Memoires 01 (1971) - Adolf Hitler, My Part in His Downfall

by Spike Milligan

  Adolf Hitler:

  My Part in His Downfall

  (Memoirs volume 1)

  (Non fiction)

  by Spike Milligan

  1971

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I am grateful to John Counsell for permission to quote from his book, COUNSELL’S OPINION and to the Director of the Imperial War Museum for permission to reproduce three photographs in the Museum’s possession.

  This book is the first volume of a trilogy. It will cover the time of my joining the Artillery till the time we landed at Algiers. Volume II will cover from going into action till VJ day. Volume III will cover from my demob to my eventual return to England. All the salient facts are true, I have garnished some of them in my own manner, but the basic facts are, as I say, true. I have used the simple language of the barrack room and used the normal quota of swearing. Some of the revelations are very bawdy but these I have told exactly as they happened. It wasn’t all fun, but as you will see, a lot of it was. The experience of being in the Army changed my whole life, I never believed that an organization such as ours could ever go to war, leave alone win it. It was, as Yeats remarked of the Easter Rising, ‘A terrible beauty’. There were the deaths of some of my friends, and therefore, no matter how funny I tried to make this book, that will always be at the back of my mind: but, were they alive today, they would have been first to join in the laughter, and that laughter was, I’m sure, the key to victory.

  PREFACE

  After Puckoon I swore I would never write another novel. This is it…

  Part I

  HOW IT ALL STARTED

  September 3rd, 1939. The last minutes of peace ticking away. Father and I were watching Mother digging our air-raid shelter. “She’s a great little woman,” said Father. “And getting smaller all the time,” I added. Two minutes later, a man called Chamberlain who did Prime Minister impressions spoke on the wireless; he said, “As from eleven o’clock we are at war with Germany.” (I loved the WE.) “War?” said Mother. “It must have been something we said,” said Father. The people next door panicked, burnt their post office books and took in the washing:

  Almost immediately came the mournful wail of the first Air Raid Warning. “Is that you dear?” said Mother. “It’s a Jewish Funeral,” said Father, “Quick! Put out the begging bowls.” It was in fact the Bata Shoe Factory lunch hooter. It caused chaos until it was changed. Uncle Willie, a pre-death mortician, who hadn’t worked for years, started making small wooden mushrooms. He sent them to Air-Marshal Harris requesting they were dropped on Germany to prove that despite five days of war, British craftsmanship still flourished. They were returned with a note saying, “Dropping wooden mushrooms during raids might cause unnecessary injury.” My brother Desmond too, seized with pre-pubic patriotism, drew pictures of fantastic war machines. He showed Father: “Son,” he said, “these inventions will be the salvation of England.” They wasted no time: carrying the portfolio of drawings in a string bag, they hurried to Whitehall by 74 tram. After several arguments and a scuffle, they were shown into the presence of a curious nose manipulating Colonel. He watched puzzled as Father laid out drawings of Troop-Carrying Submarines, Tank-Carrying Zeppelins and some of Troops on Rocket-Propelled Skates, all drawn on the backs of old dinner menus. “Right,” said the Colonel, “I’ll have the brown windsor, roast beef and two veg.” Father and son were then shown the door, the windows, and finally the street. My father objected. “You fool! By rejecting these inventions you’ve put two years on the war.”

  “Good,” said the Colonel, “I wasn’t doing anything!” Father left. With head held high and feet held higher, he was thrown out.

  He took the war very seriously; as time went on so did Neville Chamberlain, he took it so seriously he resigned. “Good! He’s stepping down for a better man,” concluded Father, and wrote off for the job. One Saturday morning, while Mother was at church doing a bulk confession for the family, Father donned an old army uniform and proceeded to transform the parlour into H.Q. Combined Ops. Walls were covered in tatty maps. On the table was a 1927 map of Thomas Tilling’s bus route. Using wooden mushrooms as anti-tank guns, Uncle Willie placed them at various points on the map for the defence of Brockley. My father told the early morning milkman, “That,” he said tapping the map, “that is where they’ll start their attack on England.”

