How Britain Kept Calm and Carried On

by Anton Rippon

  Alan Cox, Epsom

  During a wartime army exercise, dressed as a civilian I captured a complete camp, including the commanding officer, for which I was promptly transferred to a training camp in the north of England.

  News of my triumph had gone ahead of me and it had obviously been decided to take me down a peg or two. I arrived to find that I’d been placed on duty all weekend, which was a big joke in the sergeants’ mess as they were all going into the nearby town for a big party.

  I borrowed a Jeep and found a chemist and squared him with ten bob [50p]. He made up a purgative much like cascara [a plant known for its laxative properties] in powder form. I went into the mess half an hour before guard mounting and dosed three teapots in the spout and awaited results. The powder would work in about two to three hours.

  The first sergeant caught was waiting for a bus with his girlfriend. Two more had caught a bus back to the barracks but they were delayed. Another came into the guardroom but the door to the toilets was locked. The RSM was on his way to the wagon lines. He borrowed a bicycle but never made it. All were back in barracks by ten o’clock.

  An anonymous army sergeant, Bognor Regis

  In March 1941, I arrived at Uxbridge to attend initial training for my RAF police course. We were given a lecture by the accounts officer and asked if we would care to make a contribution to the CO’s fund. He explained that there was a box outside his office and he would appreciate it if all donations could be placed in an envelope for his attention. After the lecture I discussed this problem with my new comrades. We decided that, since most of us were married, we couldn’t afford to donate anything. About a fortnight later we were all in the classroom awaiting the arrival of our instructor when he burst in waving an envelope. His face was livid.

  ‘Who’s the funny man that sent this letter to the accounts officer?’

  He took the letter from the envelope and read it out: ‘The wages of sin are death, but the wages of an AC2 are a bloody sight worse!’

  He never did find out who sent that letter . . .

  A. Jones, Huntingdon

  Two sergeants were sent on ‘initiative training’. Off they went in full kit and were allowed only a half-crown [13p] between them. They had to travel into another county and were told to ‘find the master of the Beaufort Hounds and ask him to sign your pay book’.

  The two men found the home of the master of the hunt, Badminton House, and rang the doorbell. The butler who answered told them that the duke was away. He was about to close the door when a female voice from within said: ‘Don’t send them away. Let me speak to them.’

  To the amazement of the two young men, they saw that it was Queen Mary, mother of King George VI. After listening to their story, she said: ‘As the duke is out, will my signature do?’

  She took the two bewildered sergeants into the house and wrote in their pay books: ‘Certified that the holder came to Badminton House, Mary R.’

  Alan Cox, Epsom

  During the war I was in the RAF and attached to an Australian squadron in Scotland. As you know the Aussies have a rather rare sense of humour, so I’ll tell you the following incident.

  An Aussie airman was washing his dirty overalls in a bucket of petrol in the hanger and a friend of his who was passing said: ‘Hello, cobber, are you washing your undies?’

  Then quickly came the reply: ‘No mate, I’m washing my overies!’

  LAC C. H. Campbell

  On the Friday we arrived at RAF Uxbridge, we received instructions on the procedures when entering a church on church parade. On climbing the third step before entering the church you were to take off your hat. The following Sunday everything went according to plan until half the squadron were in church and then one poor chap forgot to take off his hat as he reached the third step. He had just taken another step when the booming voice of the parade sergeant bellowed from behind: ‘Take your bleeding hat off in God’s House!’

  A. Jones, Huntingdon

  I was in the Durham Light Infantry and later in the KOYLI [King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry]. During our training at Brancepeth Castle, we were duly sorted out. Those with two persistent left or right feet were put in ‘awkward’ squads, and of course you will realize that any display of men donning brand-new uniforms looks a sartorial shambles. I recall one lad in our company, a Scot we called ‘Little Jimmy Brown’ in training, stood out like a sore thumb. He was even a traumatic experience for the training staff. It was March and the weather was damp and cold. Jimmy wore two of almost everything. He said it was a shame he could wear only one pair of boots at a time and one greatcoat. He went to bed like that, the greatcoat aside. Of course, this meant that he was always one of the first ready for breakfast and parade. But, after a few days, it became obvious that he only ever washed his face.

