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ENGLAND
On June 1, 1943 the S. S. Mariposa docked at Liverpool. We crowded the ship’s rail and threw cigarettes and souvenir American coins to British troops on the dock, who scrambled breakneck style after them. British officers stood looking on with apparent interest and approval. Somewhere a band (probably a recording) was playing “Roll Out the Barrel”. The heavy “B” barracks bags were brought up from the ship’s hold and distributed to each man. Once again the battalion was divided for train movement.
Air Corps troops had been disembarking since our arrival, but our first group moved along the decks and down the gangplank at 1430 hours, the other group three hours later. British soldiers took the “B” bags at the foot of the gangplank and threw them into waiting lorries, as we fell into formation on the dock. We had scarcely taken our positions when we had our first taste of English weather, -- a soaking rain hit us! We stood in formation and looked at the ship that had brought us over, saw the great size of her, the solid gray hulk towering beside the dock in the rain. We waited for a long time and we weren’t getting any dryer; finally we started. We marched away from the docks, through the streets of Liverpool in the English rain that we got to know so well, while the people along the sidewalks looked at us unconcernedly as they went about their business. We marched in silence, looking over our new surroundings; drab buildings, shops, and gaping holes where buildings had stood before the air raids. Liverpool was not a distinguished-looking city; it was a war city that had been hard hit by the Luftwaffe. Much of the glass was gone from the railway station roof, but the steel trusses were intact. The station advertising placards: “Players Please”, “Abdullah”, “Hovis” were strange to us, as were the English trains with the separate compartments, the small engines and their shrill whistles. We climbed aboard and started on our way.
The rain clouds lifted, the sun shone brightly, and in the late afternoon and evening the rolling Midland country was green and beautiful. The ride was long and by late evening it was dark and we rode in darkness except for the “cats-eye” slit of the ceiling light which threw a strip of dim light across our laps. We had been cautioned to draw all blinds. The fact that we were in a country that was part of the battlefield of Europe began to impress us.
At dawn we arrived at a tiny English village in Essex, called Halstead. The station must have modelled for the one in “Mrs. Miniver”, for the little picket fence, the gate and the roses seemed almost familiar. Officers and men of the 816th Engineer Aviation Battalion were waiting with trucks to take us some three or four miles to an old English estate at Gosfield. The old manor house dated back to the Norman Conquest, but successive generations had added to the original part until the result was an architectural hodge-podge. The little chapel, which stood at the end of a tree-shaded lane, had fared better and retained a great deal of its original beauty. Lawns and formal gardens sloped from the front of the house down to a lake which had swans swimming on it in regular storybook style. There were even a couple of cast-iron deer standing in the park, just to complete the picture.
Breakfast was waiting for us, and it put new life in us for the moment. H & S, A and B Companies were assigned to corrugated metal Nissen huts, which had been built by the 816th, while C Company was temporarily assigned tents. There were a few hours sleep for us and the rest of the day was used to put huts and tents in order.
Gosfield was to be a full-scale bomber field. The basic design for the bomber fields in Great Britain was an English plan, made by the RAF, which had been approved by the Eighth Air Force for American use. The airfield pattern was that of three intersecting runways, one 6000 feet and two of 4200 feet, all of them 140 feet wide. Connecting the ends of all runways was a 50-foot taxiway upon which were sufficient loops and scallops to provide parking sites for 50 bombers. All of this construction was 12-inch concrete slab, laid directly on a graded base in the heavy clay soil of Essex.
Immediately adjacent to the runways was the Technical Site, containing all the shops and repair buildings and one or two hangars of 113' x 240'. These hangars were of English design and manufacture, of cold-rolled steel sections bolted together. The 113-foot span was a 3-hinged arch. The roof and side walls were covered with black corrugated steel. At varying distances from the Technical Site there were the other functional parts of the airfield,-- the Administrative Site containing the Operations Block and the Station Headquarters Building, the Sick Quarters Site, the Communal or Recreational Site, the Mess Sites containing mess halls for officers and men, and some five or six Living Sites. Each of these Living Sites provided corrugated-steel, curved-roof Nissen huts for between 400 and 450 men, living 16 men to a hut which was 16 feet wide and 30 feet long. Each Living Site had its own showers and toilet facilities. Water was supplied by a single large storage tank, camouflaged by the trees as well as possible, and filled from local water mains. Sewage was treated in a small sewage treatment plant at each airfield, -- two circular beds of chemical coke with revolving trickle arms above them.
