‘During 1938 and ’39 there was always talk of war, so later in 1939 – and war was obviously imminent – I wasn’t surprised to receive notice that my regiment, the 59th Medium Regiment, Royal Artillery, had been mobilised and I was required to report with full kit on a certain date, 1 September. I went along there as ordered, and met all the other crowd who were being bussed out to Tarporley in Cheshire, where we spent the next month receiving new equipment, new uniforms, and, as far as time permitted, continuing our training both as a regiment and as individuals. We were there for a whole month and then, about 1 October, we took train to Southampton and then across to Cherbourg. We arrived there early in the morning after a dreadful crossing.
Then, later that evening, we were on the train travelling south or south-east. Anyway the train took us as far as Laval, fortunately a proper train, not the sort the French soldiers travelled in, with was it 40 men or 8 horses? The train took us to Laval, and at Laval we met our own vehicles which took us on to the small village of St Jean sur Mayenne – Mayenne is a tributary of the Loire. It was a beautiful spot. It was at that little village that I had my first experience of champagne and Camembert cheese – one I liked and the other I couldn’t eat. We stayed there only one night and we then set off on a three-day journey up north where we eventually arrived at a little village of Chaemy in the Pas de Calais in the old First World War battlegrounds.
Once we’d settled into billets – it was a small village, we were scattered in all sorts of places, small cottages, and men were even billeted in the morgue – our first job after that was to dig gun pits on the Belgium frontier, a small place called Ask. So that was 5am reveille, our task digging gun pits and Command Post, back at 7 and next morning up again at 5.30. Our guns were 6-inch howitzers, which are pretty big things and take big holes, so it was some time before we got that job finished. When it had finished, we were in the middle of a very cold winter and life was a bit hard, but not to be compared with trenches in the First World War.
William John Campion
Our little cottage had an outside pump where the ice had to be broken off every morning, and also two cesspits, but our time in Chaemy, again, was made up with training. We had one special day when we were taken to see the Vimy Ridge Battlefield and Memorial. I don’t know whether this was to give us an idea of what to expect particularly; we found it most interesting, but we were young and had plenty of optimism, so it really didn’t teach us much about war.
The nearest town to Chaemy was Lille, a big industrial town. We were only allowed there once a fortnight, and in Lille there was very little in the way of entertainment for troops. I can’t remember seeing a canteen – we used the estaminets and cafes for a meal – but there was one other place which always struck me as being very interesting. For one thing being so unlike the English people’s conception of such a place. France, as everyone knows, had what, I think, were called “maisons de tolerance”. They were illegal really, but the French Government just turned a blind eye. These were the brothels, and the ones I’m thinking of weren’t “mucky” places. They were big houses, and when you went in there was a big room. There would be a bar and a small band, a three-piece band. The girls there would dance with any man who wanted her, and if the men didn’t want anything else that was fine, but it would help to occupy an hour quite well, and Madame, who ran the place, was a disciplinarian who insisted on the highest standard of conduct, so you see we didn’t always misbehave ourselves. We stayed in Chaemy until February, then we moved up to a suburb of Lille and were billeted in a girls’ school and we just kept on the everlasting training.’
Meanwhile Lance Bombardier Seeney tells of a shooting accident that resulted in what must have been one of the first British casualties of the war.
‘On this particular evening, it was New Year’s Eve as a matter of fact, there was a party going on. The boys were drinking in one of the huts and one of the men left the hut, obviously to go and relieve himself, and the guard, he just pointed his rifle at this chap and pressed the trigger. The silly so and so had a round there, pressed the trigger and shot this poor chap straight through the head – killed him stone dead immediately.
The following day after this tragedy I had to go with one of the drivers into Epernay to collect a coffin. In Epernay we picked up this coffin and a Union Jack and then we were told to go to a convent which had been turned into a hospital for when the casualties would be coming into that area. Anyway, this other fellow and myself, we wandered to a shed, which we’d decided must be the mortuary, and by this time the Battery MO turned up. We dragged the coffin in and we just stood by. This poor chap was lying on a table, dead with his boots still on, and the doctor told us to get him into the box, and this was the first time that I had handled a dead body. This other chap and myself, we picked up this poor fellow and put him in the box, and of course the box was too small, and if you can imagine in this eerie light – no electricity, just an oil lamp – pushing this poor chap, just as well as we could, into this box and then getting the lid on and screwing it down, and the following day the poor chap was buried. And I might add he was buried where we were. It’s understandable why the French, in that area anyhow, were very anti-war – it was just one huge cemetery after another from the First World War, thousands of crosses in all directions, and this began the new cemetery with this Number One, with this poor chap who had been killed in such tragic circumstances.
The “Phoney War” continued and, like all soldiers, we settled down to making the best of what was available. The way of living became quite easy; the spring came along, the weather became pleasant and we settled down to a nice easy war; we also had a few days leave back in the UK and the war generally was almost forgotten. But all the time those people in their recce planes above were busy day in, day out.’
The assault, when it came on 10 May 1940, involved simultaneous and overwhelming attacks from the air, with German forces advancing through Holland and Belgium. British and French forces deployed into Belgium but were soon forced to withdraw. In the meantime a major and unexpected attack by German armoured panzer divisions, advancing through the Ardennes, overcame troops guarding that sector, disgorged into France and soon reached the Channel coast behind the British lines. This, and the surrender of the Belgians on 27 May, resulted in the evacuation of the bulk of the British army from Dunkirk, completed by 4 June. France signed an armistice, on German terms, effective as from 25 June.
Lance Bombardier Seeney awoke to the fact that the war was on:
‘. . .and we were getting an awful drubbing. It was fairly evident that the Germans were very much aware of where we were, and that’s not surprising – I mentioned the recce planes – and we were very severely damaged at that time. There were quite a few casualties, but that was the way it was – it was war, and also, what was so astonishing, almost immediately the roads were chock-a-block with farmers and people coming in from the war areas and retreating towards Rheims, Epernay and the south. It was the audacity of these German aeroplanes – there was little opposition, and also remember that at that time a gaggle of 50 bombers seemed enormous. I know it was nothing like the enormous numbers towards the end of the war, but 50 bombers on the way to bomb. . . And you must remember that, as far as I was concerned, they were coming to me, little Willie. Obviously they were covering an area and they seemed to move towards the south-east, towards Rheims, and there was bombing all the way round there. And then they would come back and they would do this hedge-hopping, coming very low, and the rear gunners on these bombers having a grand old time just shooting up everything in sight. Once again it included me, and I wasn’t a very good soldier – I was quite happy to keep my head down.
Unfortunately, because of the easy way we’d been living, we’d been a bit careless and one of the bombs destroyed all our GTVs – that’s Gun Towing Vehicles – all in one swipe. We had no way of moving our guns. Also, an interesting part about this question of transport was, because of the very heavy winter that we’d passed through – and remember we weren’t accustomed to such things as freeze-ups in big motor vehicles – many were damaged with iced-up engine blocks and so