Soldiers in Mumbles from ARP to Yanks:
four short memories
Silver ARP Badge
ARP -Air Raid Precautions- Air Raid wardens or ARP wardens patrolled the streets during the blackout to ensure that no light was visible. If one was seen they would shout something like "Put that light out!"
Geoff Phillips describes the village of the time.
‘During the war, Mumbles like a great number of villages and towns in the land, was not at its best. Shops were bare and drab and flaking paint made houses look dowdy’. Despite this, War for my contemporaries and me, little boys at the time was ‘fun, with just a whiff of danger’.
Geoff Phillips continues: 'If you could pull out of your pocket a piece of jagged shrapnel and show it off to the gang, not only were you the envy of your friends, but the owner of a valuable swap. A large or grotesquely shaped lump of shrapnel (photo) might be worth several marbles, or alleys as we called them, perhaps even a sixer as well as a couple of oncers!
In times when toys were few and far between, shrapnel, alleys, conkers or cigarette cards were much-coveted trading commodities’.
Larry Owen recalls that, ‘After four years of wartime austerity it was a tremendously exciting time for us eight year olds to experience an invasion of friendly, generous American troops in smart uniforms and a surplus of rare 'goodies'. The familiar cry of all UK children at the time when they met the soldiers was ‘got any gum, chum?’ and Gilbert Dauncey and I were no exception. We had our first encounter with the Yanks in Underhill Park, their recreation area, and received teaberry gum, a tin of cinnamon and tins of syrup.
Gilbert had an airman staying in his house and still has the uniform epaulettes. When the troops left for the D-Day landings John Pressdee proudly displayed in front of Pressdee's garage an actual landing craft (DUKW known as ‘Duck.' Where he obtained it is still a mystery to me.
One of the original huts built for the soldiers, is still in Underhill Park, adjacent to the pavilion;
The indoor Morrison shelter still haunts me. During the war I periodically slept in it, feeling like a caged animal as three of the sides were metal, the fourth side being wire mesh. A typical shelter is shown here.
My memory of the war years, shared by my contemporaries, was of the Home Guard firing at targets in the early morning off Langland point (in the upper left of the photo); the targets were small metal bowls suspended from miniature red silk parachutes. A number of us would clamber over the rocks to retrieve the parachutes before school, and had great fun throwing the targets from high places and watching them float down on their distinctive red parachutes.
My best story of this period involves my mother's family, which had emigrated to the USA in 1927. My mother was the only member of the family to return to the UK when she married my father in Swansea in 1934.
When the Americans entered the war in 1941 my mother's brother, Harold, joined the US Navy. After Paris was liberated late in 1944, he was assigned there as part of the resident allied forces and came to visit us on a week's leave.
My mother caused quite a stir in Mumbles when she was seen frequently arm-in-arm with an American in naval ('doughboy') uniform. I had to ask certain classmates to tell their parents that, contrary to their gossip, my mother was not having an affair during my father's absence in the Merchant Navy, but was entertaining her brother!’
Hilary Mackenzie recalls that, ‘My innocent and carefree childhood came to an abrupt halt in the autumn of 1939, when war descended on our peaceful little corner. I had no idea what it was all about, or, at 7 years of age, how it might affect me—but I was soon to learn. The far section of our lovely hill was requisitioned by
the War Department for a large anti-aircraft station. Our walk to Bracelet was shut off by barbed wire and, where the sheep grazed, Nissen huts of tough soldiers appeared. Mr. Boulanger’s meadow was scarred by
gun emplacements and his house became the officers’ quarters. My playground shrank to the few hollows near our house and even those were suspect because of the proximity of the Army quarters. Although I must say that I never had cause to be frightened of any of those ferocious-looking soldiers who had to pass our house daily, maybe ‘yomping’ on a dark winter’s morning or returning from the village pubs of an evening.
My father’s pride and joy was his version of a security light that he had installed on a delicate lamppost over our gate and when we had visitors, he would switch it on from the hall to light them down the dark cliff path to Western Lane. He was heartbroken when the ARP men visited us (example warden in uniform pictured) disconnected it and put a hood over its glass in case a searchlight picked it out during air raids. Our garden was steep and as we had a bed-ridden grandmother, we could not have a shelter. So we all took potluck under the table in the kitchen, when the bombers, which always seemed to fly in over Mumbles Hill, arrived, especially during the three nights’ blitz in 1941’.
Geoff Phillips remembers that, ‘We could still walk on the many miles of cliff paths, but some headlands and valleys were out of bounds as British, and later American soldiers were encamped on them. Boys loved American soldiers. They had sweets and chocolates, chewed gum, drove round in jeeps and spoke like film stars. If we saw any, we would accost them with, ‘Got any gum, chum?’ and they usually obliged by throwing us some.
While most people were reassured to see them, some disapproved of them. The usual complaint was that they were ‘over paid, over sexed and over here.’ There were occasional late night brawls between local young men and American soldiers in Mumbles, usually over girls. One Sunday morning, I remember going to church with my father and seeing smashed shop windows and blood on the pavement. We learned that the night before there had been a vicious fight with knives between white and black American soldiers. It was quite a shock to discover that people we thought were on the same side against the evil of Hitler’s Germany could be so violent to one another.’
John Pressdee describes his feelings as a nine-year-old impressionable boy, ‘The Yanks seemed big and black. I had never seen a black man before and thought that all Americans were Indians.
On Underhill Park are the remains of the Mess, which they used and, at the time, the rest of the field was covered with tents. I remember bringing home two grapefruit and giving them to my Mother who asked where I had got them. I also received Hershey bars. They were great. At that time there was no chocolate to be seen. Trucks and the odd ‘jeep’ came up Castleton and the men threw out Hershey bars, PK rations, canned fruit, stewed steak, corned beef, tinned bacon and the kids would shout ‘The Yanks are coming!’ I used to be given Lucky Strike cigarettes and sometimes nylons, when they asked, ‘Have you got a sister?’
Sometimes their exercises were held in Caswell and once or twice I cycled to Oxwich to watch them training for the D-Day landings (photo) and DUKWs. We were kept away but still managed to see what was happening. Later we discovered that they had formed part of the ‘follow up’ landings at Omaha beach, Normandy.
The Bristol Artillery Unit manned M.C. Lewis guns on Langland point and would discharge parachutes into the air to practice firing at them. Barney Davies the self-appointed warden on the beach, tried to keep us away, but we used to manage to pick some of them up to be made into handkerchiefs and wedding dresses. ATS and the Observer Corps checked on the identity of the planes overhead. AA shells were fired from Mumbles Hill AA battery and used to land in the cemetery and Thistleboon. During the blitz a piece of shrapnel landed on my sister’s bed’.
A co-ordinator of this project, is Mumbles born John Powell,
who can be contacted on 01792 520540 and email: j.powell20@ntlworld.com
He can keep you up to date and is always willing to receive information regarding GI veterans who served in the area of Swansea & Gower.