  One morning, the PT instructors took a firm hand with Jimmy. He was always late for PT because it took him so long to remove all that extra clothing and change into his gym gear. Eventually one of the instructors and two lads escorted Jimmy into the bathhouse and well and truly laundered him.

  None of us was quite sure whether this was just an act to get out of being in the army, or whether it was a quirk of his personality. Either way, he persisted and eventually was discharged for being unfit for active service.

  W. D. Donkin, Sunderland

  There were some Canadian air-gunners who were awaiting posting to the gunnery school. They were put into the charge of the station warrant officer. He was a really nasty piece of work and did he give these poor Canadians the runaround – all the dirty jobs he could think of went their way. Time came for the Canadians to be posted. In the NAAFI that night they invited the station warrant officer for a farewell drink and presented him with a parcel. He couldn’t resist opening it there and then. Inside was a cardboard box and inside that was an assortment of homemade wooden soldiers. On a piece of paper was written: ‘You’ve f***** us around while we’ve been here, now f*** these around!’

  A. Jones, Huntingdon

  I was a lance corporal in the Royal Engineers. After lengthy overseas service, I arrived back with my base in Yorkshire. The CO there informed me that, for the next few months, before my discharge, I was to be transferred to another unit. I was then told to report to the station sergeant for further instructions.

  ‘Pay attention and listen carefully!’ instructed the NCO as he precisely outlined my journey to Victoria Station, Manchester, and then on to my new unit a few miles away. The sergeant droned on and emphasized how important it was to follow his detailed information.

  ‘Understand everything?’ he finally demanded. And, although I was somewhat in a whirl, I managed to meekly agree. As I stood to attention before being dismissed, I was throbbing with emotion and would dearly have loved to embrace my new-found hero – this superb, sublime sergeant.

  After all, my new unit was only round the corner from my own home!

  Thomas W. Makin, Blackley, Manchester

  Before going on my course, I went on three days’ leave. My wife examined my uniform and didn’t like the way my eagles were sewn on my greatcoat. So she unpicked the stitching and re-sewed them. After my leave I reported to RAF Uxbridge and, the following Friday, was the CO’s parade and inspection. Most of the other blokes were picked up for their haircuts but, just as I was congratulating myself, the parade officer’s voice bellowed in my earhole: ‘Who lowered your eagles?’

  I froze on the spot but managed to reply: ‘My wife, sir. Are they wrong?’

  ‘They’re wrong all right! They’re the bloody wrong way round!’

  A. Jones, Huntingdon

  At Warminster in 1941, there was a Sergeant Thatcher who would keep his squad drilling on the parade ground as he stood in the sergeants’ mess having a pint and bawling his orders through the open window.

  One day, though, out on Salisbury Plain, we were undergoing driving training in a personnel carrier. When you were driving downhill, you had reverse steering. In other words, w
hen you pulled the right stick you turned left. We had an instructor who chewed tobacco. We were sailing merrily along, downhill, doing a fair speed. The instructor shouted that there was a steep drop ahead and we had to turn quickly. Too late! We shot off into space, then landed with an almighty bump! The instructor swallowed his baccy, went blue in the face and began to choke. We saved him, although he didn’t seem too pleased.

  Roy Barker, Thornton-Cleveleys

  A few months after infantry training at Brancepeth Castle, we joined our Durham Light Infantry battalions and departed for Scotland, where we took part in a large-scale exercise. Sometimes in these types of operations, live ammunition was used and the powers that be had to allow for errors and accidents taking place. Officers acting as umpires, wearing white armbands and dashing all over the place, would come up and say: ‘You’ve been wounded. He’s been killed. They’ve been taken prisoner by the enemy.’

