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Category: Community
Forum: Chat Room
Thread: On this Day |
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Thread Status: Locked Total posts in this thread: 716
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 9th August 1945
This day, almost exactly, I and some others moved to Melle, a small village on the Brusselsche Steenweg outside Ghent to join 225 Field Ambulance in 3rd (British) Division. This was a Div. we had not heard mentioned before, but it was the spearhead div. in the landing of XXX Corps in Normandy and suffered heavy casualties, especially in operation Charnwood. Apparently it only got as far as Belgium because General George "Blood and guts" Patton had purloined most of the available transport and fuel. No doubt, they were also under strength because of the discharge of group 1. Nevertheless, the fighting seemed to be over, so why did we need reinforcements? The answer was not long in coming, but meanwhile we could only make apprehensive guesses. We arrived at Melle to find most of the villagers dancing in the streets. As soon as we could get our kit off, we happily joined them. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 10th August 1945
I had a very comfortable billet chez van Anderlecht. Miijnheer said, “Faites comme chez vous,” equivalent to the French, « Faites-vous à la maison, » Soon we were talking to each other in different varieties of French, and understanding each other fairly well. He was an electrical engineer and the local cinema projectionist. He was also the local fire chief and chairman of the district council. What seemed strange at the time was that he had simultaneously been chief of both the resistance movement and the collaborationists. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Saturday, 11th August 1945
It was time for me to abandon the pleasant and lazy life for at least part of the day, so I went off to the M.I. (medical inspection) room to see if a volunteer was wanted there. The M.O. was pleased to have an orderly with some medical knowledge, at least during sick parade. This left me with rest of the day to get acquainted with the van Anderlechts |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sunday, 12th August 1945 After sick parade the M.O. introduced me to the Education Officer, who had a second job for me. He showed me a dispatch from ABCA (the Army Bureau of Current Affairs) which the War Office had set up to prepare soldiers in advance for civilian life. I was to be the unit instructor and received a one day cadre course for this purpose. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Aug 12, 2009 9:13:33 AM] |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Monday, 13th August 1945
For my first session I introduced myself and steered the discussion to the subject of “The Newspapers,” which was at that time the only medium of information. The general opinion was that the press was political – The Times, for example, was Tory. This had been near to the truth for about ten years, because that organ was dedicated to giving the world the government opinion, and we had had an all party, or Nationalist, Tory dominated, coalition for many years. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Tuesday, 14th August 1945
I could now listen to the Forces Programme of the B.B.C. and reacquaint myself with the antics of Tommy Handley in ITMA (It’s That Man Again). Vera Lynne had left Ambrose’s Orchestra and was very much the star in her own programme. Big orchestras were now becoming scarce, being replaced by smaller bands like Oscar Rabin, who had a cute little girl as a vocalist. Her name was Petula (“Pet”) Clarke. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Wednesday, 15th August 1945
HQ 3rd (Br.) Div. had leased a local theatre in Ghent for two or three days to put on a show for the whole of the division. There was nothing memorable about the show. We did appreciate it, as stage shows were pretty rare; not as rare as bananas, however - none of us had seen one for five years, but now one performer walked on stage and took one out of his handkerchief pocket, unzipped it, took a bite and zipped it up again, putting it back in the same pocket apparently untouched. We had been expecting an explanation of our presence here in Belgium, and now it came. A senior member of the Div., (probably the Forward Observation Officer who, having no other function, was now the P.R.O.,) gave us full details of a cancelled strategic plan. Together with a Canadian Division and an Australian one, we would have formed the British Empire Corps of the Allied army of invasion of Japan in Operation Downfall. What was the rest of Plan B? He did not reveal that, but I learnt later, from other sources, that they had scheduled troop planes to the Far East and Australian troops were already fighting there. However the Japanese surrendered today, so the war was now over.. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Thursday, 16th August 1945
The Mobile NAAFI (Navy, Army and Air Forcr Institute) had now caught up with and we could have scented soap, minty toothpaste and other civilised products. According to my mates, I had been smoking "Three Nuns" (nun yesterday, nun today and nun tomorrow) and now my pipe would no longer be empty.. I had almost bitten through the stem of my old Peterson pipe, and there was no prospect of a new one, so I started to fashion a new mouthpiece by whittling a groove in the old stem.. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Friday, 17th August 1945 Many of the lads turned up to this morning's discussion with their hair shiny and plastered back under their hats like Brylcreem boys - our name for the advertising models who appeared to be R.A.F. members. Actually there was quite a selection of military headwear among us, as we had come from many different units and had not been re-equipped.. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
..
Saturday, 18th August 1945 The first weekend of peace had arrived and suddenly we had nothing to do. During the week I had my discussions to keep me occupied. Now I asked Jos. Waegermans if there was anything I could do about the house and he suggested I help him drill for a water pump. He had already drilled as far down as he had expected the water table to be and now needed to extend it a foot ot two. He then fed a pipe and filter down the hole and attached an electric pump to the top, connected it to the electricity supply and the water pipes and now he had running water ! |
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