Chapter XIII: Woolwich
About the month of May, 1942, when the 13th Anti-Tank Regiment was preparing for embarkation, I was sent to C Battery in the R.A. depot in Woolwich to join the rejects of the other Anti-Tank Regiments. At that time the bombing of London had ceased, so again I was able to escape the traumas of enemy action.
However, the War had entered the most disastrous phase for the Allies. In the Far East, Singapore had fallen to the Japanese in January. Malaya and Burma were soon over-run and the British had to make a thousand mile retreat as far as Assam. In North Africa the Germans, under the crafty leadership of Rommel, had advanced almost to the gates of Alexandria. Russia seemed to be on the verge of defeat. The German U-Boats were sinking merchant ships in the Atlantic at an alarming rate.
But, towards the end of 1942, there were ominous signs for the Germans and encouraging signs for the Allies. In North Africa, Rommel’s lines of communications were over-stretched and when Montgomery, with superior forces, broke through at El Alamein, the Germans failed to halt the rapid advance of the British. More U-Boats were being sunk after merchant ships were formed into convoys escorted by Naval warships. In Russia, the Germans, with their lines there too being overstretched, were unable to take Stalingrad before the onset of the Russian winter - the Russian winter which had defeated Napoleon’s Armies now brought about the beginning of the decline of Hitler’s Armies in the East.
So I was able to settle down in what was once a very dangerous zone but was now comparatively free of the possibility of devastating bombing raids, since the Germans had had by now had to change from building bombers to building fighters to support their over-stretched Armies. It was a case of settling down amidst a motley crew of inadequate soldiers, some physically inadequate, some lacking in intelligence, and some even working for their tickets, that is making every endeavour to be discharged from the Army.
Among the latter were several Cockney Jews who were continually working schemes to enable them to spend a great deal of time at their homes in the East End. There was one instance of a clever Cockney shamming a bad stutter and low intelligence. I happened at one time to be in the barber’s shop when he too was present. There he was obviously able to speak without any trace of a stutter, and at the same time boasting he was soon going to be successful in his campaign to work his ticket. Soon after, as one of the Documents Office clerks, I was ordered to take this person’s medical and intelligence report to a room where a kind of tribunal was being held and I was actually present to see a brilliant performance of shamming by the Cockney and to hear one of the panel declaring that this was an obvious case for discharge.
It was with a motley crew too that I was billeted in a big barrack room - twenty or more from all parts of Britain with their particular native accents, many of them foul-mouthed and boastful of their sexual exploits and drinking capacity. Some of them, although with a different background from mine, had higher standards of behaviour and were more tolerable company. However, the only time I was in their company was from reveille to breakfast-time and shortly before turning in for the night.
Indeed I was fortunate enough to have pleasant company and amenable surroundings throughout the day, since I was sent to work in the Documents Office almost as soon as I arrived at the Depot. The man in charge of the Office was Bombardier Gordon, an efficient and intelligent office organiser, having been in charge of an Estate Agent’s Office in a seaside resort in the south of England. He was a tall and imposing figure of a man, with cultivated speech and manner. He had another useful attribute - he was able to speak to the officers on equal terms.
My immediate superior, whose desk I had to share, was a much younger person, a bank clerk in civilian life, and, of course he held the superior position by virtue of the fact that he had worked in the office for a much longer period. He was quick to show me, a much older man, that he was the boss. I believe I showed a great deal of patience in tolerating his varying moods, a surly uncommunicative mood, tempered now and again by a more cheerful mood. Eventually our relationship deteriorated to such an extent that I decided to apply for another job. This was a move which had happy results. My account of this will come later.
In addition to keeping the documents of the men stationed in the Depot and producing them on demand, we had to ensure that each soldier in the drafts which were in transit for embarkation abroad had a complete set of documents. Almost invariably the men arrived at the Depot with one or two of their documents missing. Five different forms had to be sent abroad for each soldier on draft. Although I checked hundreds of these forms and knew their Army numbers, I can vaguely remember the numbers of only two of them. One was B78 (or was it B98?), a man’s medical history, and the other was B122, a man’s history of charges, if any, made against him.