  If you were ‘wounded’ you would have a label tied on you with details of the wounds. If you were a so-called ‘morphine case’, or had a wound that forbade any drinking, then sometimes you would lie there for days, depending on how long the exercise was supposed to take. The idea was to be as realistic as possible. During the exercise, we had to make a five-mile march followed by an attack. At the end of the attack an umpire told us that our ration truck had been captured and, as the make-believe should be as real as possible, we should wait fourteen hours for our food. When the umpire finally arrived with our rations, we were told that our platoon would soon be reported ‘missing or wiped out’. Well, none of us wanted to be ‘missing’, so we duly walked away in various directions to the nearest town or village. We were supposed to return to camp within a reasonable time of the end of the exercise. Some of the lads certainly made the most of being ‘missing’, visiting cinemas and so on. A few were taken into motherly homes. A very small number simply disappeared for good.

  W. D. Donkin, Sunderland

  About halfway through the war, I was on loan to another unit as a driver with a Morris truck and Bofors gun in a town, somewhere in the south-west of England. During the middle of one bitterly cold January night we were in convoy. I had a crew of eight in the back of my truck and by my side was the sergeant in charge. He had replaced an officer who had been taken ill. The exercise was called Spartan, which was a good name as there was about a foot of snow on the ground. Although it was against regulations, we had all removed our boots, but were travelling in silence, as per our orders. We stopped while the other officers checked our location when all of a sudden, the sergeant yelled, looked down at his feet and in his cockney voice cried out: ‘Bloody hell, rigor mortis has set in!’

  Leslie C. Skinner, Polegate, Sussex

  At times there were so many troops staying in Catterick Camp that it was impossible to keep them all employed. I’ve never drunk so much tea in my life. We spent all day wandering from café to café. At pay parade the men would mill around ‘baa-ing’ like sheep. They were bored to the back teeth and almost out of control. To get the men out of bed, one corporal would urinate in a bucket and throw it on the fire. The stench . . .

  Roy Barker, Thornton-Cleveleys

  Pioneer Corps sergeant to a private, presumably in need of a haircut:

  ‘Are you married, Athorne?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Have you any furniture?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Well get rid of those bloody sideboards!’

  LESLIE RANDALL, LAMBETH

  I served from start to finish of the war. A cockney sergeant had a squad drilling and he had one awkward recruit that he could make nothing of.

  The sergeant decided to get some background information and asked about the recruit’s family.

  ‘My father was a baron,’ said the recruit.

  The sergeant replied: ‘That’s what your mother should have been!’

  Mr S. E. Smith, Essex

  At Stob’s Camp, near Hawick in Scotland, in 1942, we often went out on night manoeuvres. Imagine the clatter as we roared through Hawick. A local copper complained that they made him wear rubber soles, yet allowed us to awaken the dead. The units ran a ‘passion wagon’ [transport to a local dance] to town from the camp. One night an errant trooper was late for the returning truck. He chased after it down the street. All his mates were leaning over the tailboard laughing at him. With their weight, the tailboard broke and they all fell out. The athletic trooper leapt over them and into the truck. He rode, they walked, so he had the last laugh.

  Roy Barker, Thornton-Cleveleys

  At Wootton Bassett, near Swindon, in October 1940, a party of about thirty Pioneers were on detachment. Our duties were to work with the Royal Engineers in the erection of a Nissen hut camp. One dark morning when we paraded at about 8 a.m. in our denims and general working gear, the NCO proceeded to go through the ranks, shining a torch in our faces, and also at our feet. I think at least half the detachment was found not to have shaved, or to have had dirty boots.

  All the unfortunates were ordered to parade at 6.30 p.m. at the company office in their best suits and smartened up. Everything went quite well, until one tall young man was discovered without his gaiters.

  ‘Where’s your gaiters, man?’ asked the NCO. ‘You’ll be coming on parade in a bloody high hat next!’