At the time of our arrival the 816th Battalion had cleared the trees and graded for the runways, had built some of the Nissen huts, and had made good progress in pouring concrete on the runways. The entire project was approximately 45% complete at that time. Under the general administration of Eastern Base Section we were to work with the 816th Battalion, continuing the construction of the Nissen huts, installing the light, water and sewage systems, and, as soon as another paving mixer arrived, to assist in pouring runways, taxiways and hardstands.
The work was assigned by companies: A Company installed water lines and erected Nissen huts, B Company installed the sewers and did most of the brick ends in the Nissen huts. C Company poured concrete floors for Nissen huts and worked with an English civilian contractor installing the underground electrical work, H & S Company did the rest of the clearing and grubbing work, graded sites for hardstands and constructed the two petrol installations.
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| Capt Reed and S-4 staff -- Chipping Ongar |
When we left this country we had no idea of doing any brickwork, so had not trained any men for that job. A check-up showed that one of the cooks, a truck-driver and a carpenter had laid brick at one time or other, so we put them in charge of the brickwork. There was no time for practice, the schoolwork was actual construction and consequently some of the first work was rough! But by the end of our year in England we had fifty to sixty reasonably good bricklayers.
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| 34E Paver -- Warton |
Upon the arrival of a second 34E paver, C Company started pouring concrete hardstands and roads. For the concrete we used a pit-run aggregate for both fine and coarse aggregate, trucked from English gravel banks in civilian trucks. The cement was also of English manufacture and came from plants south of London by truck and trailer. Normally straw was available for curing, and our main problem was to find enough water to keep it wet during the summer. We poured concrete six days a week, 20 hours per day, the one shift from 4 A.M. to 2 P.M., and the second shift from 2 P.M. until midnight. The clean-up crew worked on the mixer from midnight until 4 A.M. We had our air-raid warning system telephoned to the guard near the mixer, so that all lights could be cut upon the approach of enemy planes.
The English Air Ministry assigned a Project Engineer to each field, also a representative of an English construction company who ordered materials for us, and some trained technicians to install transformers, make underground cable connections, install the petrol pumps, and a few other special items. Everything else was done by our men.
Against the background of construction work were changes in administrative control, transfer of officers and enlisted personnel, visits by officers of higher commands, and the addition of ten hours training per week for all troops of the battalion. The steady round of inspections began, covering military discipline, neatness, conservation of food, care of tools, maintenance of motor vehicles, but only slight attention was paid to construction procedure, efficiency or quality. You learned to report to an inspecting officer in the prescribed manner; you shaved regularly and kept your hair cut; you wore the proper uniform; you scrubbed your hut and shined your shoes and wore the finish off your mess kit. They were making spit-and-polish boys out of us again. Many of us had been under the impression that what we termed the “chicken” of Army life had been left behind in the States; at this time we hadn’t learned the half of it. Apropos of anything, there was the right way, the wrong way, and the Army way. On the whole we did things the Army way.
Early in September the 843rd Battalion was assigned to the 922nd Engineer Aviation Regiment, of which Colonel Park was commanding officer. An intensive campaign was maintained against waste of food. “Take all you want, but eat all you take!”, was rigorously enforced. Mess councils were established to discuss items on the menu, methods of food preparation and assist the battalion surgeon, the company mess officers and mess sergeants.
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| Training Day |
Even with the heavy construction program at Gosfield it was necessary to include some training, although it was only a small part of the work week. Two companies trained on Fridays and two on Saturdays. Twelve-mile hikes through the English countryside were mild compared to the 25-milers at McChord. Continuation of retreat parades at 1830 hours produced griping by many, but they soon became an accepted part of the daily routine. These were long days in England, -- from 0530 hours to 1830 hours, but it was generally realized that hard work and long hours would be, in a large measure, our contribution to the victory.
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| Foxholes |
There were air raids in nearby vicinities, but thus far they had not touched us. One night when enemy raiders, having dropped incendiary and antipersonnel bombs on adjacent localities, flew directly over our field, and in our eagerness to see we stood in the moonlit company streets gaping at the sky, watching the searchlight shafts as they followed the course of the planes. A report of damage and casualties at other fields came via the grapevine the next day and the following training day found us digging fox-holes near the Nissen huts.
