Chapter 2

Plymouth was ringed around with anti-aircraft guns, Rame, Down Thomas, Wembury, Crownhill and Tregantle come to mind as being equipped with 3.7's, while other sites such as Bovisand and Staddon Heights were more lightly armed. The GOR had lines to all of them as well as lines to some searchlight stations. In addition to the army sites the navy augmented the fire power with the guns on Breakwater Fort and the guns of any ship that may have been in dock at the time. The cruiser Newcastle seemed to be in the area for an unusually long time and she had a Walrus flying boat, a most ungainly craft with a pusher propeller. In the early days we took advantage of the lack of action by organising mock air raids for the benefit of the Plymouth air defences. Orders would go out to all the guns, "This is a mock air raid, repeat, this is a mock air raid," and the Walrus would be sent aloft to add a degree of realism to the exercise and coordinates would be broadcast for the preparation of a box barrage. On one occasion while the exercise was in progress the GOR received a hostile plot from Uxbridge and hastily a new order was given out to all the gun sites, "Cancel mock air raid, real raid in progress, repeat, cancel mock air raid, real raid in progress," and we waited for further information to come from Uxbridge. The guns however were restive and took action on their own, their target was the unmistakeable lumbering Walrus. I wasn't on duty at the time, I was in the barracks; I heard the sirens and the shell bursts and looking out of the window saw the Walrus high-tailing it up country. It made Roborough aerodrome safely though the real raid never materialised. Later on real raids did materialise but by that time we had moved our billets to Bowden Battery, near Crownhill though for a few months we were ferried to and from Hamoaze House by lorry.

As part of the 5th AA division our shoulder flashes, issued about that time, were about two inches square with a sky blue background; pointing downwards was a black four-engined bomber in silhouette with red flames coming from the four engines and one from the tail. Very pretty and prophetic.

BOWDEN BATTERY

In the mid-1800's with Trafalgar and Waterloo not too far in the past and with French intentions uncertain it was decided to fortify vulnerable portions of Britain's south coast. The minister responsible for this was Lord Palmerston, also known affectionately or otherwise as Lord Pumicestone. I think it was when he was Prime Minister that he arranged for the building of strong points around Portsmouth and Plymouth. Those forts around Portsmouth are not known to me except for Southsea Castle but I'm more familiar with the ones around Plymouth. Forts were erected to the west, north and east of the city centre and the Citadel dominated the entrance to Plymouth Sound. To the west there was Fort Tregantle, to the north Crownhill, then on the east came Bowden Battery and Fort Austin, while in the Sound there was Drake's Island and Breakwater Fort.

Bowden Battery was built on the side of a slope that fell away to Crownhill on the north; on the south side it was walled and moated but it was considered to be protected elsewhere by the commanding view it had over the valley. The other three sides were partially walled with low banks of earth. Within these confines the floor was of earth with grass sprouting in the patches not heavily travelled. The cookhouse backed on to the southern wall; it was a shed type with a corrugated iron roof and outside there were two boilers for water. All the habitable buildings were Nissen huts. Entry from the road, Fort Austin Avenue, was by way of a drawbridge, over the moat which was dry in those days, then through the eight-foot high corrugated iron gates. The drawbridge was never raised, I sometimes wondered if it ever had been, it seemed fixed.

Just inside the gates on the western side came the Company Office while a little further west was the CO's hut. Three buildings that were not Nissen huts were the shed type ablutions and, at the extreme eastern end, the latrines, one for the other ranks and one for the ATS. Overhead traversing the length of the fort were the high tension cables of the electricity grid system and on damp days touching the metal parts of vehicles parked beneath them would produce a mild shock.

On the northern side two tunnels, maybe 75 feet long, had been cut, one at each end, going downwards following the slope of the hill and ending in small rooms each commanding a view over the valley. In the small room at the end of the western tunnel the Instrument Mechanics, Len Elliott, Cyril Smythe and Johnny Barker had their workshop where they repaired phones and radios and where they detected faults on the phone lines.

Nissen huts for our accommodation were dotted around. We were fairly comfortable in our upper and lower bunk beds though the huts could have been better heated; the tortoise stoves were not really up to it when the daily ration of coal was mainly small coal or 'slack". To persuade a stove full of slack to come to life someone opened the top of the stove and added a half cup of petrol, nothing happened for a moment or two as the petrol seeped down to the glowing embers at the bottom and then there was an almighty bang. All the stove's apertures flew open and a bewildered soldier came in to inspect the damage as he had seen a 10-foot flame emerge from our chimney, however nobody was hurt.