  Leslie Randall, Lambeth

  On an anti-aircraft gun site somewhere in England, a sentry is patrolling. An extra duty is for him to answer the telephone when it rings a ‘red alert’, which means that enemy planes are approaching. As he patrols, he hears footsteps coming up the lonely, dark country lane. He rises to the big occasion with a sharp ‘Halt, who goes there? Friend or foe?’

  It is an orderly sergeant and an orderly officer making a tour of inspection. The orderly sergeant answers: ‘Friend.’

  At this precise moment, the telephone rings and the sentry says to the orderly sergeant: ‘Hold this a moment, will you?’ and hands him his rifle.

  The sergeant cannot believe his ears, but takes the rifle. The sentry picks up the phone and takes the message, then returns to the waiting sergeant and as-yet unidentified officer, takes the rifle back and says: ‘Thanks, sergeant, pass friend, all is well!’

  And the officer is permitted to accompany the sergeant without being challenged, or shot as a foe!

  C. Clark, Maidstone

  We’d been out on the assault course and were dead beat. We returned to our Nissen hut and stoked up the fire in the stove that stood in the centre of the hut. We hung our denims all around to dry, then turned in. The stove heated up and the chimney glowed red. A pair of denims caught alight. A Corporal Diamond called out the fire picket. They told him to get stuffed. Everyone just lay on their beds. So he ran out to get the fire bucket. The roof was blazing at this point but no one else moved. He came back with the bucket, looked down at his mud-stained feet and, before throwing it on the fire, sat on the end of a bed and washed his feet!

  Roy Barker, Thornton-Cleveleys

  A cockney lance corporal was becoming annoyed with a certain private. Wagging a finger at him, he said: ‘I’ll put you on a charge for insubordination. I don’t know how to spell it, but I’ll soon find out.’

  Leslie Randall, Lambeth

  I was in the ack-ack from 1940 to 1946 and moved around quite a bit from Wales, Scotland, the London area and quite a few others. I recall being stationed at Wick. Our camp was quite near to the Ross Head Lighthouse and to get there we had to pass through Wick airfield, which was run by the RAF, and along a lonely country road. One very dark night, the sentry on the gate heard this ‘clip-clop’ coming along the road and as it got nearer and nearer, he could just make out a white patch. He was scared out of his wits. It turned out to be one of our chaps returning to camp from local leave. He’d had quite a few drinks and had borrowed a horse from a field. He rode it into camp and even tried to get it up the steps into the guardroom. There was pandemonium.

  Ernest Bamforth, Lincoln

 
; Snoring has always been a topic of conversation in my life, whenever sleep is mentioned. I suppose I could claim to be ‘the greatest’.

  It came to a head one night in 1941. Sleeping in one of the barrack rooms with about thirty other soldiers, I must have excelled myself with extra loud snores and grunts. Tin hats had been thrown at me, some missed, others, alas, were on target. Heavy boots also came my way with the same results. Nothing, it seemed, would wake me up and halt the snoring. So my bunkmates pulled me out of bed, stripped me starkers and lay me on the floor in the freezing cold.

  In the morning that’s how the sergeant found me on his ‘wakey-wakey’ tour. Sore and black and blue, teeth chattering, I had a terrible job explaining what had happened. One of the lads came to my rescue and told him the story. But I had the last laugh – the MO gave me ‘excused duties’ for that day.

  F. G. Jones, Shotton, Deeside

  The army had taken over a new housing estate in Liverpool for the purpose of billeting recruits, of whom I was one. Can you imagine my feelings when the house I was seconded to contained the heavyweight boxing champion Larry Gains, the Fielding Brothers – themselves two well-known pugilists, and a PT instructor named Fred Fulwood who was the local strongman from the same street as me? And I, of all things, worked as a window dresser. What a mixture! Naturally I was proud to live in the same billet as such a famous hero as Larry Gains. Alas, he wasn’t the most humorous of persons, probably his career had contributed to that. As I walked up the bare stairs in my heavy boots that first night, I was greeted by the great man himself, who roared: ‘Take those bloody boots off when you walk up and down the stairs!’