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| Aero Club at Gosfield |
Air raids only temporarily interrupted an evening’s work or pleasure, however. Dances were held every Wednesday night in the Aero Club on the field, girls being brought from nearby towns in battalion trucks. Two buses were run nightly, one to Braintree and another to Halstead. Both towns had cinemas, pubs, and the ATS and WLA, with whom many short and long-lived romances ran the gamut of affection. Special Services equipment: boxing gloves, baseball and volleyball equipment, were readily available in every company day room. Films were shown at the battalion theater, a large Nissen hut, twice a week. 1350 shows were staged every two weeks. On the 30th of June Bob Hope, Frances Langford and company put on their show for us. The long evenings during the summer season were ideal for baseball, and the battalion team made a creditable showing in the Engineer’s League, starting in mid-season to win ten games and lose three. The English turned out to watch practice and regular game sessions; the kids would take over after the game to learn a few pointers on the American national sport in exchange for some brief instruction which they gave us on cricket.
T/Sgt. Kermit L. Johnson and T/4 Allan Jackson of H & S Company joined a dance band organized by the 816th Engineer Aviation Battalion with Jackson on the bass and Johnson playing trumpet and doing all the arrangements. The band soon gained a fine reputation and played for all the battalion’s dances and parties.
In the small local pubs of Gosfield, Halstead and Braintree we were introduced to “mild and bitters”. It took some coaching to down the first few, -- the stuff was warm and flat! But it wasn’t long until we were drinking it right along with the local citizens, who stopped in at the pubs after work for a drink, a game of darts, or some friendly conversation. Transportation to nearby towns was by G.I. truck, double-decker bus or bicycle. The terrain of the surrounding country made cycling a favorite means of getting around and many of us bought English bicycles.
September 15th B Company, with about twenty men and one officer from H & S, were moved to Great Dunmow, about fifteen miles west of Gosfield. Great Dunmow was already operational with B-26 Marauders making daily flights. However, the field was only 80% complete, and required hangar aprons, access roads, two squadron armories, night flying stores building and other Nissen buildings. Company B set up its own tent area, mess hall, and went to work with an enthusiasm that produced fine results.
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| Batch plant at Warton |
On the 6th of October the battalion, less the detachment at Great Dunmow and Company A, was ordered to Chipping Ongar Airdrome, near Chelmsford. This field had been operational since June 1943, but much work remained to be done, some as a result of improper original design and construction. Company A was to remain at Gosfield to continue the work, which was now 82% complete, but one week later this order was changed and on October 14th A Company rejoined the battalion at Chipping Ongar.
Much of the trouble at Chipping Ongar was due to poor drainage and bad mud discipline. C Company was placed in charge of concrete paving and set the mixer up as a batch plant near the end of the runway, H & S started the grading and drainage in the Technical Site. When A Company arrived they were assigned to complete unfinished buildings in the Technical Site.
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| Tent camp |
The battalion personnel was all housed in tents and stayed there throughout the entire winter. Administrative offices, the medical dispensary, company messes and the motor pool were in Nissen huts. The battalion area was a sea of mud and continual rains made mud control a paramount issue. Application of soil cement to the company streets, the parade grounds and other sections used by men or vehicles solved the mud problem in the immediate area, although there was usually a layer of mud covering roads and walks. The tiny village of Willingale Spain was just outside the battalion area and this was usually shortened to only Willingale.
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| Camouflage training |
Training day in the rain, mud and frosty weather was anything but pleasant. Lectures and practical training were held out of doors and covered incendiary fire control, demolitions, mines and booby traps, rigging, and a host of other subjects. Here, too, we had night problems involving compass and map reading, and defense of airdromes against parachute attack. One problem assumed a realistic touch with the use of flares. “Captured” men and others took to the haystacks for protection against the chill air, but were usually routed out into the cold again. Except for occasional moonlight it was always pitch dark at Willingale; blackout everywhere and a fog that blanketed the field at night. Without a flashlight a man was practically lost. Training hikes were of about twelve miles with full equipment. The favorite marching song was, “Gee, but I wanna go; gee, but I wanna go; -- Home!” And in those days home was a pyramidal tent, with concrete slabs for a floor, five cots, a clothes-rack, and a pot-bellied stove. Fires were allowed only between recall from work and taps in order to conserve fuel. A man staying in the area on his off-duty day usually went to the battalion day-room where one fire was permitted. You depended on the tent flaps to keep out the chill night breeze and an occasional gale that struck the battalion area with full force. But you could get a tent plenty hot using the little stove! The trouble was in getting out of bed in the morning, dressing in the cold and getting out for calisthenics before dawn. Retreat parades were held after dark, “saluting the moon”, to the strains of the bugle’s “To The Colors”, while the camp dogs howled an accompaniment.
