Down to earth

In 1943, just before my eighteenth birthday in July, I volunteered for the RAF in the hope of becoming a pilot. I was due to be called-up soon, anyway, so it seemed a good idea to combine duty with my passion for things aeronautical, although I didn't think I stood the slightest chance of making it when I was informed that I would need School Certificate Maths — School Certificate Maths? — I just about knew my multiplication tables! But I was assured that if I was considered suitable I would be taught what was necessary, and even if I didn't qualify as a pilot there was a good chance of air crew training — not, I thought, quite the same, but flying was flying. As it turned out I didn't even survive the medical. l was rejected because my eyesight, not previously any problem, was deemed to be below the required standard. Nothing else was offered and I was told to await my call-up for the Army which should be quite soon. And that was that. What had started as the bright prospect of a pair of glamorous wings ended with the anti-climactic certainty of a pair of prosaic army boots.
But it wasn't until the following April that I received a letter from His Majesty's Clerk Responsible for Such Matters informing me of his regret that the war could no longer continue without my participation, and would I care to join the Army immediately (I quote, more or less verbatim).
And so, on 6th April 1944, I found myself at the end of a long line of other pale-faced, apprehensive youths outside the Quartermaster's Store at Norton Barracks, Worcester, each of us waiting to be issued with his beautifully-cut uniform. What I, for one, got was a uniform whose cut was as far from beautiful as was its fit from perfect, plus matching co-ordinates consisting of a shapeless beret that sat on my head like a lump of khaki dough, a couple of hefty woollen shirts, underwear so thick that it could equally have served as overwear, and those iron-studded and heavy boots, with a vast expanse of dull toecap on each to be polished and buffed continually until you could see your face in it.
I wished I had taken greater care of my eyes.
And then we collected our most important piece of equipment, our best friend, the Lee-Enfield .303 rifle. This at least, I had expected, would be something that would look and feel, well, right, businesslike — even, yes, even glamorous. But the object I collected was a heavy, unwieldy lump of practically indistinguishable wood and metal completely coated with a generous layer of the greasiest protective grease known to man — or, at least, me. And then they expected us not only somehow to remove this stuff but also to clean our rifles until they gleamed — especially, and I thought, unnecessarily if not, impossibly — the inside of the barrel, ready for the first of innumerable tedious inspections.
I wished I had taken better care of my muscles.

The first thing I learnt in my training was something I hadn't previously realised — that the groove between my left collarbone and my neck was put there for my rifle barrel to rest in when 'shouldered' — the right groove was presumably a spare. I was also told that my gun (gun, laddie? GUN? it's called a RIFLE!) my rifle was my best friend. I must at all times keep it sparkling clean, particularly the inside of the barrel whose apparent inaccessibility could be overcome by means of my own personal pull-through and three-by-two, secreted in an ingenious little cubby hole in the rifle butt. The two intriguingly-named tools that would perform the impossible turned out to be, respectively, a length of cord with a loop at one end through which you threaded a piece of, wait for it! three inches by two inches lint. You dropped the (lintless) end into the barrel and when it appeared out of the other end, the spout, you 'pulled through' (!) your three-by-two, which, in theory anyway, left the interior of the barrel all shining bright. It was, I believe, an offence if you were found to have used any form of metal polish. On the hand, what may not have been an offence but certainly was embarrassing, was if, as an alternative method of overcoming previous neglect, you employed more than the statutory three-by-two and the thing got stuck clown the barrel and due to overzealous but unsuccessful attempts to clear it the pull-through broke. This was not too well-received because if the lint had not been dislodged first, it prevented the proper exit of a round when the trigger was pulled. And since it was not easy, not to say impossible, to dislodge without recourse to the Armourer, you took very great care not to get your three-by-two stuck up the spout.
Eventually our training came to an end (the basic and the comprehensive parts anyway — we never completely stopped training) and we were allowed our first leave, after about four months of incarceration. And, I hate to admit it, I felt good. In my new smart uniform which somehow now fitted me, my kitbag over one shoulder and my rifle over the other, the inside of its barrel completely three-by-two free and gleaming with such (unfortunately hidden) intensity that I wanted it to be admired by every passing civilian, I strode along the streets to the resounding echo of my beautifully dubbinned boots, an object of many covert admiring glances I was sure. It was almost worth all the abuse, all the drilling, all the foot-slogging, all the crawling over acres of wet and muddy fields, all the climbing over and falling off obstacles, all those rivers and streams somehow crossed, all the kit-cleaning, to be home again and feeling so fit, so on top of the world.
