This post is part of the "Granddad's War Stories" series. Double-post this week (these two sections were both on the short side). Aren't you lucky people?!
Chapter 1 - Home Service.
Part 5, A new start.
My morale was low as I travelled to take up my new appointment as Assistant Adjutant to a newly formed Regiment. Adjutants and their Assistants look after the administration of a Regiment and although they have numerous operational duties, these are mostly affecting personnel and logistics. I didn’t want a desk job. I wanted the sharp end.
The Adjutant was a nice chap but was more interested in horses and women than his adjutantle duties. The Chief Clerk recognised in me a fellow-craftsman and the two of us ran the administration to the delight of the Adjutant and the fury of the Colonel. It could not last and the Adjutant was sacked and a very nice Lecturer in Psychology from Edinburgh University took over. A period of peace and harmony ensued. We moved up to Bradford in Yorkshire with Batteries and their Troops covering every airfield in the country. Soon we moved to a delightful little village near York called Askam Bryan and took over the big house in the village.
I had now been at Regimental Headquarters for nearly a year and I felt that time was passing me by so I decided to speak to the Colonel. He was a Regular Indian Army Officer with 1914/18 War experience. He knew everybody in the War Office!
“Excuse me Sir, may I speak to you on a personal matter?”
“Yes,” he said looking up.
“I feel that it’s time for me to go out to a Battery.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not looking for a promotion to Lieutenant, I just feel I’d like a transfer in the same rank to learn more.”
“Yes.”
“Thank you Sir.”
“Yes.”
One day about a month later the Chief Clerk said to me: “I feel you would like to read this letter which the Colonel has just signed.” My eyes nearly popped out. It was a memo from the C.O. to me appointing me second in command of a Battery with the immediate rank of Captain. I looked helplessly at the Chief Clerk. “The Boss knows them all up there, Sir,” he said by way of explanation.
I departed for my new job at Lowthorpe near Driffield which is near Bridlington in East Yorkshire, with three Beautiful shining pips on each shoulder and a light heart.
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Yessssssss! Go Granddad!! I've learned from Grandma that he joined up at a time when many in Northern Ireland didn't - and you can see his determination here to bounce back from his disappointment and play an active role in serving his country. I've been picturing characters as I go along (everyone does that when they read I s'pose) and in that little cameo from the Colonel he was this robust old man with a huge bushy white 'tache and rosy cheeks - a kind of military Santa!
I've had to look up the order of Army ranks on Wikipedia in order to work out the significance of this latest promotion. He basically moved up two rungs in one go. Top stuff. Anyway, back to the story...
Map updated with Granddad's movements from these 2 sections. I've annotated it a bit now.Bigger one here.
Part 6, Digging in.
The job of second-in-command of a Battery is to deputise for the Commander (a Major) and to take charge of operational training and to supervise the Quartermaster’s Department. These were the remaining two fields in which I had not had practical experience and I looked forward to getting it. In addition, the Major was a splendid chap who had been a tea-planter in Ceylon.
It was a very happy time despite beng involved in a very inefficient defence system know as A.D.G.B. - Air Defence of Great Britain. All our guns were looking after the defence of airfields and enemy attacks were few and far between. The men grew static with long hours trying to spot aircraft which were not there. The top brass (which was static itself but didn’t know it) tried to remedy the situation by getting the chaps to whitewash dustbins and grow flowers around gun sites.
Then we got wonderful news. We were to be part of the order of battle for the invasion of Europe. Training was to start immediately in matters relating to mobile warfare, following which we were to receive basic infantry training. All old men (40 and over) were transferred. By the time we had finished, our oldest Officer was aged 30, and he was always referred to as “the old man.” The policy was correct because active warfare for regimental officers is utterly exhausting both mentally and physically.
Since I was in charge of training, my day had really dawned. I was packed off to Wimborne Minster in the New Forest, there to be taught with great efficiency all aspects of mobile gun warfare. I found it fascinating and took to it like a duck to water.
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See, I told you they were short sections. I'm liking Granddad's healthy contempt for authority that's started to show through here. Hardly surprising, is it? Imagine sitting in an Anti-Aircraft Battery and receiving a telegram from HQ... your heart beats faster "is this THE call?"... no. Its an instruction turn dustbins into makeshift ornamental gardens! It beggars belief. I'd have probably thought it a hoax.
Granddad was actually a pretty keen gardener, but he'd have hated being instructed to waste time. I think pretty much everyone hates that. At Nonsense we've just taken someone on, and I'm conscious of not filling up Nick's time with this kind of "filler" stuff. I reckon the only people who like being given pointless tasks are school kids. When you're at school, anything that's not a lesson is basically brilliant. Even fire alarm drills.
Also, a little thing I've noticed is how Granddad always refers to people by the previous job, before being in the Army. We had a University Lecturer and a Ceylon tea-planter in those last two chapters. (The latter was a Major, so I'm assuming he owned a tea plantation in India, rather than walking round picking leaves.) I think this is partially because Granddad is deliberately not mentioning names, but also because that's how everyone saw themselves at the time. Just ordinary people taking time out from ordinary jobs to fight the Nazis. It's something that's easy to forget with all the talk of ranks, guns, orders etc.
I can sense the story is about to kick off now, so I'm pretty excited. As a family, we once went to Normandy with Granddad and Grandma to Normandy, to see where he landed - it was near the 40th anniversary of D-Day at the time. Mum / DaD... any photos from that trip? Might need 'm to spice up next week's post.
Dad was a sergeant in an ack ack in WW2 in North Africa. He described how guns work together to form a "box" which hopefully no aircraft could escape. Unfortunetely, however well camolflaoged the ack ack guns when fired left a tell trace of smoke -identifying their positions to enemy aircraft. THen the hunters could become the hunted. THose pesky Gerries were even unsportingly known to deliberately encourage the guns to fire at them to reveal thier positions - bombs the next day.
Paul
Posted by: Paul | Mar 07, 2008 at 07:18 PM