Hi everyone,Family history is a big thing in our house. Here's the story of George Frederick Fletcher, from Billesley, Birmingham who served in the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve (RAFVR) 1941-1942.
At the age of 19 most of George’s friends had already been called up for military service, so he decided to volunteer for the Royal Air Force, hoping to get in as a driver in the motor transport section. At that time they were recruiting personnel for training as ground gunners and as he didn’t have any choice in the matter, he was recruited as a ground gunner in the Royal Air Force Voluntary Reserve.
Ground gunners were deployed to defend airfields against enemy attack. They were trained to use light machine guns such as the Bren gun, which was very light, the Lewis which was slightly heavier than the Bren gun and the Vickers machine gun that was heavier still. The recruits were also trained to use 303 rifles. The Non Commissioned Officers (NCO’s), e.g. Corporals and Sergeants, were issued with sub machine guns, which were similar to the ‘tommy guns’ used by the American gangsters during the period of prohibition in America.
In June 1941 George was sent to Padgate, Warrington, Lancashire, where he began his training. He soon found that his squad spent a great deal of time on ceremonial parades and special guard duties.After leaving Padgate he was posted to Credenhill, Hereford where he was posted on guard duties and undertook further training in the use of machine guns. Sometimes he would go on route marches around the beautiful country lanes and admire the thatched cottages along the way. They would sometimes call into one of the local pubs and have a drink of Scrumpy, before returning to the camp.
From Credenhill he was posted to Kirkton in Lindsay, Lincolnshire, where he slept on a concrete floor in an aircraft hanger, waiting to be kitted out for service abroad. The men then marched in
darkness to a railway station, with no idea where they were going. The men finally arrived
at Liverpool docks.
George stood on the dockside looking up at the ship on which they were about to embark. He had never seen a ship before and it looked enormous. The ship was the Cape Town Castle, a 27,000 ton luxury liner, which had been adapted as a troop carrier for the war and stripped of its luxury. George’s bunk was situated on the half moon deck at the front of the ship, in a narrow corridor with two tier bunks and very little room to move around.
George stood on the dockside looking up at the ship on which they were about to embark. He had never seen a ship before and it looked enormous. The ship was the Cape Town Castle, a 27,000 ton luxury liner, which had been adapted as a troop carrier for the war and stripped of its luxury. George’s bunk was situated on the half moon deck at the front of the ship, in a narrow corridor with two tier bunks and very little room to move around.
The Cape Town Castle sailed from Liverpool in a small convoy, escorted by a Royal Navy ship. A convoy can only travel as fast as the slowest ship and as some of the vessels in the convoy were quite old and could not travel at any great speed. This slowed the journey considerably making the troops an even easier target for the enemy. Whilst on board ship the men had various duties or fatigues to undertake, such as working in the kitchen and guard duties. George would sometimes stand on the deck and watch the porpoises, which would follow the ship, whilst also keeping a look out for submarines or enemy ships.
The first port of call was Sierra Leon on the west coast of Africa, where the convoy anchored in the estuary. He had lost count of the number of days they had been at sea, but it was a relief to finally view land. To George it was a beautiful sight of golden sands and rich green
banana trees.
By this time the troops were wearing their ‘tropical kit’, which consisted of baggy shirts, shorts with wide legs and pith helmets. George wondered if they were there to fight the Japanese or frighten them to death dressed as they were. For many of the men the tropical temperatures was unbearable and they began to suffer from prickly heat, for which the only relief was to stand naked in the rain.
The local people would paddle out to the ships in their little canoes and sell the servicemen fruit. Some of them would also dive for coins that troops threw overboard. They would put the coins in their mouths whilst under water and drop them into the canoes when they surfaced. This could not have been very pleasant for the divers as all of the ships waste was pumped into the estuary.
After leaving Sierra Leon the convoy travelled past the Cape of Good Hope where the trade winds meet, this results in the sea being very rough. George would sometimes stand on deck and watch the other ships in the convoy disappear into the swells leaving only their masts showing; it was like watching a wall of water. One of his favourite pastimes was to stand on the stern of the ship and watch the propeller come out of the water as the ship rolled into the swells.
The convoy arrived in Durban just a few days before Christmas. However Durban was nothing like the traditional Christmas scene that George was used to with its white buildings and palm trees. The men were allowed to go ashore for a few hours each day when they had completed their duties. The local people were very welcoming, driving the young servicemen around in their cars, showing them the scenery and sometime inviting them to tea. For some reason they were under the impression that their visitors could play the piano, it was as if they thought of the English as a nation of piano players and would ask the men to play for them. Unfortunately the convoy had to leave Durban on Christmas Eve for destinations unknown.
