The first eight months was rightly called the Phoney War.   Apart from a few patrols along the German border with never a bomb dropped or shot fired life went on in a peaceful way.   Duties were not onerous, the rate of exchange was in our favour and we could visit Rheims an hour away by truck.   I was given a week’s home leave in April and a couple of weeks after my return the real war started.

On 10^th May I awoke at 4.30 am to the sound of airplane engines.   Knowing they were not from our Squadron I climbed down the stable ladder to have a look.  Dawn was just breaking and I saw a plane with a black cross at a height of about 200 feet.     Racing back to my bunk a grabbed my rifle.   Taking a shot at a plane overhead I quickly threw myself behind a low wall when I saw I figure dressed in black swing a machine gun in my direction,    As bullets thudded into the wall I had the crazy thought “If you fire at them they fire back”

                    Firing Squad

 Four days into the German attack 20 of us were told to jump into a lorry and as there had been reports of two parachutists dropping in the area.     Taken to a wooded area a few miles from the village a young Officer lined us up and told us to move through the wood keeping about 15 feet apart.       I was on the left of the line and, as the wood became very dense, soon lost sight of the man on my right.   I eventually came to a small track and followed it up a slight rise.     I soon came to an open area and looked down on a small village a couple of miles away.     I had lost all sense of direction so I hoped to be able to get directions from someone in the village.   Just before I entered the village a dozen men appeared from behind a cow shed beside the road.    One had a blunderbuss, two with shotguns, two with rifles that I think dated from the Napoleonic wars and the rest had farm implements including pitchforks.   They quickly grabbed my rifle and I made no attempt to stop them fearing I would be shot.     The man with the blunderbuss was very aggressive and kept calling out “Boche, boche”       My schoolboy French had improved considerably so I was able to explain who was but nobody believed me.      In desperation I pulled out a packet of Players cigarettes and found an Underground ticket from the time I had been on leave in England.     This made no difference the man with the blunderbuss saying the Germans were clever at having some English articles to help cover their identity.    I felt relieved when a policeman arrived but he made matters worse.     After asking a few questions he pushed me against the wall of the cow shed, lined up the men with the weapons about 20 feet from me and said “we’ll shoot him”.

The strange thing is I felt no fear.    All I could think of was that if they didn’t report it I would be listed by the RAF as a deserter and my family would never know what happened to me.    The policeman raised his hand obviously with the intention of giving the order to fire.   He was stopped by the arrival of an elderly white haired man who proved to be the Maire (Mayor),     He berated them saying it would be a simple matter to check my story.    I was escorted to his house by the armed men who were muttering that I should be shot as I was obviously a German.    Checking my story proved not to be as simple as the Maire had thought.     The Squadron was not of course on any telephone directory but somehow, despite the chaotic telephone system made worse by the way the war was going, after two hours of being directed to various people he did make contact.      The Maire’s questions as to my RAF number, names of friends, name of the C.O, etc. was obviously at the direction of whoever he was speaking to from the Squadron.      The Maire put the phone down, smiled at me and asked if I would like a cup of coffee.     It was a further 3 hours before the young Officer who had been in charge of the operation arrived.     I tried to explain what had happened and the danger I had been in but he angrily told me to be quiet and I would be charged with failing to carry out orders.      I heard no more about it.    I think he realised that by not reporting me missing he would be in trouble for not checking that everyone had returned from the operation.

Despite all that happened over the next 5 years the episode remains my strongest memory.

Chaos for the next few days with many of our planes shot down and the airfield constantly bombed by Stukas.   We were then told to get ready to move.   Waiting in the dark on the sixth night for transport we could hear the sound of artillery and the machine gun fire so we knew the Germans were getting close.

We hopped from field to field for the next five weeks with the Luftwaffe bombing us on every move and as we arrived at our destination.    Few supplies reached us and we were often reduced to eating bully beef and biscuits,   Britain’s unpreparedness was obvious when we saw these came from boxes dated 1917.   Lack of ammunitions restricted our flying with the few planes we had.   We eventually reached the coast and were lucky enough to find a ship 0n 18^th June.   Arriving in Plymouth we found it had been announced that the last of our troops had been evacuated on 4^th June.    This of couse had caused my family to believe I was either dead or a prisoner of war.

Despite my experience I volunteered again for overseas service hoping to get to the Middle East but it was not until October 1941 that I was sent to Iceland where the RAF was engaged in anti-U Boat patrols.   Six months total darkness in the winter and six months permanently light in the summer I was glad to leave in December 1942 with the promise of starting conversion training from Air Gunner to Pilot.      After a few weeks a medical examination showed my eyesight was not up to standard and I was told I could no longer fly in any capacity (some years later it was found to be a temporary condition due to a touch of snow blindness but by then I had made other plans).

Having been relegated to a desk job I did some crazy things including losing my rank of Sergeant in order to take a more active part in the war.   A spell on Flying Control when I managed to do some flying despite the ban was not enough.      The RAF was well on top of the Luftwaffe and so when a call went out for volunteers to transfer to the Army I did so and joined the Grenadier Guards.