Strangely enough, the latter form was missing from many of the dossiers. It was fairly obvious that there had been some scheming to occasion their loss. Usually there was frantic telephoning to the R.A. Records Office at Foots Cray, Kent, to find out if any charges had been made. There was frantic telephoning because these drafts often had to be moved from the Depot after a very short stay, sometimes after just an overnight stay. More often than not a new B122, without a single charge on it, had to be made out. Quite often too we had to work well into the night to complete sets of documents.
It was at such a time that we had frequent visits to the Office by the Adjutant. He was a Regular Army Officer with a Regular Army Officer’s idea of discipline. I never saw the glimmer of a smile on his face. He had very exacting standards, and expected immediate obedience. He could be quite inhuman at times. This was exemplified in an incident which made a profound and very emotional impression on me.
Towards the end of 1942, the first batch of casualties from the North Africa campaign arrived at the Depot. They were convalescing wounded who had been in the thick of the fighting and who had had harrowing experiences in the retreat towards Alexandria. They looked scruffy and bedraggled, and appeared before the Office in no kind of order. When the Adjutant saw them he reprimanded them in no uncertain terms, and ordered them to return to their barrack room to smarten themselves up and to reappear before the Office in military order.
I became even more incensed with anger at the inhuman treatment when I found out that the six soldiers were the sole survivors of the 13th Anti-Tank Regiment, the Regiment with which I would have fought, and probably been killed, had I not been downgraded and put on Home Details. Mixed with the deep sorrow I felt for those men with whom I shared a close comradeship in Broadway was the sense of relief that my peculiar bifurcated big toe had saved my life.
One big bonus from being employed in the Documents Office was being exempted from all parades except the Pay Parade on Friday mornings. As a result of this I could wear my own shoes rather than the Army boots. A consequence of this was that I neglected the ’spit and polish’ necessary to give the expected shine on the boots. Now and again we had to stand by our beds while a young stripling of an office inspected our kit, taken out of our kit-bags and laid out on the bed. I was told off in language almost as expressive as that of a Sergeant-Major for the state of my boots, and was threatened with being put on a charge.
I was also exempted from the Church Parade on Sunday morning, but not because I was employed in the Documents Office. Since my training days in Church Stretton I was warned to state that my religion was Methodist rather than Church of England. The C. of E. parade was considered in Woolwich the most important parade of the whole week. The vast majority of the men were paraded on the large parade ground in front of the barracks, and each one was carefully inspected by an officer or the Sergeant Major to see whether the brass buttons had been brassed, whether the boots had been polished to a brilliant shine, and whether the webbing had been blancoed. Many a Saturday afternoon was reluctantly spent making these ’spit and polish’ preparations.
There was such a large number on the C. of E. Parade because every soldier had to declare his religion. Many would declare themselves to be atheists or at least not to belong to any religious denomination. The answer to this would be, ‘Your religion is C. of E.’ and that would be recorded on the disc that each soldier had to wear round his neck at all times.
The number recorded as Methodists, no other denomination being recognised, was so small that on Sunday mornings they would be allowed to make their own way to church without any supervision at all, or at any rate under the supervision of a junior NCO. Some of the few, after going out through the barracks gate, never put in an appearance in church, just roaming around Woolwich on most occasions. I, along with two other Welsh-speaking Welshmen, would attend a Methodist Chapel not far from the Barracks. It was very seldom that we enjoyed the English service, but we were always warmly welcomed and invited to have coffee and biscuits with the members after the service.
Through this contact on the non-military walk to the Church I became quite friendly with these two Welshmen. They were both rustic-looking farm servants from the Merionethshire hills. Neither had had much formal education, but we had two attributes in common; our ability to speak in our native language and our interest in farming life and the life of the countryside. They were both very intelligent and had a deep interest in Welsh poetry, being able to quote a large number of ‘englynion’, a kind of alliterative Welsh verse. However, their command of English was not very good, and I learned later that the Army authorities thought this too.
There was a sequel to this which made me feel very annoyed with the biased attitude of the Army. I came across the Intelligence Records of the two men in the Office. On it was the assessment that both were of low intelligence, slow of speech and dim-witted and were not fit to serve in any Artillery unit. Soon after I was asked to take the men’s documents to a military tribunal. This resulted in both being recommended to be transferred to the Pioneer Corps, the dumping ground, as it were, of unlikely soldier material. And so I lost the company of my two intelligent Welsh friends.
