In His Own Words - Some of My Fathers Recollections

Discussion in 'Veteran Accounts' started by Recce_Mitch, Nov 29, 2008.

  1. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Before my father died 2 yrs ago I taped some of our conversations about the war and transcribed them.

    Thomas Heald Mitchell No.1873128


    4.5.1936 – 16.2.1937 Royal Engineers

    20.6.1938 – 8.2.1941 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards

    9.2.1941 – 31.12.1943 56 Reconnaissance Corps

    1.1.1944 – 13.6.44 Royal Armoured Corps

    B.E.F 29.9.1939 – 27.2.1940
    B.E.F 10.3.1940 – 1.6.1940

    Nth Africa Sicily Italy 31.10.1942 – 9.3.1944

    Awards Issued: 1939-45 Star
    Africa Star with 1st Army Clasp
    Italy Star
    War Medal 1939-45
    Defence Medal
    Dunkirk Medal
    King Albert F.N.V.R.A. - K.V.V.K.A..Veterans' Medal
    Cross of Europe Medal
    King Albert FRVRA Veterans 25th Anniversary Medal 1948-1973
    The King's Loyal Service Badge



    Military Conduct: Very Good

    In England we practised driving in convoy at night. The trucks diffs were painted white with a small light illuminating it and you followed the light in front. The despatch rider was in front as he didn’t need as much light as the bloke driving the trucks. They followed the despatch rider. The despatch rider led the convoys; he had the same on the back of his bike.

    One night we went out, in England</st1:country-region… on exercise and this officer… he was a First World War officer…. He got the Military Cross in the First World War. 24 stone he was. He was our Quartermaster… Lt Hanston (?). While we was on these exercises I had to take him as a passenger in a 15cwt truck. He told me to stop and he had a torch and he says follow me he said. We was coming down this narrow bloody lane, country lane it was. He’d got the torch behind him focussed on the ground so I could see a little circle on the ground, and I followed him just like a truck.


    These exercises were held around Wiltshire, Sommerset and Branford? It was all farming country. The farmers were very good to us they used to come out with sandwiches, the wives did and we’d squat down on the ground near the farm gate and just a bit further down this lane was a 5 barred gate with this bloody great urn of milk and some of the soldiers had been helping themselves to it. I thought that’s bloody great. You could see trails of bloody milk where the bastards had been holding down their water bottles in it. I didn’t go for that…. A lot of us didn’t.


    I used to like these manoeuvres… very interesting they were. I used to love getting away from all the bullshit…. I used to like getting out in the field. We’d got our own Lysanders with streamers attached to the tails…. They were supposed to be the enemy. The roads were crammed with military vehicles. … The whole area was closed to traffic. They were big manoeuvres no doubt about it. When it was cold our officer allowed us a rum ration in our tea.<O
     
    NannaPink, James S, Owen and 2 others like this.
  2. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    Thanks for sharing the memories. Nice to read.

    Regards

    Tom
     
  3. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Thanks for reading. Those stories were form around 1938/39.
     
  4. Smudger Jnr

    Smudger Jnr Our Man in Berlin

    I just wish that my father would have spoken to me about his time in Italy, but like a lot of others he did not want to talk much about it.
    I picked up odd bits and pieces over the years, but it would have been great to have sat down with him and a recorder rolling.

    Regards

    Tom
     
  5. Paul Reed

    Paul Reed Ubique

    Excellent stuff. It took grandchildren to get my Dad to put anything down on paper, he would never do it for me. It's only later we realise how important it is to record this sort of thing.
     
  6. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Another of my father's memories in his own words.

    "If you listen to the elderly you may gain some knowledge of what was achieved by the sacrifices of our war veterans. Had it not been for our War-Time Heroes you would not be enjoying the fruits of life as we know today. Concentration and Extermination Camps would have been in existence as they were in Europe and were witnessed by British troops serving in Reconnaissance Regiment’s of the RAC leading the advance into Germany as it was with other Allied troops in their sector who were also witnessing these horrible scenes. Our job was to keep pushing on and getting the war over with and bringing to justice who were responsible for these atrocities."
     
  7. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    How did I miss this?
    Was this written when he was in Gren Gds?

    he was a First World War officer…. He got the Military Cross in the First World War. 24 stone he was. He was our Quartermaster… Lt Hanston (?).
     
  8. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    To the best of my knowledge yes.
     
  9. James S

    James S Very Senior Member

    My father never would allow me to even think about recording what he said and much more articulate than I will ever be he just saw it as book which is now closed.

    I fully agree with the views expressed and appreciate your father's willingness to record his views and expereinces , oral history is a vital part of remembering and understanding the past.

    When you stop to consider it so much has been lost in silence , a silence which people felt unable to fill.
     
  10. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    It was only in the last few years of his life that I could get him to talk about the war. So some of his reminisences are a little disjointed and not linear. Those are interesting links.
     
  11. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    I was hoping to find Lt Hanston MC in Ponsonby's History but he's not there or anyone sounding like him.
    Shame that.
     
  12. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    Recce_Mitch

    You honour your Dad by giving others a chance to read his story.....
    As my old Sgt.Major used to say "Well done that there man !"