I've heard it said that we had AA guns at Bowden Battery but that is not true, certainly not up to the time that I left in 1942; true there were some concrete slabs but these were bases for guns or mortars intended to repel a land based attack of the 19th century, well before aircraft had been invented. The only troops there in my time were of the Royal Corps of Signals, the odd Royal Artillery gunner or bombardier and some Royal Ulster Rifles doing guard duties. Initially the GOR shifts were taken to Hamoaze House by lorry but after a while the GOR was moved to Fort Austin though we always knew this fort as Egg Buckland Keep.

For this new location we were to have a new plotting table and it fell my lot to make it. This time we used green lino; the main coastal features were in white paint as were the large grid squares but for the grid sub-divisions I used a ruling pen and white ink, this made fine straight lines more easily but they had to be renewed occasionally due to the rubbing of the plotting blocks. In this new location we required no transport but marched to and fro, a relatively short distance.

Shortages of many items were now beginning to make themselves felt in Britain, army boots and leather for their repairs for one thing and somebody realised that lying idle throughout the country were the shoes belonging to the men who had been called up. It must have caused a severe shock to all the Colonel Blimps but it was decreed that the other ranks would now be permitted to wear shoes when off duty. There was one proviso however, they had to be black, just in case the other ranks got confused with their betters. Another shortage concerned watches or rather watch glasses. Unbreakable types were not in general use at that time and all types were difficult to obtain. I got over this by using a draughtsman's ink spring-bows to which a snapped portion of a razor blade had been attached. Circles were scribed out on the transparent material of goggles anti-gas and then broken out. Since the QM and a lieutenant both had watches needing glasses I had no difficulty in getting a few goggles anti-gas diverted from the QM store. Nearly all of us smoked in those days and our favourite brands were not always available; matches were also in short supply so we doubled our stock by splitting them lengthwise with a razor blade. Swan Vestas were the easiest to split.

A sentry was stationed at the drawbridge; during daylight hours he was armed with a stick but at night he had a rifle and fixed bayonet, the rifle though had no ammunition. The total Signals complement, GOR, Line Section, assorted clerks, QM stores personnel and others amounted to about 80 I guess and for this number we had six rifles, two SMLE's, a couple of Canadian Ross rifles and two American .300's made in Springfield. All ammunition was very limited. However, later, probably sometime in 1941, someone at a higher level decided that we should not be defenceless and a blueprint arrived one day showing how to make raid party truncheons. There were two types, the first consisted of an 18-inch length of stirrup pump hose loaded at one end with concrete and fitted with a thong at the other. The second type was more lethal if one could get near enough to the enemy; it used an 18-inch length of electrical conduit to the end of which was welded a discarded gear, any old gear would do as long as it was sharp, heavy and pointy; in fact we were now armed with maces reminiscent of the middle ages and chronologically more in keeping with our Victorian surroundings. The blueprint had arrived at the same time as a length of stirrup pump hose and no time was lost in manufacturing type number one only to discover later that it was intended for incendiary purposes and not raid party truncheons. Too late, we couldn't put it back together again but we did have some fun out of the exercise by trying out the effect of the first type of truncheon on our tin hats; after a few blows the concrete cracked and fell out while the tin hats emerged unscathed. We didn't risk trying out the second type. A friend of mine in the RAF told me that on one station the ground crew were similarly equipped though in their case the bayonets were welded on to 5-foot lengths of electrical conduit; he said that when they came on parade it looked like the Monmouth Rebellion all over again.

I don't recall much about our meals, with one exception only. Every Thursday over a long period a new cook came to us. She didn't appear to be ATS and I would do her no injustice if I guessed her age as being between 30 and 40, older than the rest of the cookhouse staff. I found out very little about her except that she was Cornish but she made the most delicious cornish pasties, the real thing and they were so large that one was quite sufficient for any growing lad. We only ever saw her on Thursdays and we all looked forward to those days. The regular cookhouse staff came under "Jackie", Corporal Jackson and she and her girls were billeted in a private house nearly opposite Bowden Battery in a road running parallel with Fort Austin Avenue. There were about eight of them I think, of whom Mary, Ginger and Minnie from South Wales, Kitty from Cornwall and Sylvia from Dewsbury are the ones who stay in my mind. Jackie was very solicitous for her charges and she meticulously recorded the dates and times of their social engagements together with the names of their escorts.

In the early days we were instructed in the various do's and don't's of army life and introduced to the Army Act and King's Regulations. We were told that "barrack-room lawyers" were not permitted to quote from these. Complaints could be made only through official channels and it was forbidden to contact our Members of Parliament with our gripes though of course they couldn't prevent our parents from doing it for us. Forbidden also was the singing of Irish nationalist songs or whistling The Dead March; likewise engaging in discussions likely to cause "alarm and despondency" was also ruled out. All of this together with a bit of regimental training was gradually converting us into obedient little souls.