When they arrived in Bombay the men transferred to the Johann De Witt, which was an old Dutch vessel. The quarters for the troops were below decks in the hold, where they ate their meals on tables and slept in hammocks slung above them. The conditions aboard the ship for the troops were so terrible that at the end of the war troops mutinied and refused to travel on it. From time to time George was assigned to the gun post at the side of the ship. The ‘gun post’ consisted of a concrete barrel suspended on a steel bar over the side of the ship. When he looked over the side of his post he could see the sea passing beneath him, which made him think that if ever the ship was attacked, he had a ready made concrete coffin.
The next stop was Karachi, where the men disembarked. They were taken to a nearby airfield where they were billeted in tents before travelling to Burma by train. The train had only bare wooden seats and George slept in what could best be described as a luggage rack above the seats. Crowds of beggars greeted the train as it arrived at each station. There were people who had either limbs missing or were blind there were even very small children amongst them. The filth and squalor was appalling.
Karachi Station 1941/1942
When they arrived in Madras the men boarded another ship. The conditions were dreadful; they ate and slept below decks in the holds of the ship. The ship was unescorted as it left Madras and the men on board were the only defence against attack. Whilst some men manned the anti aircraft defence posts, Georges only means of fighting off an enemy attack was with a Bren gun, which he had to hold at the hip.
Their next stop was Rangoon where they disembarked. They were billeted close by before being transported to an airstrip forty miles north of Rangoon. They were deployed on gun-post duty; the ‘gun-posts’ in question being nothing more than holes in the ground. As the Japanese advanced the men were transported back to Rangoon where they boarded a ship that was being loaded with aircraft spares and guns. As the Japanese were going to take over the area the troops were allowed to go ashore and ransack the warehouses, with a view to leaving as little for the enemy as possible. George and a few friends found bottles of gin, which they had no taste for, so they tried mixing it with condensed milk, but the resulting cocktail was even worse than the neat spirit.
When the ship was loaded they set sail for Akyab, Burma. There was so much cargo that there was little room for the troops and they had to sleep in any space they could find. Having reached their destination the men were billeted at St Anne’s Convent before being deployed on gun-post duty at a nearby airstrip.
St Anne’s Convent, Akyab, Burma 1942
When they first arrived in India the troops had a lecture by a medical officer who warned them about certain diseases and told them not to eat any fruit that they could not peel. This it would seem was the extent of their instruction for life on a continent that was totally new to them. Sleeping in the open on the gun posts at night was quite scary for the young men from England. They didn’t know what insects would sting or bite and they had very little knowledge of the habits of snakes, of which there were plenty. They did not know that any poisonous snake would attack if it felt trapped, such as in a slit trench or in your bedding. If anyone took their boots off at night, they had to check the next morning that nothing was inside them before they put them on. One of the most poisonous snakes was the Krait, which was only a foot long. The meals on the gun-posts consisted of tins of bully beef and biscuits. Sometimes George would get a meal at a field kitchen and would have to cover his plate with his hand because the Kite Hawks would swoop down and steal the meat.
When they first arrived in India the troops had a lecture by a medical officer who warned them about certain diseases and told them not to eat any fruit that they could not peel. This it would seem was the extent of their instruction for life on a continent that was totally new to them. Sleeping in the open on the gun posts at night was quite scary for the young men from England. They didn’t know what insects would sting or bite and they had very little knowledge of the habits of snakes, of which there were plenty. They did not know that any poisonous snake would attack if it felt trapped, such as in a slit trench or in your bedding. If anyone took their boots off at night, they had to check the next morning that nothing was inside them before they put them on. One of the most poisonous snakes was the Krait, which was only a foot long. The meals on the gun-posts consisted of tins of bully beef and biscuits. Sometimes George would get a meal at a field kitchen and would have to cover his plate with his hand because the Kite Hawks would swoop down and steal the meat.
At the time of the first Japanese air raid George was about a mile from the airstrip. He stood and watched as the bombs exploded. At the time of the attack he was patrolling an area that was ‘out of bounds’ to the troops. It was an area frequented by prostitutes and many of the troops having acquainted themselves with the ‘ladies’ had required treatment for a range of sexually transmitted diseases. In order to prevent any more of the men attending the sick bay, George had been assigned the task of patrolling the area and keeping the men out. In effect, patrolling the brothel kept him out of harms way.
The Japanese raided them again the following day at noon. By this time the airstrip was useless and most of the aircraft fuel had been destroyed. Shortly afterwards the men were evacuated by sea to Chittagong.
Shortly after his arrival in Chittagong George became ill with dysentery. He was taken to the base hospital, which was a house that had been taken over by the medical officer and two orderlies. Each time he had to go to the toilet, which was every few minutes, he had to go outside to what was a hole in the ground with a brick each side. He became so weak that he had great difficulty getting back up. One day when his friend visited him, out of sheer desperation, George asked him to get a dozen hard-boiled eggs, which was something you could always buy from the locals. He could not remember how much time he spent in the hospital, but once he was discharged he returned to his gun-post duties.
