp centre and by one of those remote coincidences that make the world seem such a small place, I bumped into Angus Dunn, an old Ermystedonian. [5] I saw Gus many times after that as we had the ‘old school tie’, our hometown and many things in common. Then, we met Jack Kirk, another ‘old boy’. He was in the 60th Training Regiment, adjacent to ours. We had many good times together, usually meeting at the camp centre. Lance-Corporal Nye was, and as far as I know, still is, a very interesting character. He was older than the rest of us, approximately six feet tall and very handsome, behind a well-trimmed, black moustache. His father was a Lieutenant Colonel and he himself had served for four years as a CID sergeant in the Palestine Police. He had a fluent command of French and Arabic and his English was perfect. By nature, quiet and reserved, he was the perfect English gentleman with a unique store of knowledge and experience.
For three months of my time at the 53rd Training Regiment, I went to Officer Command Training Unit (OCTU) on a part-time basis. It involved elocution, general knowledge, speeches, drill, assault courses etc. Goodness knows how many interviews I had and how many testimonials I had to produce, but on the final War Office selection board, I was turned down as ‘unsuitable for the present’. And so went my hopes of a Commission. It is perhaps just as well.
One of the best-spirited ‘entertainment parties’ it has ever been my privilege to be associated with was the 53rd Valentines, a male-voice choir concert, partly directed by Lance-Corporal Roy Darby. Versatility was their keynote, both in terms of acting and singing. As my drums had been forwarded from home, I was asked to play in a small band to support a musical comedy they were giving at Christmas. See Figure 2 for the programme of the performance. The band combination was piano, drums, alto-sax and clarinet, doubling-accordion. The show ran for three successive nights and, after the last performance, we had a party at the NAAFI’s expense. Two high spots of the show were swing reveille and drill to the bongos.
Figure 2: The programme for ‘Trooper in Wonderland’ listing the author as one of the musicians. He was on the drums (Christmas 1942).
Christmas in the snow on the moors at Catterick was cheered up immensely by Dorothy’s visit to Richmond. She stayed with a Mrs Waggett, a distant relative who dished up an excellent Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, on the morning of Dorothy’s return, I was on church parade and, consequently, I was unable to see her to the train. In late February, Dorothy was operated on for appendicitis and, in early March, I went on leave. Dorothy had only been out of hospital just over a week, yet was able to get around marvellously well. I spent the usual enjoyable day at the Royal Ordnance Factory at Steeton where I used to work. There was nothing spectacular about this leave, but it was exceedingly enjoyable for its leisureliness all the same.
[1] The terms ‘schemes’ and ‘exercises’ are employed throughout as synonyms.
[2] The Besa is a machine gun. A ‘six-pounder’ is the main tank gun. The Browning in question is a machine gun. The Tommy gun is a 45-calibre submachine gun.
[3] The miniature range was the range used for practicing with small arms.
[4] R.Y.P.A. stood for: ‘Roll, Yaw, Pitch, Alteration’. It was related to instructional apparatus.
[5] The old school in question was Ermysted’s Grammar School.
[5] The old school in question was Ermysted’s Grammar School.
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