    Regarding the mention of "diff" lights (diff being an abbreviation of differential)

    Your Dad said:

    In England we practised driving in convoy at night. The trucks diffs were painted white with a small light illuminating it and you followed the light in front


    I hated having to follow them, as you will see by this piece I once wrote:

    On this particular occasion I was driving without lights along a mountain road between Patti and Messina, with the sea on my left. I had been without sleep for several days and the strain of following a tiny light on the differential of the truck in front finally mesmerised me to such an extent that I literally fell asleep on the road.
    The full story is here:
    BBC - WW2 People's War - Sicily, Then On To Italy

    Regards

    Ron
     
  13. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Due to my fathers memory at the time of taping the name could start with another letter and maybe he meant MM not MC. I had a lot of trouble finding the name Jopling, it came across as something different.

    Cheers

    Paul
     
  14. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Here are another couple of my fathers stories.in his own words. They are after he came back from Dunkirk while he was still a Guardsman before he joined 56 Recce.

    "I brought my rifle home…we were in a cattle farm…there was a stream nearby and I threw it in there as it was all rusty and the bolt wouldn’t move. It had been in the sea you see."

    "At Semley in Somerset Montgomery came to address us in response to our reaction to his ban on leave. He explained that we might have to return to France, but he did give us a 72 hour pass. He stood on the back of a lorry."

    "I was at Worksop on leave getting ready to return to my unit when my brother came home. I sent a telegram to my unit asking for an extension of leave, cause my brother Fred come back from France, which I didn’t know he was there. I got the surprise of my life when I was on leave when suddenly my brother Fred walked in. So I sent a telegram to my company commander, I got a reply back that I couldn’t have the leave and to come back to my unit. Which I was on my way, when I gets as far as Waterloo when I ran into some mates of mine and we got drinking. I weren’t on my bloody own when I went missing there were about 3 or 4 of us. We missed the bloody train, we all got booked together. We were court martialled and I got 42 days. A young Lieutenant defended me, I remember him saying that Mitchell was a very good soldier he was saying to the court martial, that I had a good record. That’s how I got my sentence reduced. I remember him saying that. He stood up very well for me, he gave a good report. I was jailed at Shepton Mallet, down in Somerset, Dorset. I got remission for good conduct. You know they used to make me the right hand marker on parades; it was a bit of cake to me being a Guardsman. I served 28 days with time off for good behaviour."

    Cheers

    Paul
     
    Owen likes this.
  15. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    Here are another couple of anecdotes from my father in his own words.

    My uncle took me to see the manager who said if I was as good a worker as my uncle I’d do him and that was how I went down the pit. After a couple of accidents I decided that the pit wasn’t for me so I lied about my age and joined the Army, the Royal Engineers. After 7 months my mother told the army that I was underage and that was that. As soon as I could I joined up again, this time my Grandfathers old regiment the Grenadier Guards

    Heald was my mothers name; I always wanted to join the Guards when I was a boy ever since my uncle George came home in uniform. He looked so smart.

    Cheers

    Paul
     
  16. Recce_Mitch

    Recce_Mitch Very Senior Member

    There were 4 of us Grenadiers that stayed together all the time and we just used our common bloody sense. We got away from everybody else and we were all banging away at low flying aircraft that came skimming along the bloody beaches. It becomes bloody effective when 4 or 5 of you fire together does rifle fire. We used to have training in England down in Surrey. Aircraft action was the order shouted by the person in charge. On the order aircraft action you all pointed your rifles into the air and fired all together. Just imagine 50, 80, or 100 men firing all at once…just as effective as a machine gun. We had that training long before the war…firing at aircraft on the march…just as effective as a machine gun. We got to a part of the beach that sloped back like an armchair that you could lean back on… we leaned back, rifles in the air and just followed the aircraft from right to left and banged away together. They didn’t come back after that I can tell you. There were a few others firing back in ones and twos but we were Guardsmen and we fired together because of our training. I would like to think that our gunfire was effective.

    There was a squad of us we stayed together all the time, we was good mates. We all carried Bren gun magazines with 30 rounds in each, we carried at least 3 or 4 in a pouch and we also carried some in our haversacks. We also were issued with bandoleers. We came back to England together. A lifeboat took us out to a whaler; I was pulled up by the arse of my britches into it. We were taken out to a Destroyer. (HMS Codrington D65). We was attacked by aircraft and shelled from shore batteries but was not hit. I had my pockets and kit full of ammunition; I couldn’t bear to see things go to waste. There was ammo all around on the beach that is how I picked it up. I had this bloody tip mentality in those days. I couldn’t bear to see anything lying around and not being picked up. I picked a lovely hairbrush set that had been thrown away. So I had all this ammo on me which was gratefully received by the crew of the Codrington. They needed it for their guns; they had ammo for their big guns but were short of the smaller stuff.

    Cheers
    Paul
     
  17. i enjoyed reading that
     
  18. Gillyches

    Gillyches Junior Member

    How wonderful! It is only because of our fathers and/or grandfathers being willing to talk about their experiences that we know some of the more intimate details of the 'sharp end' of the war in any detail. My own father thankfully wrote down his memories a few years before he died...although it was AFTER he died that I found and read them. I posted in a separate post about his book, just released, 'Of Stirlings and Stalags: an air-gunner's tale' if anyone is interested. It is so wonderful that people are realising that the stories of these veterans must be preserved for posterity...thank you for sharing.
     

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