Plymouth and Devonport were primarily navy-oriented, true there was the RAF station at Mountbatten with its Sunderland flying boats and there were assorted army units scattered around but essentially the navy was supreme. Being a peace-time garrison area the civilian population was used to the presence of the forces and was not particularly hospitable, a vast contrast to the friendly treatment meted out by the Scots when for a month or so I was billeted in a distillery in Wishaw.

Fore Street Devonport was at one time full of public houses and other establishments catering to the needs of sailors and in an effort to provide alternative entertainment, one, Agnes Weston, opened the premises in Fore Street known as Aggie Weston's. Here one could sit and read or talk, take a bath at sixpence a time, enjoy a film or otherwise relax and unwind. It was here that having paid my dues by singing a hymn and listening to a short sermon I was given a cup of tea and a bun while I watched the film The Citadel based on Cronin's novel of the same name.

When we were on duty at Hamoaze House and when there was little or no activity some members of the GOR shift were permitted to sun themselves for short periods on the green slope of Mount Wise, within hailing distance should air activity commence. From this vantage point near the Scott memorial we watched the panorama unfold, ships of the Royal Navy, the aircraft carrier Illustrious for one, steaming down the Hamoaze into the Sound and beyond while the Cremyll ferry kept up its routine of to-ing and fro-ing across the river. The summer of 1940 was very hot and many of us quickly browned, life was still unchallenging and boring, however there was plenty of entertainment available to us. At the Forum in Devonport I saw Balalaika with Ilona Massey and later The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. Plymouth had many cinemas but I can remember the name of only one, The Royal but I do remember the theatre, The Palace, near the Octagon, where I saw several variety shows and a couple of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. For The Yeomen of the Guard I could only get a seat in the second row from the front on the right-hand side and as a result got the full benefit of the big drum.

Usually we went as a party of four or five, first to get a bite to eat, often at Goodbody's and then off to a show. Sometime after the air raids had started in earnest five of us went to the Alhambra in Devonport to see a strip show, the main attraction being Phyllis Dixie; I was surprised to see sailors taking their girl friends in with them, remember this was in the early 1940's and the mores were a little restrictive then. The performance followed the usual pattern for a variety show of that period, several acts in the first half, an interval, then a similar number of acts in the second half. The lesser performers would appear only once while the principals would appear in both halves. Phyllis Dixie's earlier performances had caused a few eyebrows to be raised and the Lord Chamberlain who at that time had control of those things banned parts of her routine, a fact exploited by her when she appeared, clothed, in the first half and recited a little piece titled The Girl the Lord Chamberlain Banned. It was a clever piece really but the suspense was too great for one restive matelot who stood up at the back and yelled, "Fer Chrissakes get them clothes off before the bloody siren goes." She was quite unfazed by this and continued with her patter but obliged him in her own good time, in the second half. The show was quite innocuous by present day standards, a little risqué perhaps but not sordid. That sailor probably had second sight because in a later raid a German bomb flattened the Alhambra.

During the winter months the heavy rains turned Bowden Battery into a quagmire and we all went round in rubber boots. Some intelligent being among us thought that a trench dug all along the centre of the battery would drain off all the surplus water, unfortunately the trench had closed ends and once it was filled the ground again became a miniature lake but now with an additional hazard; if you didn't watch your step you would be up to your knee in water as you put your foot in the trench. In some of the more unpleasant weather it was decided to dispense with the armed sentry at night and the high gates would be locked. To cater to those brave souls who had gone out and wished to return to the fold a bell-push was fitted outside the gates and a moveable bell installed in whichever hut the duty gateman resided and he was supposed to answer the call. Often the evening's entertainment was gambling, pontoon usually and if the gateman was involved it became a bit of a nuisance for him to have to break away from the game just to let someone in, and so one dark and rainy night, fed up with the constant interruptions, he disabled the ball and sat back to enjoy a quiet game. One returnee getting no response to his repeated bell pushing hammered so loud and long on the corrugated iron gates that somebody not on duty went out into that foul night to let him in. The returnee, in high dudgeon strode down to find the gateman and in the process put his foot in the trench. He was our CO and he wasn't very happy. The excuse given was, I believe, faulty wiring.

