Description
Object description
British gunner served with 1/5th Bn, Durham Light Infantry (54th Searchlight Regt) and 54th Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery in GB and North West Europe, 1939-1946
Content description
REEL 1 Recollections of background in Stockton on Tees, 1922-1939: family background and social circumstances; recreations; education; Boy Scouts activities; work as messenger boy and storeman at Imperial Chemical Industries, 1936-1939; background to recruitment to 411 Bty, 1/5th Bn, Durham Light Infantry (54th Searchlight Regt) at Norton, Stockton on Tees, ca 8/1939; call up, 9/1939. Recollections of conditions of service and lifestyle during periods with 1/5th Bn, Durham Light Infantry (54th Searchlight Regt) and 54th Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery at Hutton Hall, Malton, Driffield, Carnaby, Cornwall, Wales, and Yeovil, 1939-1944: officers; state of uniforms and kit; collecting huts.
REEL 2 Continues: initial tent accommodation; food rations and daily routine; recreations; relationship with civilians; relationship with ORs, officers and NCOs; arrival of personnel from Army Territorial Service; move to Driffield; training on sound locator and operating searchlight; question of German air raids and attack on Driffield airfield; night training exercises; ineffectiveness of searchlight equipment.
REEL 3 Continues: stand to at night and speed of response; routine duties and maintenance of searchlight; relationship with farmers; refusal of promotion; introduction of radar guidance system and automated 150-cm searchlights; pattern of converging searchlights on German aircraft; size of Allied bombing raids setting off for Germany; mines training in Cornwall; move to Wales; leave.
REEL 4 Continues: move to Yeovil area. Various aspects of operations in France, Belgium and Germany, 1944-1945: embarkation and Channel crossing; disembarkation via landing craft at Arromanches, Normandy, ca 8/1944; move inland; story of mines and booby traps near gun site on beach; story of radar contact and illuminating aircraft brought down; move to gun site at Knock, Netherlands; discovery of German mini-submarine on beach; question of Belgian civilians treatment of collaborators; question of 'artificial moonlight'; move to Louvain; US troops retreating during German Ardennnes offensive, 12/1944; personal morale; move into Germany; period guarding displaced persons camp at Osterode; relationship with German civilians and question on non-fraternisation; role guarding various displaced persons and German POW camps.
REEL 5 Continues: role guarding German POW camp; relationship with German POWs; recreations; relationship with US troops; question of black market; relationship with German civilians; accommodation; move to Cuxhaven; journey back to GB on leave and VJ Day celebrations, 15/8/1945. Return to GB and demobilisation, 1946. Post-war career: acclimatisation to civilian lifestyle; service on radar sets with RA Territorial Army unit; aspects of war service.