On cloudy nights throughout the winter we could be almost sure of enemy air raiders. For several weeks in October and again in February and March the raids came nearly every night, and it became a habit to keep your steel helmet within easy reach. You might be falling off to sleep, maybe late at night, or in the early morning you awoke to hear a siren wailing in the distance, and you listened. Perhaps there was only the one siren heard faint in the distance, and you knew it was London again, and too far away yet to worry about getting up in the cold in the dark to scramble for your shoes and whatever clothes you usually pulled on to keep warm in the slit trenches outside. But you listened, and a second wailing broke closer and you could tell by the sound that the planes were nearer; then there was the purple alert, and then the red, and you thought, “Well, here we go again!” Sometimes you just crawled further under the warm blankets, until the night of December 10th when enemy planes in strength attacked Gosfield, Wethersfield, Raydon, Dunmow, Birch and other fields in the vicinity! That night you hit the slit trenches and watched the incendiaries falling in brilliant showers, there was strafing and explosions of heavy bombs and the din of ack-ack, with flak falling like rain on the roof of the big battalion day room. You watched a hundred searchlights stabbing up through the clouds, sometimes eight or ten focusing at one point in the sky, or crisscrossing as they attempted to search out enemy planes. The guns and the rocket battery at Chelmsford were firing and ack-ack was bursting overhead when a plane dived low over the field to escape the searchlight that lit up our area as bright as day, you thought, “Damn, it’s like the 4th of July back home.” The raids would go on for half an hour or perhaps forty-five minutes. For a while it would be quiet, the planes droning off in the distance; with no firing, or maybe intermittent firing and flashes across the sky from rocket bursts or exploding bombs in the distance. You would straighten up; men would crack jokes and cuss the Luftwaffe. Then, when you thought it was over and you could go back to the tent and crawl in the bunk, a second wave would come over. But they seemed to be concentrating on London now. Twenty miles away across the flat country you could see the sky glowing red from fires in London, with rockets going upward into masses of varicolored flares that seemed to hang motionless in the sky. Then there were the multiple explosions of flak bursting like immense fireworks across the sky. From the fields to the north night fighters would whistle by to attack the enemy over London. Usually the enemy planes would circle Chelmsford on their return run, and the Chelmsford guns would send us back into the slit trenches again. Finally, the welcome “All Clear” would sound!
In the Gosfield raid casualties were suffered by the 833rd Engineer Aviation Battalion, which had replaced us on the field. After this raid more stringent air raid regulations were put into effect, though by this time most everybody was willing to fall out on the red alert and take cover. On the 13th of February the enemy dropped a string of incendiaries which landed on the southwest end of the Chipping Ongar runway and in a rough line along the south side of the field. The damage was negligible and the operating efficiency of the field was not affected. Great Dunmow was hit twice by small H.E. bombs. The first time the bombs struck in open fields and on the second raid they did minor damage to an outlying radar installation. On one such raid a plane attempted to land on the field. As it swooped in for a landing every gun on the field opened up. The pilot gave the ship full throttle, pulling rapidly out of range. When the plane landed at a nearby field a few minutes later it was found to be a night-fighter Mosquito, piloted by a RCAF flyer who that night had been credited with shooting down three enemy planes!
The air raids of the winter of 1943-44 were more spectacular than effective, however, and work everywhere went on as usual. Company B at Great Dunmow had been hampered by shortages of material, bad weather and insufficient manpower, yet despite these factors the work assigned was completed on schedule. One of the main projects was the pouring of more than 1660 cubic yards of concrete. A wing headquarters building was constructed, the group briefing room installed, perimeter track and hardstands camouflaged, three mess halls completed and additional petrol facilities installed. The petrol installation involved the laying of a pipe line over a mile in length, so that petrol could be pumped to the field rather than be delivered by trucks. Although this was a new type of construction for the company, one squad installed the line and made the necessary connections in twenty-four hours. In addition to the regularly assigned work on the field the company built facilities for a nearby QM depot, also a tent camp and mess hall for a prison stockade.