And then, all too soon, my leave was over; and from the moment I boarded the train, if not before, I knew I was back in the Army by the constant stream of syllables being interfered with. On my return I found myself posted as part of the 6th Airborne Division. I was about to learn about gliders.
It was back to training, but this time spiced with the exciting prospect of actually going up in a glider — my first flight. It was not till after our first training flight that it somehow became known that we could have refused to go up and thus been considered for a transfer to a more down to earth unit. But since nobody had refused, not altogether surprising since nobody was aware of the option, (although I wouldn't have refused a chance to fly even if they'd charged a fare!) we were deemed tacitly to have accepted the posting as glider-borne infantry. A sort of retroactive volunteering. Still, I now qualified for the glamorous and famous combination of red beret and Pegasus flying horse shoulder flashes and, as long as no-one was shooting at anyone, it felt good to be part of the 6th Airborne. And one of my ambitions had, up to a point, been realised: I was involved with flying — although, with thirty-odd men to a glider, it was not unlike travelling by tube, but with a better view. And you did get a seat.
Takeoff. The roar of the Dakota's engines as it slowly moves off, the jerk of the tow rope's slack being taken up, and we are away and gathering speed. First, the Dakota slowly lifting while we still race along the runway as if unconnected, then we feel the ground suddenly drop away as we climb into the sky behind the tow rope bending up into the distance, our umbilical cord. Gradually our towing plane levels off, and now our suddenly fragile-seeming glider is in level flight, now rising, now, alarmingly, falling, every now and again buffeted against the force of the slipstream on our way up or down. Then, as we approach our dropping zone, the tow rope is be released, the umbilical cord cut. We are free, no longer dependent on that lumbering Dakota, suddenly and miraculously still sailing along without power, a new sensation of smooth, effortless movement through the air, the thin whistle of the wind over the wings the only sound apart from the idle chatter of the few too insensitive, or nervous, to appreciate the beauty of silent flight.
I enjoyed flying.
Then came the day when we had to put into practice all that glider training. In the early hours of 24th March 1945, a lovely, warm spring day, we were transported to an airfield in Hampshire crammed with gliders and their towing Lancasters and Stirlings. We made our way to our big black, rather beautiful glider, past jeeps and trailers and other gliders and aircraft, and everywhere miles of tow ropes; and full of the bravado we needed to demonstrate to each other, we sang a stirring and comforting ditty to the tune of the Volga Boatman, the first, second and fourth lines of which went ‘The f*****g rope broke’.
We climbed aboard our Horsa and sat in our two rows making jokes and laughing a little too heartily, trying to pretend we weren't worried about what was ahead as we waited for our turn to move off. Between us, at awkward intervals, were our trailers laden with assorted ammunition and weaponry. Ahead of us was the biggest airborne crossing of the war, over the Rhine and into Germany, while on the ground the Rhine would be crossed by thousands of other poor sods, on foot. Then we were off, part of this awe-inspiring armada of aircraft towing their gliders stretching as far as the eye could see.
Our company was supposed to be dropped at Haminkeln, on the far side of the Rhine, not far, someone said, from the town of Hamelin of Pied Piper fame. We didn't need to be told when we were near our Dropping Zone. Those innocent-looking little black and white puffs were familiar enough from all the war films I'd seen — what wasn't so entertaining was the crump crump of their explosions above the hissing of the glider as we were released from our rope to start our long descent, And now we could also hear the very realistic sound-effects of rifles, machine guns, bigger guns, and see those puffs getting bigger, and closer — and the realisation came to me that this could be a bit dangerous.
But it was all happening too fast to have time to worry properly, and seemed quite unreal. Then, as we could see the flaming and broken gliders on the ground below and other gliders milling around, apparently aimlessly, I had the not very comforting thought that the only way out of this thing was a) to land on that hostile ground and then b) to fight our way to our first objective, whatever that was to be.
