The War time Memories of Eric Thomas

I was brought up in the Lodge to Clyne Castle. My father was house carpeneter on the Estate working for Admiral Algernon Walker heneage Vivian.

          I remember with great pride attending Blackpill Church of England School until I  reached the age of fourteen. I then went to work at Clyne Castle as an apprentice carpenter and joiner under my father for five years at 2/6d a week.

          About four weeks after celebrating my eighteenth birthday, an envelope marked ‘On His Majesty’s Service’ fell on the mat. In it was a cunningly worded invitation to partake in World war Two.

          Lugging a suitcase tied with knotted string, I made my way to the Royal Artillery Training Regiment at Redcar, Yorkshire. This was the British Army and I had arrived.

          Eight weeks training completed and we made our way to Bexhill in Sussex to join the 56 Heavy Regiment R.A. Two weeks later we arrived at Liverpool. We were going to war. Our ship was H.M.T.L. 15,  in better days S.S. Otranto, her gross weight 20,000 tons.

          Where were we going? Was it going to be India or Africa? It turned out to be Africa. The 56 Heavy Regiment, a London Territorial Unit with sixteen 7.2 inch guns each shell weighing 2 hundredweights had arrived.

          The Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, spoke and said, ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps the end of the beginning.’

          My job was directing the battery gun in the observation post, where the average life span  was 28 days, but somehow I lasted 3½ years.

          On 7 May 1943, we were on the outskirts of Tunis. It was a deluge. The rain not only fell mainly on the plain in Spain, but also fell mainly on the back of our necks dripping down the spine into the socks where it came out of the lace holes of our boots.

On 12 May 1943, the long North African Campaign was over. Twelve weeks after the end of hostilities in Africa, we leant that we were to move on and take part in the invasion of Europe.

          We embarked on landing craft and soon we were on our way. We asked the Naval Lieutenant in charge where we were going. He replied, ‘I honestly don’t know. No-one tells me anything.’ It was, of course, Italy. Monte Cassino, Gustav Line, Hitler Line, Gothic Line, Naples, Rome, Florence and many other battles leave me with my memories.

          Our Padre in Italy was kept busy burying many of my comrades and at each graveside, he said, ‘At the call of King and Country they left all that was dear to them, endured hardship, faced danger and finally passed out of the sight of man on the path of courage and self-sacrifice. Let those who go after them see that their names are not forgotten, nor shall they let their deeds pass into oblivion.’

          In 1944, we received some sensational news. We were leaving Italy and taking part in yet another invasion. Speculation was rife, but it was anybody’s guess as to our destination. It turned out to be France.

By 1945, my Regiment was at Aachen in Germany. We were preparing to cross the Rhine. Mr. Churchill paid us a visit. He took out of his pocket a piece of chalk and printed on one of our shells, ‘For Hitler personally.’

     VE/VJ Chapter

At 2 o’clock in the morning on 6 May 1945, we were at Arnhem in Holland when we received the message we had waited so long for. It just said, ‘The war in Europe is over.’ Gallons of rum were produced and although a tee-totaller, I drank my ration and that’s all I remembeer of 6 May 1945.

          Six weeks after the end of hostilities we learnt that we would be going to Burma. On the 6 August 1945, my birthday, the atominc bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and on 9 August another was dropped onm Nagasaki and at noon on 15 August, we were told we would not be going to Burma because the war in Japan was over.

HOME TO BLACKPILL

The war years had rolled by with a strange swiftness. It had claimed the hardest years of my life and where I had witnessed human weakness and human strength. This is now receding into distant memory.