  “That’s Africa,” said the puzzled Milkman.

  “Ah yes!” said Father, quick to recover, “But that’s where they’ll start from—Africa—understand?”

  “No I don’t,” said the Milkman. Whereupon he was immediately nipped in the scrotum, thrown out, and his horse whipped into a gallop. “Only two pints tomorrow,” Father shouted after the disappearing cart.

  Next morning a Constable arrived at the door.

  “AH, good morning Constable,” said Father raising his steel helmet. “You’re just in time.”

  “In time for what sir?”

  “In time for me to open the door for you,” said Father, reeling helplessly with laughter.

  “Very funny sir,” said the Constable.

  “Knew you’d like it,” said Father, wiping tears from his eyes.

  “Now what can we do for you, a robbery’? a murder? I mean times must be bad for the force, why not slap a writ on Hitler?”

  “It’s about these barricades you put across the road.”

  “Oh? What’s wrong with them? We’re at war you know.”

  “It’s not me sir, it’s the tram drivers. They’re shagged out having to lift them to get through, they’ve got to come down.”

  “You’re all fools!” said Father, “I’ll write to Churchill.” He did. Churchill told him to take them down as well.

  “He’s a bloody fool too,” said Father. “If he’s not careful I’ll change sides.”

  I was no stranger to Military Life. Born in India on the Regimental strength, the family on both sides had been Gunners as far back as the Siege of Lucknow. Great-Grandfather, Sergeant John Henry Kettleband, had been killed in the Indian Mutiny, by his wife, his last words were, “Oh!” His father had died in a military hospital after being operated on for appendicitis by a drunken doctor. On the tombstone was carved:

  R.I.P.

  In memory of

  Sgt. Thomas Kettleband.

  954024731.

  Died of appendicitis

  for his King & Country.

  Now apparently it was my turn.

  One day an envelope marked O.H.M.S. fell on the mat. Time for my appendicitis, I thought. “.For Christ’s sake don’t open it,” said Uncle, prodding it with a stick. “Last time I did, I ended up in Mesopotamia, chased by Turks waving pots of Vaseline and shouting, ‘Lawrence we love you in Ottoman’.” Father looked at his watch, “Time for another advance,” he said and took one pace forward. Weeks went by, several more O.H.M.S. letters arrived, finally arriving at the rate of two a day stamped URGENT.

  “The King must think a lot of you son, writing all these letters,” said Mother as she humped sacks of coal into the cellar. One Sunday, while Mother was repainting the house, as a treat Father opened one of the envelopes. In it was a cunningly worded invitation to partake in World War II, starting at seven and sixpence a week, all found. “Just fancy,” paid Mother as she carried Father upstairs for his bath, “of all the people in England, they’ve chosen you, it’s a great honour, son.”

  Laughingly I felled her with a right cross.

  I managed to delay the fatal day. I’ll explain. Prior to the war, I was a keep-fit addict. Every morning you could see people counting the bones in my s
kinny body at Ladywell Recreation Track, as I lifted barbells. Sometimes we were watched by admiring girls from Catford Labour Exchange; among them was one with a tremendous bosom. She looked like the Himalayas on their side. The sight of this released some kind of sex hormones into my being that made me try to lift some impossible weight to impress her. Loading the barbell to one hundred and sixty pounds (about $70) I heaved at the weights, Kerrrrrrissttt!! an agonised pain shot round my back into my groin, down my leg, and across the road to a bus stop. Crippled and trying to grin, I crawled, cross-eyed with agony, towards the shower rooms. Screams of laughter came from the girls.

  “Ohhh yes,” said our neighbour Mrs Windust, “you’ve got a rupture comin’. My ‘usband ‘ad one from birth. Orl fru our courtin’ days ‘e managed to keep it a secret, ‘course, on our ‘oneymoon ‘e ‘ad to show me, and then I saw ‘e was ‘eld together wiv a Gathorne and Olins advanced leather truss. ‘e ‘ad to ‘ave it remodelled before we could ‘ave sectional intercourse.”