While I was telling myself that one problem at a time was plenty, our pilot was more usefully engaged in wrestling with his rather limited controls, and losing height far too quickly and too steeply I thought, quite prepared now to risk the landing, as long as it was a landing. Then in what seemed one continuous manoeuvre we suddenly flattened out of our dive and seconds later there was an almighty thump, and a lot more bumping and grating than I thought you should get in the air, until I realised that we were juddering along on the ground. We had landed.
Knowing that the longer we remained in our Horsa, a prime target, the greater the danger of being trapped, we set about leaving it with the minimum possible delay. Get out first and worry about what's outside once we're there, that was our immediate philosophy. And then I found I had one less cause for concern. Along with more pressing problems, the prospect of the eight-foot drop to the ground with all my battle gear, and among unfriendly people, had been exercising my mind on and off since takeoff. But fortunately our undercarriage had smashed off on landing, not to mention half a wing, and the exit was now at ground level. All I had to do was step out. And run for it.
But where to? I recall a scene of utter confusion. Figures running, shouting, running, shooting; jeeps revving and skittering off on urgent missions; guns and trailers being hauled out of gliders and parts of gliders scattered about the landscape at crazy, impossible angles; gliders coming in to land, or crash, from all directions. And our faithful transport, our home for the past three or four hours, now abandoned and skewed across the field with one wing snapped off and its back broken; its job done, our safe arrival a testimony to the skill and cool bravery of our pilots, for the moment unappreciated, unthought of.
I certainly thought of them and their passive charges as one of the larger, jeep-carrying, gliders, ablaze from about half way along its fuselage, hissed by low over our heads like a flaming torch before hitting the ground and skidding along on its belly to come to rest in a blazing pyre of broken wings and fuselage. With no sign of life. There but for the grace of God . . .
And, through it all, a haze of writhing smoke and mist pierced by the sun, still shining as if the world was still normal.
For an eternity no-one seemed to know what to do, where to go — at least from where I was standing. Eventually someone, it could have been our Platoon Commander, took command, ordered us to run like hell for some nearby cover, where we joined up with more of our scattered company. And from there we took stock, while our commander tried to decide where we were in relation to where we should have been.
We could see that there had been at least one casualty from our platoon. He was lying about a couple of hundred yards away, between us and our broken glider. From the unnatural position of his body and its stillness I was sure he was dead, but while I was rehearsing in my mind the many reasons why I couldn't go and check that this was indeed so, someone else crawled out to him, and came back with his rifle. And it seemed a logical thing to do. Only then did I realise how scared I must have been. I had been chewing gum since the last stages of our flight — I knew from films that soldiers always chewed gum in action — and this gum, this ordinary stick of Wrigley's, had literally turned to powder in my mouth, a phenomenon that I would not have believed possible had I not experienced it.
The apparent chaos evolved into some semblance of order and we moved off to take our first objective, the town of Haminkeln, about a mile or so down the road. Not too far, unless you are being sniped at for most of the way. But we eventually got there and proceeded to move through the town, virtually house by house.
The rest of those first days are a series of disjointed scenes, a sort of screen montage:
An upstairs room of a building. I am ordered up there to keep an eye on a distant church, which is probably the source of some of the sniping. I am supposed to stand by an open window and watch for the flash of gunfire and fire at it with my puny rifle to keep the enemy's heads down while part of the company advances to the next objective. It occurs to me — I'm quite intelligent — that if I can see the flash of the Germans' fire then there is a better than even chance that they can see mine when I do likewise. So I loose off a few shots in their general direction, keep my head down until they fire, then bob up very briefly for a quick blind shot to keep them quiet and bob down again. I don't know about their heads but I keep mine down most of the time.
Another building, reportedly holding more snipers. Two or three of us are ordered to advance on it and flush out its occupants. The next bit is blank so I assume that, since there is no obvious cover on the way, I have made myself as inconspicuous as possible by shutting my eyes. There is a lot of smoke coming from the top floor where someone has lobbed a grenade, then someone else rakes the ceiling with a burst of Sten gun fire from the room beneath. Then silence. Nobody feels like bothering to check whether there is anyone upstairs, in case there still is.
The town of Haminkeln is now ours.

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