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| Resurfacing taxiway -- Chipping Ongar |
At Willingale resurfacing of the concrete perimeter track with 2 ½ inches of hot-mix asphalt proved to be a difficult job. The material was mixed in a central plant at Andrews Field, operated by H & S Company of the 922nd Engineer Aviation Regiment, and hauled to Willingale in trucks. Drivers worked all hours of the day and night, through blackout and fog, hauling between the asphalt plant and the job site, a round trip of 36 miles. Difficulty was experienced in having the material arrive at the perimeter track at the correct temperature for laying. Originally, two Barber-Greene asphalt paving machines were furnished for this work, but they were virtually worn out before being placed on the job, and were continually breaking down. It was necessary to spread at least 75 per cent of the material with motor graders and hand rakers. While this method is feasible in warm climates in the summer it is not suitable for low temperatures, and at this time the weather was very cold. But the job was done!
As the airdrome at Willingale was operational, medium bombers were flying one or two missions each day. In the midst of these air operations, yet without interference with the flight schedule, it was necessary to cut several trenches across the main runway for the placing of electrical conduits. These conduits had been omitted when the original pavement had been placed by another unit, now the cutting had to be done, lights installed, the trenches refilled and the concrete replaced. A detailed plan was worked out and each of the companies of the battalion was assigned a portion of the work. At 0700 hours October 20th work began and lasted all that day, the next night and was finally completed about 1200 hours October 21st. Bad weather and the use of the shorter runways helped in the scheduling. Twelve air compressors were used on the job simultaneously for cutting the trenches through the concrete.
On the 5th of January, Company A moved four miles to Matching Green to complete work on that airdrome, leaving H & S and C Companies to finish the work at Chipping Ongar. At Matching Green all personnel were housed in Nissen until the Air Corps arrived. The work to be done was a cross section of all the construction activities on an airfield, -- roads were built, a blister hangar completed, buildings were painted and a petrol installation was built. Sgt. Warren was in charge of building a Parachute Stores building. The dirtiest job of all was the ripping out of existing sewage lines in the Sick Quarters Site and the installation of a new system. This base became operational during Company A’s stay at the airdrome.
As always, when a detachment or company was sent on detached service, two enlisted men of the Medical Section accompanied them and set up a dispensary which was visited at least once a day by the Battalion Surgeon or his assistant. In emergencies the services of the Air Corps surgeons were always available. When the situation warranted the Assistant Surgeon was placed on DS with the company or detachment.
On February 4, 1944 two enlisted men of Company A distinguished themselves and brought credit to the 843rd by an heroic act which they performed while working at Matching Green. Tec 5 George Ondo and Pfc Bernabe H. Jaquez witnessed the crash and burning of a B-17 just beyond the end of the runway. Through their bravery in entering the fiercely burning fuselage they were able to save the lives of the injured and dazed crew members, who would have met a horrible death had it not been for the unusual courage of these two men.
At Willingale we spent our first Christmas overseas. When the holiday season drew near many of the men accepted invitations to visit in British homes, and invitations were extended to British Army units to visit the battalion. On December 6th H & S Company “Adopted” two war orphans through the “Stars and Stripes” War Orphans Fund. Money to finance the sponsorship came from workers at the Willow Run Bomber Plant at Ypsilanti, Michigan, who loaded a plane passing along the assembly line with money “for luck”, and, following the suggestion of one of the workers, sent it to the men of H & S Company. The money was to be spent as the men saw fit, and by unanimous vote they elected to use a good part of the $1,319.69 received for the welfare of these children.
Company C entertained eighty school children at a party on the 18th of December. A few days prior to this, forty men of the battalion had been entertained at an evening party given by an industrial concern in the nearby town of Brentwood. Several British officers were entertained, and ten enlisted men of a British searchlight battery had dinner with Company A on the 21st of December.
At Willingale and Dunmow we were singing “Roll Me Over in the Clover”. Dances at Chelmsford were becoming part of an established off-duty schedule. Southend was discovered, although transportation to Southend and London by bus or train was not always of the best or on schedule. But somehow we usually made it back to camp on time. We would hurry back along the muddy outlying roads of the area and through the cold rain and fog, to check in on the pass, maybe get a cup of coffee from the mess hall, and then to the bunk again.