After an air raid the Line Section would go out to effect repairs, to get communications going again and at the same time the lads would pick up anything that appeared to belong to nobody and that could be of possible use to the army; done by civilians that would be called looting. In this way we became the recipients of bricks, breeze blocks, I-beams and other odds-and-ends. Having acquired these what use could be made of them? Someone had a bright idea and suggested that as we had no inspection pit for our vehicles perhaps we could build an above-ground structure that would serve the same purpose. The job was given to the man who could use a pencil and who had some engineering experience, me I prepared a design that consisted mainly of two horizontal I-beams surmounted on two low brick piers with two longer I-beams leading up from the ground level to the piers. Since the track would be fixed this would only be suitable for one type of vehicle so it was designed for our utility vans. To get down to load-bearing earth the low earthen wall on the north side was to be excavated locally where the piers were to be built down to the level of the battery floor. The design was pigeon-holed.

Many months later when this had slipped from all memories I found myself when the morning parade had been dismissed to be a member of a fatigue party. A signalman who had been a tailor in Glasgow was put in charge and we were ordered to report to the QM stores and draw picks and shovels, then we were marched up to the low earthen wall and told to dig. Exactly where and how far to dig nobody seemed to know. After a while the penny dropped and I realised that this was to be the preparatory work for the vehicle inspection structure. I told our ex-tailor, "There are drawings of this somewhere." He made enquiries and sure enough the drawings were found; there was one snag however, he couldn't read a drawing and I had to explain. The work was not finished by our shift and the next day another fatigue party had the pleasure of swinging the picks and shovelling. Work on this project was stopped for a long period and in the meantime the western part of the ground was surfaced with asphalt the hard standing so beloved by drill sergeants and their superiors, now their charges could stamp their boots audibly instead of squelching silently in the mud.

Much later just before I left Bowden Battery work was resumed on the structure but by this time officers had come and gone and I was standing by the latest Two-pips as he surveyed the two long I-beams. "sergeant!" he snapped." "Sah," answered Three-stripes. "These I-beams," said Two-pips, "are too long, I will not have them intruding into my parade ground, get me a ruler and some chalk." Just listen to the man, he had two pips on each epaulet, he'd only been there a couple of weeks and already he owned the joint, my parade ground indeed. Three-stripes obliged with alacrity and Two-pips said, "I want them both shortened by three feet." He took the ruler, no fool he, he knew that three feet equalled 36 inches so he measured in 18 inches from each end of both I-beams and chalked lines. "Get these down to Ordnance," he said, "and get them to cut off the four ends."

Whether the installation was ever completed I don't know. I left shortly afterwards but 44 years later when I re-visited the site Bowden Battery had been turned into a garden centre, the moat had been filled in and converted into a car park and I could see no sign of the excavations or much of anything else that would tell of the wartime activities.

With the fall of France Germany had access to her assets though Britain forestalled their use by attacking French naval units in Toulon and Dakar but Germany still had the use of the bases and three of her ships were in French ports. These were the Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen. The first two were nicknamed by NAALO's petty officers as Salmon and Gluckstein after a local store in Plymouth. Germany wanted to get them back to the relative safety of a German port and Britain was equally determined that they should stay where they were, where they could be attacked. Fortuitously Germany picked a day when the weather was thick and wet and under this cover the three ships, hugging the French coast, slipped eastwards past their enemy up the English Channel to find sanctuary. Though we were only onlookers we were able to follow the action to some extent as information was given to us by NAALO.

We had teleprinter links between Plymouth, Portsmouth, Bristol and Reading and apart from any other correspondence there were the daily rituals; firstly the "colours of the day", given to us by NAALO were broadcast to all the gun sites so that friendly aircraft would not be fired upon, and secondly each night an ammunition report would be sent by the three companies to Reading. We were all able to see what the others had sent. Almost invariably the ammunition report would state "nil expenditure" but one Sunday night there was an exception; Bristol reported "Bristol the subject of a heavy air attack, ammunition report will follow." As Bristolians we became very anxious; not much news filtered through that night but the next day we gleaned from various sources little bits of information. One informant said that amongst other targets they had dropped four bombs on Bristol Bridge; that was not strictly accurate but from the damage done it was fairly true. They had hit our home town, the war was getting serious. Bristol's suffering was just beginning.

We were expecting a visit from some top brass, presumably to give the place the once-over, to convince us that indeed we were not forgotten and to show us some faces to match the names that would appear from time to time on orders. In order to impress them with the skill and expertise of our Line Section it was decided to replace the twisted Don8 cable between Bowden Battery and Egg Buckland Keep with an air line, that is bare copper wire on short telegraph posts. This was finished just before the top brass arrived but when the phones were connected all that could be heard was a loud 50 cycle hum; the wires had been placed beneath and almost parallel with the overhead grid system cables. "Oh, well," they said, "we'll say it was never intended to be used, it was only done to show our ability to run an air line."