  Terrified, I hied me to my Hearts of Oak Sick Benefit Hindu Doctor, who had a practice in Brockley Rise. “Oh yes Milligan! You are getting a rupture! I can feel it!” he said inserting curry-stained fingers like red hot pokers in my groin. That diagnosis from a son of the B.M.A. was thirty-five years ago. I’m not ruptured yet. Perhaps I’m a late starter. Rupture! the thought filled me with lumps of fear, why? For three years I had been trumpet player with the Ritz Revels, a bunch of spotty musicians held together with hair oil. They paid ten shillings a gig-,↓ of this I gave Mother nine, who in turn gave seven to the church for the Poor of the Parish. I couldn’t understand it, we were the Poor of the Parish.

  ≡ A one night stand.

  Blowing a trumpet puts a strain on the groin up to chest height, so, every time we did a gig I improvised a truss. I stuffed rags into an old sock until it was packed tight. I then placed it in the predicted rupture spot and attached it to my groin with lengths of tape and string, this gave me a bulge in my trouser; that looked like the erection of a stallion. Something had to be done. I mean, if some woman saw it. I could never live up to it, so I tried to reduce the bulge by putting leather straps round me and pulling them tight; nothing happened except my voice went up an octave. It still looked obscene, but Mother came to the rescue; she sewed on an additional length of dyed black curtain which covered the bulge but brought the jacket half way down my thighs. Embarrassed, I explained it away by saying, “This is the latest style from America, Cab Galloway wears one.”

  “He must be a cant,” said the drummer. I had bought the evening dress from my Uncle Alf of Catford for thirty-eight shillings, the suit was tight, but so was money, so I bought it. For weeks I played in my leather harness trussed up like a turkey.

  After a month I got saddle sores and went to the doctor, who passed me on to a vet, in turn, he reported me to the police as a Leather Pervert. The pain in my back persisted, sometimes I couldn’t move for it. What I had was a slipped disc, a condition then unknown to the world of medicine. But to get a ‘bad back’ at the same time as your call-up rings as hollow as a naked wife in bed with the lodger saying the laundry’s late. (In my case it was true, the laundry was late.) I was put in Lewisham General Hospital under observation. I think a nurse did it through a hole in the ceiling. Specialists seeking security in numbers came in bunches of four to examine me. They prodded me, then stepped back to see what happened. “He’s still alive,” said one. They then hit me all over with rubber mallets and kept saying to each other “what do you think?” Days later a card arrived saying ‘Renal Colic’.

  The old man in the next bed leaned over and said in a hoarse voice, “Git aht of here son. I come in ‘ere wiv vericose veins and they took me ‘pendix aht.”

  “Thanks,” I said, “my name’s Milligan.”

  “Mine’s Ethel Martin,” he said.

  “Ethel? It says Dick on your chart.”

  “I was when I come in, somewhere between there and ‘ere.” He pointed in an obvious direction.

  “The unkindest cut of all?”

  “They got me mixed up with someone who wanted to be sterilized. How do you tell your wife you ain’t what she thinks you are?”

  “Don’t tell her, show her!”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “From now on that’s all you will be able to do about it.”

  Those sons of fun at the hospital, having failed to diagnose my ailment, discharged me with a letter recommending electrical treatment, and headed ‘To whom it may concern’—I suppose that meant me. It was now three months since my call-up. To celebrate I hid under the bed dressed as Florence Nightingale. Next morning I received a card asking me to attend a medical at the Yorkshire Grey, Eltham. “Son,” said Father, “I think after all you better go, we’re running out of disguises, in any case when they see you, they’re bound to send you home.” The card said I was to report at 9.30 a.m. “Please be prompt.” I arrived prompt at 9.30 and was seen promptly at 12.15. We were told to strip. This revealed a mass of pale youths with thin, white, hairy legs. A press photographer was stopped by the recruiting Sergeant. “For Christ’s sake don’t! If the public saw a photo of this lot they’d pack it in straight away.” I arrived in the presence of a grey-faced, bald doctor.

  “How do you feel?” he said.

  “All right,” I said.

  “Do you feel fit?”

  “No, I walked here.”

