The day I marched off to war
By John Disley
In October 1942, just as the battle of el Alamein was at its height, the Red Army was holding its own at Stalingrad and the war against Germany had nudged into its fourth year, I presented myself at the RAF Recruiting Office in Wolverhampton and went off to war.
I said farewell to my mother. She waved me off, just as she had done for my father when they were courting some 27 years earlier.
Memories of his experiences on the Somme cannot have been far from her mind as she stood in her apron at the foot of the entry in Alma Street, fluttering a hand in farewell. I can only guess what tears she shed as I rounded the corner into New Sun Street en route for the Great Western Railway station.
I had been given instructions to proceed to the RAF Personnel Despatch Centre at Penarth in South Wales. I was just 18.
So here I was, sitting in a train steaming its way across wartime Britain, through stations bearing empty chocolate machines and enamelled signs advertising Mazawattee Tea and Fry’s Cocoa, their platforms thronged with men and women in uniform.
All nameboards had been removed and my progress was thus charted by the hoarse cries of stationmasters bawling the names of their stations along the route. But when I spied the ruined tower on the bridge over the River Usk, I realised I was in Newport and hadn’t much further to go.
Penarth was a dingy seaside town on the South Wales coast. I was billeted in one of many terraced houses requisitioned for the duration. The rooms, devoid of any floor covering, were furnished with single iron beds each with three thin square mattresses known as “biscuits” and a greasy stuffed bolster for a pillow and two or three rough blankets.
There was a bathroom but no hot water and no heating. Each morning we would rise, fold our blankets, shave and dress, then clump down the bare boards of the stairs and out into the streets to walk to the mess hall.
There, with the electric lights full on in the early dawn, we would breakfast on porridge, bacon, beans and fried bread before reporting for the day’s duties.
It was a week before I was formally enrolled, given my service number (which no serviceman ever forgets) and accorded the rank of Aircraftman, second class.
We were then kitted out and ordered to change into uniform. Civilian life was over for the duration and we all set ourselves to adjust to the disciplines imposed by the RAF.
Meanwhile, we were not to be kept idle. There were duties to be performed and with many hundreds of airmen awaiting dispatch to training centres there was no shortage of labour, willing or otherwise, to help with the multifarious tasks of running a PDC.
For most of the time I was employed on clerical duties in Central Registry but there were less amenable tasks.
I recall helping to unload equipment at the kitting-out centre, washing greasy pots and pans in the kitchen of the mess hall, and one day, with two or three others, I was set to scrub what seemed like half a ton of celery in preparation for that day’s tea.
But I was about to learn a sharp lesson in survival. One morning I went into the bathroom and inadvertently left my soap and towel behind. When I went to retrieve them, I found they had been stolen.
In my innocence as a raw recruit, I was certainly not aware that losing one’s kit was a chargeable offence punishable with seven days’ jankers and an entry on my conduct sheet.
But a kindly Providence led me to seek my own solution. I had no coupons to purchase replacements, so I sent home and received a parcel by return of post. By good fortune the towel was of the same pattern as those of RAF issue.
I was forced to manage without soap for a couple of days so my spare towel must have been a trifle grubby but the experience taught me a useful lesson regarding the care of my kit.
All this seemed a far cry from the somewhat sheltered life I had led so far, but being young and resilient I was able to take it in my stride. In this I was helped by the camaraderie of both permanent staff and of other recruits.
In company with others in the billet we drank tea in the NAAFI, walked along the seafront, went to the pictures, talked, joked and shared tales of our activities during those days spent in limbo.
But after a couple of weeks we received our marching orders.
One morning we were paraded at the station, issued with rations, put on a train and sent to Blackpool. The second stage of life in the RAF was about to begin.
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