The only other Welshman I came across in the Depot was a Regular soldier from the Rhondda. He became friendly with me not because we could converse in Welsh, which he could not do, but because he found me a soft touch for a loan when he had lost all his pay, mainly on gambling. Almost without fail he would look out for me on Tuesday, but in his favour it must be said that he never asked for an unreasonable sum and never failed to repay the same sum after receiving his pay on Friday. Taffy, although a Welshman, was not a thief.
Fortunately, the loss of my Welsh friends was more than compensated for by the welcome and friendship I found in a little Welsh chapel situated not very far from the Barracks. The Welsh people who had settled in a wide area around Woolwich were mainly from South Wales, immigrants during the time of the depression in the early thirties. They met in the chapel every Sunday afternoon for a religious service followed by what was a sumptuous tea in spite of the severe food rationing. I suspect that for the majority of them the main attraction was not so much the religious worship, but the opportunity to socialise and to maintain close friendships. As I have said before, my advice to people who move to a strange locality is that they should seek friendly and amenable company in a church or chapel.
I struck up a friendship with a couple much older than I was, but they made me feel so much at home in their company that I used to look forward to meeting them in the service and then spending the evening in the cosy atmosphere of their home in Bexley Heath. Long after the war ended I regularly wrote a letter at Christmas to Mr and Mrs Powell, and would regularly receive a reply giving all the news of their family, until quite suddenly their letters ceased. This, I suppose, was to be expected as Mr Powell was retired even when I visited them.
In many ways I could consider myself to be lucky to be stationed in Woolwich. It provided plenty of opportunities for visiting places of interest and places of entertainment and for relieving the frustration of a mode of living, if such it can be called, in the confinement of a dreary grey-looking barracks, and so far from home.
Saturday afternoon after the mid-day meal was always free unless documents were urgently required for a draft that had just returned from embarkation leave, or your name was down for guard duty. I took advantage of these free Saturday afternoons to make my way on my own to the West End of London in order to explore the places of interest or to see a play in one of the well-known theatres, However I could not afford to go too often. It meant my having to pay the fare on the tube to one of the West End stations, paying for a meal and paying for the theatre ticket. To keep the cost of the meal down to about a shilling I patronised either a Lyon’s Café or an Express Dairy Café and, of course, a seat in the theatre had to be in the ‘gods’.
Parties from School or from the Capel Newydd Drama Group in Llandeilo would make trips almost annually to Stratford to see Shakespearean plays but I cannot remember whether any of these trips had taken place before the War, and so before my military service in Woolwich. However, my present impression is that my experience of seeing a Shakespearean play in London was my first of a professional production. And so it was natural that I was profoundly moved by a very powerful performance of King Lear in the St James’s Theatre.
I had studied ‘King Lear’ for my Higher Certificate; I had learned many passages off by heart, and had been thrilled by the critical assessment in Bradley’s ‘Four Shakespearean Tragedies’. But I had not seen a live performance of the play. The part of King Lear was taken by Donald Wolfit, and to me his superb acting was an unforgettable ‘tour de force’. First impressions, I suppose, are more profound and more lasting than those that come later. But although I saw performances of many Shakespearean plays in Stratford in the years after the War, it is the performance of ‘King Lear’ in St James’s that stands out most clearly in my mind.
The happiest relief from the often depressing atmosphere of the Documents Office was afforded by the three-monthly seven days’ leave and by the occasional forty-eight hours leave. But even these happy releases could have their trials and tribulations, especially when I had wangled unofficially what could be termed a short forty-eight hours.
By working in the Documents Office I sometimes was able to get a pass signed early on Friday afternoon rather than at the end of the afternoon. Then with the connivance of the other staff I would leave the Barracks early enough to catch a train which would arrive in Swansea in the early hours of Saturday morning, then catch the first bus to Llandeilo.
