SUMMARY AND PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT
DOB 17/06/1922, born Kingston St Mary, Somerset
Early schooling in Somerset, father was in Royal Marines, retired after 21 years and joined RM police, stationed in the admiralty at Devonport, then moved to Scotland, Royal Naval armament, when Arthur was aged 12. Scotland schools were ‘miles ahead’ and it was very hard at first, had a lot of catching up to do, got bullied, with different accent and because he had shoes. Most of the children didn’t as it was a small mining village just outside Stirling. They were jealous that his parents were better paid, better off, bit of resentment, but ok, as, with time, ‘they accepted me fully.’
Was one of five, Jack eldest died during the war, on an aircraft carrier, lost with all hands on North African landings. Other brother in navy too, on the Ark Royal.
05:00 TALKS ABOUT WORK – Left school 1936 age 14, ‘fortunate enough to become an apprentice’ had a lot of mill girls travelling on the train, used to torment him and his friend, who was a neighbour. Used to try and get an empty carriage to avoid them. The girls worked in a whisky distillery, were about 15/16. Earnt 12 shillings and sixpence a week, of which six shillings and eightpence went on train fare. ‘I used to get one packet of woodbines a week.’ [LAUGHS]
06:30 Had to get up early for work, at 5.30 to get the train, and got home about 7pm, five days a week.
Lived in country, so a quiet life – used to help out at a nearby farm, haymaking.
07:00 Moved to Plymouth, town suffered very badly during the war, ‘my whole street was destroyed, in 1941 bombed.’ That decision made him join up, at age 17, ‘ I thought I’d get my own back… and I went as air crew.’
Trained at Blackpool, 75,000 airmen there at that time, training, but only training part time as trying to put so many people through in quick time.
‘I was an air cadet as a youngster and we had some adventures then.’
09:00 Didn’t fancy joining the navy like his dad, said ‘we only ever saw him once every couple of years, they used to go away on commissions… the ships would sail for two and half years in the far east’ some of these chaps who went out to the desert were out there for two or three years at a time.
Training in Blackpool for six or seven weeks, learnt morse code in training school in the old tramway sheds, very compressed course; ‘If you couldn’t do four words per minute by the end of the first week, you were out.’ Took in a high volume with expectancy of only getting a few out, every six weeks a changeover of recruits. Arthur unsuccessful, because of a medical problem with his eyesight, had a stigmatism, was training to be an air gunner. Considers himself lucky today, as it meant he lived. ‘Was a life expectancy of ten weeks,’, disappointed at the time ‘you never think you’re going to die – it’s always the other bloke.’
11:30 Sent down to Regents Park for four weeks ‘to try to salvage me’ but couldn’t sort his eye problem so he remained ‘potential air crew’ throughout the war. Had ‘eye training’ to try and cure the stigmatism in his right eye, had to look through binoculars and adjust the sights to move ‘the parrot into the cage… all sorts of silly things.’
Didn’t accept him as air crew but kept him as a standby, so couldn’t join other units. Was put into military police for six weeks, had to pick up those who overstayed their leave, didn’t like it , felt like it was picking up ‘his mates’, then was sent down to Enfield as workman helping lay tracks for emergency airfields, had to learn to drive a bulldozer to lay out big wire netting on a roller, ‘a great beam’, and ‘pin it down to the ground with long stakes, for aircraft to land on… instant airfield!’
‘I moved around on that job,’ posting at Duxford. Wages about a shilling a day, got food and clothing and everything provided, good comradeship. ‘I enjoyed my war. I went on to do radar and this leads up to the point of how I met my wife.’
15:20 – HOW HE MET HIS WIFE ‘I went to Yatesbury on a radar course for six weeks,’ then sent to a radar station with entirely different equipment to what he’d been trained on, ‘on the Lizard Point in Cornwall, most southerly point in UK… used to follow reconnaissance spitfires, blue spits, all the way to their destination and all the way back’ could track over 200 miles. Led to ‘an unpleasant incident’ on night duty one night, when technical officer rang up.
16:30 MURDER ‘A CO had murdered a WAFF corporal, she came from Porthcawl, her name was Joan Lewis, he had shot her in a suicide pact and then not been able to go through with the last bit and shoot himself. In 1944, I’m sure, about summer time, June or July. I remember this so well because I was a coffin bearer at her funeral, one of six people chosen to bear her coffin, I had been on her watch, she’d been in charge of our watch, she was the corporal in charge.’
‘The WAFF officer on the station… had objected to this liaison and had posted this girl away, and this was her last night on the unit… so he decided they would commit suicide but he didn’t go through with his part. He shot her and then didn’t go through with his part, and she died instantly… and it was a scandal… an amazing thing comes out of this… the WAFF officer was looking for a distraction as everyone depressed… and I was contemplating marriage… so they made a big thing of this marriage… I’ve got photographs of us here… we had a guard of honour… crossed swords… and it really was a big splash.’ TO TAKE EVERYONE’S MINDS OFF THE TRAGEDY.
19:00 Married 4 December 1944 ’in a beautiful little church… she was from Penzance, Cornish girl.’
Remembers going to the cinema in Penzance on time off and having his name flashed on the screen to return to his unit immediately… found when he got back that he had been posted, had to go to Liverpool to get a cruise ship to the Andes, ‘we broke the record for speed to New Zealand, twenty two days… stopped off at NZ for a week with engine trouble, then on to Australia posted to Archerfield near Brisbane.’
21:00 ‘War in Europe had just finished and we went out to get engaged.’ In war with the Japanese. Took a truck from the station, and drove too fast slid over through a fence and smashed an aircraft. Said there was ‘a whole field of aircraft… we had spares… and this was a Grumman Martlet and I wrecked it’ [LIGHT LAUGH]
‘I was put on a charge straight away… outcome, was I got posted up the islands, which was the worst thing that could possibly happen, southern Borneo which is uninhabited.’
‘We had an airstrip there and they wanted personnel to man the airstrip, it was an emergency landing strip… the war was just ending then and we had the job of bringing those poor emaciated devils out of Changi… it was heartbreaking’ TRAVELLING BACK AND FORTH
‘Terrible… couldn’t bring them home they were too bad, they recuperated in Australia. We had Japanese prisoners of war there… we had a man each per tent, we had our own personal servant and my little fellow was called Tomeso and he was only about sixteen years old! And he used to go about admiring my blue uniform which I never wore out there because it was too hot, wore shorts and shirt, khaki you know. This little fella he used to get quite friendly he would say ‘big ship come you go home, I come with you?’ [LAUGHS]
Q – HOW DID YOU FEEL ABOUT THEM?
‘Oh, alright actually, they suddenly changed, when they surrendered their emperor told them to come out, give up their arms and cooperate in every way possible… One or two didn’t, stayed in the jungle and took potshots at us.’
Remembered coming home from cinema in jeep from an open air screening and coming under fire, ‘they had a camp, their own camp and used to come onto ours every day to do work. I had a bulldozer I used to drive across the beach,’ had to as no road, from B site where they lived to the A site with the airstrip. His bulldozer hit a landmine and it blew his track off completely, hurt his back, he was 21.
26:30 Came to South Wales via work with a company called Gibbard which had 47 shops across UK and it took over another chain of shops in South Wales. He had been north to Manchester and so on to do a recce, and on the way back, 1947, terrible winter, ‘I came down the only motorway we had, that short strip between Birmingham and Watford – it was horrendous. I arrived in Bristol and popped into head office at Kingswood’ got told he was being posted to South Wales, got put on a train to Pontypridd, and in a hotel and stayed.
Had ‘a posh headquarters in Porth’
ENDS