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Content description
A brief ts memoir (15pp, 2008) written in response to questions posed by his son, about his life as an accountant in the early days of the war, knowing that war was coming as Jewish clients in Europe started moving their money out through his firm, the effects of war on him before his enlistment in March 1940, after basic training in Troon being posted to a battalion of the Highland Light Infantry, stationed in Southend (June 1940), working for the quartermaster and sorting pay, moving with the Battalion HQ to Billericay (October 1940), applying for work with wireless receivers, a short course at Northampton Polytechnic, a course on general electronics leading to maintenance of Radio Location (later radar) at Borough Polytechnic (now the Southbank University), witnessing Blitz bombing (April 1941), being sent to Arborfield, near Sandhurst, the Headquarters of the new Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME), back to the civilian college to act as an assistant Instructor to the civilian staff, promoted to Armament Staff Sergeant, billeted on his cousin in Beckenham, his return to Army work with radar in Cheltenham and Derby, moving to Glasgow for a shortened university course (September – December 1941), his move to a wireless and radar repair workshop in Totten, near Southampton, being posted to Bovington, Dorset, repairing radios from a tank landing exercise in Lyme Bay, sailing to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to join a REME workshop, moving to Nigeria to join the 81st West African Divisional Workshop, with details of staff, sailing to India via a short stay in South Africa, his unit no longer being a part of the West African Division and renamed the 1006th (WA) Mobile Workshop in the 14th Army, based on the coast half way between the Arakan Burmese frontier and Chittagong, being equipped with a wireless repair lorry with all the testing gear and some spare parts and components, preparing and tuning new portable transceivers for parachuting into the jungle, the bad climate for electrical equipment, moving to Karvetnarga, Madras (December 1944), waterproofing radios, VJ Day, journey home to demob (March 1946) and return to civilian life, with additional details about following news of the war, hearing about the end of the war, and relations with the African Soldiers and civilians in India.
History note
Cataloguer SJO