  Grinning evilly, he wrote Grade 1 (One) in blood red ink on my card. “No black cap?” I said. “It’s at the laundry,” he replied.

  The die was cast. It was a proud day for the Milligan family as I was taken from the house. “I’m too young to go,” I screamed as Military Policemen dragged me from my pram, clutching dummy. At Victoria Station the R.T.O. gave me a travel warrant, a white feather and a picture of Hitler marked ‘This is your enemy’. I searched every compartment, but he wasn’t on the train. At 4.30, June 2nd, 1940, on a summer’s day all mare’s tails and blue sky we arrived at Bexhill-on-Sea, where I got off. It wasn’t easy. The train didn’t stop there.

  The air-raid shelter my mother built for the family The face is my father’s

  Giant troop-carrying submarines

  Giant troop-carrying airships

  266-ton land cruiser (upper and lower decks)

  Schoolboy’s impression of how Britain should meet the invader: tanks meeting high tension wires (looking like barbed wire) and exploding on contact

  My father, Leo Milligan

  Grandfather, William Milligan

  Great-grandfather, Michael Milligan

  My mother's side. Trumpet Sergeant A.H. Kettleband, Indian Armay, about 1899

  Tommy Brettell’s Ritz Revels. Yours truly, extreme right, front row

  Part II

  I JOIN THE REGIMENT

  Lugging a suitcase tied with traditional knotted string, I made my way to Headquarters 56th Heavy Regiment Royal Artillery. Using sign language they re-directed me to D Battery. They were stationed in a building called ‘Worthingholm’, an evacuated girls’ school in Hastings Road. As I entered the drive, a thing of singular military ugliness took my eye. It was Battery Sergeant-Major ‘Jumbo’ Day. His hair was so shorn his neck seemed to go straight up the back of his hat, and his face was suffused red by years of drinking his way to promotion. “Oi! Where yew goin’? It ain’t a girls’ school no more.”

  “Isn’t it? Never mind I’ll join the Regiment instead,” I said.

  He screwed up his eyes. “You’re not Milligan, are yew’”

  “Actually I am.”

  A beam of sadistic pleasure spread over his face.

  “We’ve been waiting for yew!” he said, pushing me ahead of him with his stick. He drove me into what was D Battery Office. The walls once white were now thrice grey. From a peeling ceiling hung a forty watt bulb that when lit made the room darker. A Danker Wallah was giving the bare floor a stew-coloured hue by slopping a mop around, re-arranging the dirt. On the wall was a calend
ar with a naked tart advertising cigarettes. Below it was a newspaper cut-out of Neville Chamberlain grinning upwards. Fronting the fireplace was a trestle table covered with a merry grey blanket. A pile of O.H.M.S. letters, all addressed to me, were tucked in the corner of the blotter. In the lid of a cardboard shoe-box was a collection of rubber bands, paperclips, sealing-wax, string and a lead weight. My pulses raced! Here was the heart of a great fighting machine. Seated behind this mighty war organ was a middle-aged, pink, puffy-faced man in his early fifties wearing a uniform in its late seventies. Parts that had frayed had been trimmed with leather; these included cuffs, elbows, pockets, gaiters and all trailing edges; for this reason he was known as ‘Leather Suitcase’. His maiden name was Major Startling Grope. “This is Gunner Milligan sin,” said the B.S.M. When they’d both finished laughing, the Major spoke.

  “Whair hev yew been, and what me yew wearing civilian clothes?”

  “They wouldn’t let me on the train naked sir.”

  “I mean, whai aren’t you in uniform?”

  “I’m not at war with anybody sir.”

  “Silence when you speak to an officer,” said B.S.M.

  The Major, who was fiddling with a rubber band, slid it over his finger.

  “Does this mean we’re engaged sir?”

  “Silence!” said B.S.M.

  “I suppose,” said Suitcase, “you know you are three months late arriving?”

  “I’ll make up for it sir, I’ll fight nights as well!” All these attempts at friendly humour fell on stony ground. I was marched to a bare room by a Bombardier. He pointed to a floor board.

  “You’re trying to tell me something,” I said.

  “Your bed, right?”