Description
Object description
British signaller served with 144th Field Regt (Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry Queen Mary's), Royal Artillery in GB, 3/1939-6/1940; signaller and NCO served with 531st (Glamorgan) Coastal Regt, Royal Artillery at The Mumbles in GB, 1940-1941; officer cadet at School of Coast Artillery, Royal Artillery, Plymouth, GB, 1941; officer served with 19th (Kent and Sussex) Coastal Regt, Royal Artillery at Dover, GB, 1941-1942; served with 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div in GB, Sicily, Italy and during Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 1942-1944; prisoner of war in Oflag 79, Waggum, Germany, 9/1944-4/1945
Content description
REEL 1 Background in Chichester, GB, 1922-1939: family; education; employment; sporting activities. Aspects of period as signaller with 144th Field Regt (Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry Queen Mary's), Royal Artillery in GB, 3/1939-6/1940: awareness of situation in Europe in 1930s; joining yeomanry, 3/1939; learning Morse Code; attending summer camp; amusing story of guard duty after being mobilised, 9/1939; description of uniform worn; move to cricket ground in Hove; posting to holding unit on mobilisation of unit for Egypt, 6/1940. Aspects of period as signaller and NCO with 531st (Glamorgan) Coastal Regt, Royal Artillery at Mumbles, GB, 1940-1941: attitude to not being allowed to undertake overseas service; battery positions; promotion to bombardier; invasion scare, 9/1940; opening fire on German Air Force aircraft; deployment of battery; relations with reservists; attitude to army life. Aspects of period as officer cadet at School of Coast Artillery, Royal Artillery, Plymouth, GB, 1941: selection procedure; rescue work during German Air Force raids; advantage of lacking imagination.
REEL 2 Continues: commissioning and course syllabus; celebrating nineteenth birthday, 10/5/1941. Aspects of period as officer with 519th (Kent and Sussex) Coastal Regt, Royal Artillery at Dover, GB, 1941-1942: posting to Dover; harbour defences; incident of being under fire from German coastal batteries in France; inability to fire back at attacking German Air Force aircraft; German shelling of Dover; conditions on Western Pier; attitude to service at Dover. Aspects of period as officer with 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div in GB and French Algeria, 1942-1943: posting to unit to command reconnaissance platoon; amusing story of taking first parade; lack of infantry training on joining unit; role of airlanding troops; volunteering for parachute course; colour blindness test for paratroopers; flight to France in aircraft dropping leaflets; jumping from balloon; ground training; night parachute jumps from Armstrong Whitworth Whitley aircraft; breaking ankle on parachute jump; voyage from GB to French Algeria, 1943. Recollections of operations as officer with 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div in Sicily, Italy, 7/1943: amusing story of orders to rejoin unit; personnel present in his glider.
REEL 3 Continues: casting off of glider; making way to bridge; attempt to hold captured bridge; loss of batman to aritllery fire; orders to surrender; ambush on prisoner of war column by British Army patrol; retaking of bridge; hospitalisation for bad sunburn on return to North Africa; nature of fighting at bridge; award of Military Cross for capture of bridge; uniform worn during landings; taking over Mortar Platoon; mortar crew. Aspects of operations as officer with 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div in Italy, 9/1943-11/1943: landings at Taranto; German reconnaissance patrol passing through lines; collision during return voyage to GB, 12/1943. Aspects of period as officer with 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div in GB, 12/1943-9/1944: discovery of open map on table on taking over new accommodation; flight in Royal Air Force Avro Lancaster; training casualties and route marches.
REEL 4 Continues: training with Airspeed Horsa Glider; entry and exiting gliders; use of parachute smock; reaction to not being involved in D-Day and abortive operations. Recollections of operations as officer with Mortar Platoon, 2nd (Airborne) Bn South Staffordshire Regt, 1st Airlanding Bde, 1st Airborne Div during Operation Market Garden, Netherlands, 9/1944: opinion of Operation Market Garden and General Bernard Montgomery's planning; lack of preparations for operation; glider flight and landing, 17/9/1944; orders to make reconnaissance on motorcycle; march of mortar platoon into outskirts of Arnhem; inability to use mortars in built-up area; reasons for confused fighting; move forward with signaller and sight of dead German Army officer; rejoining battalion headquarters; capture by German forces after positions overrun; danger of surrendering; making gesture towards German propaganda photographer on march to railway station. Recollections of period prisoner of war in Oflag 79, Waggum, Germany, 9/1944-4/1945: arrival in camp, 9/1944; description of camp; attitude of older prisoners of war; Allied air activity; camp entertainment and method of distributing news; sleeping arrangements.
REEL 5 Continues: rations; physical effects of incarceration; coping with winter conditions, 1944-1945; behaviour of guards; liberation and return to GB, 4/1945; amusing story of medical inspection on return to GB; return to Royal Artillery; demobilisation, 1946; attitude to service in Second World War; story of how he was identified in photograph after capture at Arnhem, Netherlands.