The trials and tribulations of such a journey would occur when one of the notorious pea-soup fogs descended on London, causing delays first on the tube and then on the train from Paddington. On such occasions I would arrive in Llandeilo about midday on Saturday. Then, to make sure of returning to the Barracks before reveille on Monday morning, I would have to catch the train from Swansea at about three o’clock on Sunday afternoon. In those days a Rees and Williams bus would leave Llandeilo for Swansea on Sundays soon after midday. The Sunday train from Swansea always travelled the longer route through Gloucester and many a time when there were long delays on the way I could see that many of my fellow-passengers, dressed in civilian clothes as they had no Army passes, were becoming very worried that they would be unable to make it to their units in time to avoid being caught by the guard on duty.
On one seven days’ leave I had an experience that could be described as traumatic rather than just one of ‘trial and tribulation’. At that time Una was attending the Infants Department of the Primary School, while Nest, being three and a half years old, was too young then to attend. On a fine afternoon in the summer I took Nest to meet Una coming out of afternoon school. We waited on the pavement the other side of the road of the entrance gate to the school. Whom should I see coming up the road on the opposite pavement but John Jenkins, who had undertaken to teach Latin in my absence.
So I decided to cross over, but made a mistake which had a traumatic result. I told Nest to stay on her side of the road and not to cross over. But the next thing I saw was a van coming down the road, braking hard and taking avoiding action, and there stretched out in the middle of the road was Nest. She lay there as if unconscious, giving out hardly a whimper. As it was fairly obvious that she had no broken bones, I picked her up, carried her home, and rang the doctor then Carrie and I noticed blood on her knickers, and when Doctor Morgan examined her he found a deep cut between her vagina and anus. He thought that the injury was not a serious one, but that it was advisable for her to spend some time in hospital to ensure that the wound would close from the inside to the outside rather than vice versa.
So Nest was taken to Gorseinon Hospital where we were told that children of Nest’s age could not be visited, but we could ring the Hospital to see what progress was being made. I felt now that my presence was required at home. So I went to the Army Casualty Station, then in Dynevor Castle, to ask them to contact the Depot in Woolwich and to ask for an extension of leave on compassionate grounds. The extension was granted, proving that the Army could have humane feelings.
At the end of seven days we were informed by the Hospital that Nest could be fetched home. So Carrie and I arrived at the Hospital wondering what kind of reception we would have. We had to wait in the Waiting Room, while a nurse went to fetch her. When she appeared she was clinging fast to the nurse as if she resented our presence, but suddenly she turned and almost flung herself into her mother’s arms.
We have often wondered what effect this accident could have had on Nest’s mind. Did she feel that she had been let down? However, I had, after that, many a nightmarish dream recalling the incident, and blaming myself for my stupid mistake.
Probably the pleasant experiences during my service in Woolwich outweighed the unpleasant ones. I wrote to Carrie suggesting that she could spend a few days in Woolwich and that at the same time we could spend a weekend together in her sister Rachel’s home in Dagenham. I took advantage of my privileged position in the Documents Office to arrange the visit when I could have my evenings free and could have a forty-eight hours leave at the weekend. We had a very enjoyable time roaming around Woolwich, visiting the Powells in Bexley Heath and then spending a happy weekend enjoying the civilian comforts of Rachel’s home.
My evenings were usually spent reading in the warm atmosphere of the Documents Office and enjoying a supper of cocoa and hot toast. The supper of cocoa and hot toast was Bombardier Gordon’s inspired idea. Instead of sitting down in the canteen for a sparse meal, we would take back to the office a mug of hot cocoa and a piece or two of bread with a chunk of butter. The toasting of the bread in front of the tiny hole of a cast-iron stove was a slow business, but, I suppose, the effort was worth-while in that we had palatable toast and at the same time the effort helped to while away the time.
Sometimes I would visit the huge cinema in Woolwich, when I could watch films and also listen to the music of the cinema organ, a popular feature of cinema shows in those days. It was very rarely that I went to a pub, but I shall never forget a visit on a Xmas Eve with the other staff of the Offices. As we were a group together, the rounds practice was adopted. After drinking several pints of beer I felt that, in spite of my previous almost total abstinence, I was able to ‘take it’. That was where I made a big mistake - when we went out into the open air I had all the symptoms of being merrily drunk. But when I arrived in the barrack room, I no longer felt merry; I had a splitting headache, lay on the bed, and felt the bed lifting up and down and hitting me in my face. The morning after, I vowed that I would never succumb to such a temptation again.