Interview with Wilfred Snowball

British sapper and NCO served with 388th Coy, 47th (Durham Light Infantry) Anti-Aircraft Bn, Royal Engineers in GB, 4/1938-8/1940; NCO served with 388th Bty, 47th (Durham Light Infantry) Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery, 43rd Anti-Aircraft Bde and 57th Light Anti-Aircraft Bde, 7th Anti-Aircraft Div in GB, 8/1940-1/1942; served with 366th Bty, 112th (Durham Light Infantry) Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery, 5th, 61st and 45th Anti-Aircraft Bdes, 9th Anti-Aircraft Div and 3rd Anti-Aircraft Group in GB, 1/1942-7/1943; served with 366th Bty, 112th (Durham Light Infantry) Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery, XII Corps in GB and Normandy, France, 7/1943-8/1944; served with Corps of Military Police in GB and North West Europe, 1944-1946

REEL 1 Recollections of background in Sunderland, GB, 1919-1939: family and social circumstances; education; membership of Boy Scouts; employment as butcher with Co-Operative Society shop, 1933-1936; work as apprentice fitter with gas company, 1936-1939. Recollections of period as sapper and NCO with 388th Coy, 47th (Durham Light Infantry) Anti-Aircraft Bn, Royal Engineers in GB, 4/1938-8/1940: background to recruitment to battalion, 4/1938; attending drill nights and weekend training at Livingstone Road Drill Hall, Sunderland; role as aircraft spotter; kitting out; composition and establishment of unit; role of searchlight crew. REEL 2 Continues: further details of role as aircraft spotter; nature of searchlight; weekend camps; annual camp in Middlesbrough area, 8/1938; initial role as officer's servant at Hornby Castle; introduction of sound locators; mobilisation to Catterick, 31/8/1939; role as homing beacon for aircraft; routine duties as officer' servant and rations; promotion to lance corporal and move to company headquarters at Gatherley Castle, 1940. Recollections of period as NCO with 388th Bty, 47th (Durham Light Infantry) Searchlight Regt, Royal Artillery, 43rd Anti-Aircraft Bde and 57th Light Anti-Aircraft Bde, 7th Anti-Aircraft Div in GB, 8/1940-1/1942: promotion to sergeant after attending physical training course, 7/1941; attending anti-gas course, 6/1941; stories of escorting military prisoners; weapons training role; composition of company headquarters. REEL 3 Continues: role training conscript drafts; role finding anti-aircraft guns sites; relations with civilians; living conditions; role as homing beacon for aircraft; introduction of sound locators; stand to on searchlights; leave; nature of infantry training; infantry weapons and anti-aircraft role of Lewis Gun. Recollections of period as NCO with 366th Bty, 112th (Durham Light Infantry) Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery, 5th, 61st and 45th Anti-Aircraft Bdes, 9th Anti-Aircraft Div, 3rd Anti-Aircraft Group and XII Corps in GB, 1/1942-6/1944: training on Bofors Gun at Buxton and Stiffkey; organisation of unit; living conditions; crew training on and nature of Bofors Gun. REEL 4 Continues: Bofors Gun site on The Solent; pattern of unit movements; story of Bofors Gun on hotel roof unable to depress enough to fire on German Air Force low-level air attack at Brighton; German Air Force bomb damage; period at Royal Tunbridge Wells; sight of German V1 Flying Bomb, 6/1944; question of preparations for D-Day; waterproofing vehicles; reception from civilians on passing through London, 6/1944. Recollections of operations as NCO with 366th Bty, 112th (Durham Light Infantry) Light Anti-Aircraft Regt, Royal Artillery, XII Corps in Normandy, France, 6/1944-8/1944: embarkation and silence observed during crossing of English Channel, 24/6/1944-25/6/1944; Compo rations; landing from landing craft at Juno Beach, Normandy, 25/6/1944; personal morale; move inland to initial gun site in Caen area; letter contact with GB; story of narrow escape from German Air Force aircraft and Bofors Gun fire; reserve infantry role in line at Tilly-sur-Seulles including reaction to being under fire and casualty. REEL 5 Continues: personal morale during period on reserve infantry role in line at Tilly-sur-Seulles; background to leaving unit and question of posting to Corps of Military Police, 8/1944. Recollections of period as NCO with Corps of Military Police in GB and North West Europe, 8/1944-2/1946: training at Aldershot Garrison; guard duties on docks at Liverpool; prevalence of stealing in docks at Liverpool; role supervising embarkations and disembarkation of soldiers on leave at Calais, France; relations with soldiers; war damage in Calais, France; relations with French civilians; casualties from accidental Royal Air Force bombing, 27/2/1945; move to Hamburg, Germany, 5/1945; hospitalisation with psychological problems; situation; question of non-fraternisation policy; VE Day, 8/5/1945. Aspects of demobilisation procedure in GB, 1946: demobilisation, 2/1946; medical and question of continuing psychological problems; prior appendicitis operation; disability pension; war gratuity; problems in acclimatising to civilian life.