After a while the Japanese Air Force changed their tactics and began to drop their bombs from about twenty thousand feet. Having only light machine guns the men were ill equipped to counter the attacks. All they could do was keep their heads down and hope for the best. The fighters would strafe at low level after the bombs exploded. It all happened so quickly the gunners did not have time to shoot back at the fighter planes. George noted a strange thing about the Japanese, they always raided at twelve noon two days running and there was never a hurricane fighter plane when you needed one.
The airstrip at Chittagong was very close to the sea and one night George and a few of his friends went for a swim. At that time they didn’t know about sea snakes, if they had they would have stayed away from the sea. Another night he killed a snake by the gun-post and then spent the rest of the night worrying that it’s mate would come looking for it. The fireflies, like little lights, would dance around in the dark whilst the mosquitoes buzzed around his ears all efforts to swat them were in vain.
After some time in Chittagong, George became ill again, but this time with malaria. When he reported sick he had a very high temperature but was not perspiring at all. In an attempt to bring down his body temperature, the orderlies sponged him down with cold water. He was then moved by boat to a hospital ward in Calcutta, his only memory of which was large doses of quinine and delicious cold lemonade. From there he was transferred to the Seventh British General Hospital in Dehradun, United Provinces, India. This was an all canvas hospital, including the operating theatre.
17th British General Hospital, (all canvas) Dehradun, India 1942
At this point his diet included beef extract and a bottle of stout each day because he had lost so much weight. The hospital wards were long tents and he would lie in bed watching the large black ants running about in the grass underneath. The feet of the beds were in cans that were filled with liquid of some sort to prevent the ants climbing into the beds. Most of the men in his ward were suffering from some type of fever. The man opposite him had ‘tropical sprue’ and he looked like a living skeleton.
Ghurka Band at 17th General Hospital, Dehradun, 1942
The effects of sleeping in the open at night in Burma, dysentery and malaria took their toll on George, who developed an infection in his left lung. It was then decided by a medical board to send him to Chakrata, which was very high up in the Himalayas, as the air would be more suitable for his lung. He was taken by car to a transit camp at Bombay. There were men from all different units at the camp, some had been wounded and others like George were suffering from illnesses. The beds in the camp were charpoys; a wooden frame with ropes across. These were infested with bugs that came out at night and it was impossible to get to sleep through being bitten. He even tried covering the bedding with his mosquito net but they still got through. He would also stand outside the hut at night to try and get so tired that he could fall asleep as soon as he lay down.
From there, the sick and the wounded boarded a ship and sailed unescorted to Cape Town. George was billeted at an auxiliary military hospital at Kalk Bay, about fourteen miles from Cape Town. This was a hotel situated close to the sea that was loaned to the Red Cross for the duration of the war. It was a wonderful climate, no worries about snakes or mosquitos, clean beds and good food.
The men were dressed in hospital blues and allowed to go out every day to the beach and the village. However, patients were not permitted to buy any alcoholic drinks in the hotel bar, but this didn’t stop the men; they purchased civilian trousers and shirts.
Up to this point, George had not received any letters from home because he had travelled around so much.
After a few weeks he boarded the Queen Mary, which was a massive 84,000 ton liner and began his journey home. Like the Cape Town Castle the ship had been stripped of all its luxurious fittings for use as a troop carrier. George was billeted in a small cabin amid ships, which had three, three tier bunks. The ship sailed unescorted to Greenock in Scotland, relying entirely on its speed to escape U-Boats. On arrival at Greenock the men boarded a train and travelled to Melksham in Wiltshire. From there he was sent home on leave and whilst at home he received orders to report to a hospital in Bromsgrove. He spent a number of months in this hospital undergoing surgery and treatment on his lung. It was during his stay in hospital that he received his discharge papers from the RAF. He was discharged on medical grounds as he was unfit for military service.
George felt very lucky that he never had to fight his way through jungles and swamps in monsoon weather or suffer at the hands of the Japanese as a prisoner of war. Having travelled on seven troop ships and other sea going craft he was also amazed that none of the vessels were torpedoed considering the number of U-Boat packs that were operating at the time.
Back home during the war years, the public viewed young men who were not fighting for their country as cowards. In order to aid the public distinguish between those who had not enlisted and men who had been debilitated as a result of injury or illness whilst serving their country, the Government issued lapel badges to ex-servicemen. Even so, George like many others still faced abuse and hostility from people at home.
1, Clan Chief Alastair MacDonald arrived at Inverlochy, where he discovered he should have gone to Inveraray to take his oath. Because he missed the deadline by five days, The Glen Coe MacDonalds did not appear on the list of clans who had taken the oath by the deadline.