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| Buckingham Palace |
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| Piccadilly Circus |
Our work in Essex was within a 30-mile radius of London and after we had the work well started we were able to get into the city for a day every week or two. Camera fans and sightseers found Parliament Building, Westminster Abbey, the bridges of the Thames, the Tower of London, St. Paul’s Cathedral and many other famous English landmarks. For night-lifers Piccadilly Circus, Covent Garden and the crowds in Haymarket had a fascination. Wartime restrictions had placed good food at a premium, and the food was usually better in a Red Cross club than in famous English restaurants. A new revue “Strike a New Note”, and the show at the Windmill interested some, while a few saw the International Ballet, heard the London Philharmonic Orchestra, or saw the exhibit of war paintings at the National Gallery of Art. The famous British Museum was closed for the war. For a scotch and soda (with ice) there was at the dispensary at night after work. Sometimes Oddenino’s or the American Bar in the Hotel Carlton, where in the theater in the same hotel building there was the premiere of the movie “For Whom the Bells Toll”.
The bomb damage in London was very spotty, -- there were entire blocks near St. Paul’s that had been completely burned out by the Great Fire, other places there was just an occasional gutted building, or a few windows boarded up. Rubble from damaged buildings had been removed, and streets and sidewalks repaired, though no attempt had been made to rebuild buildings during the war. Many basements of demolished buildings had been waterproofed and filled with water to serve as static water reservoirs in ease of fire.
The American Red Cross saved the day for those on 24-hour pass to London. Well remembered are the “Rainbow Corner”, “Washington”, “Hans Crescent”, “Victory”, “Columbia”, and “Liberty” clubs. For a shilling there was a slender meal, supplemented with coffee and doughnuts; the illuminated jukebox, bringing back poignant memories of times back home; ping pong; a dance; WACs; WAAFs; WRENs; and What Have You; and some time in the early morning, clean white sheets and pillowcases, a bed, -- soft or a board, -- by courtesy of the American Red Cross!
On pass we remembered familiar English expressions. - “Take the tube, Matey, and change at Oxford for Piccadilly Circus”, “Straightaway and to the left, Chum, you cawn’t miss it”, “’Ere’s a taxi, Mister”, “I say, Old Chap!”, “Blimey!”. We were spending a good portion of our money, paying outrageous prices for souvenir items. Somehow money did not seem to mean much over there; but we soon found out how fast a pound note could be reduced to a few shillings or less and with little gained for the spending. But we wanted to see all and do all that we could in the limited free time that we had at our disposal, and we gladly paid. On pass you got off the train at Liverpool Street Station, took the tube to Piccadilly and walked through the crowds and the traffic in the Circus, with the taxis and double-decker buses honking like geese. There were men and women in uniforms of all the Allied nations. You walked through the fog in the streets of London in the night or early morning, while sometimes in the blackness overhead planes were droning and searchlights glowed through the fog. On nights when there was a raid the guns slammed ack-ack high over the city, bright showers of incendiaries cascaded down, with the occasional “clump, clump” of heavy bombs. In the pubs as elsewhere the raids were somewhat ignored, and you stayed until the familiar, “All right, folks. Toime, Toime! We’re closin’ up ’ere now. Toime for a lawst one is all!”
In camp things were often FUBAR or SNAFU or chicken. Work was hard and there were a thousand regulations. Discipline was stern. Our meals often seemed synthetic: powdered eggs, dehydrated potatoes, spam! We had fried chicken on some Sundays; we had fried eggs as a special treat; we even had an attempt at ice cream a few times. We had more shots in the arm, lining up for them we thought we had it rough, but things were a lot rougher elsewhere, and we knew it!
In the spring of 1944 four-day passes were made available, and many took the opportunity for a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Approval of Edinburgh and the Scotch people was unanimous, and for many of us Prince’s Street, Edinburgh Castle, and the Firth of Forth Bridge are happy memories.
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| Convoy |
From Chipping Ongar the battalion was ordered to Western Base Section for work at two Air Depots north of Liverpool in Lancashire. This meant a two-day motor convoy with an overnight bivouac at Lutterworth where we slept in an English staging area, “wigwams with duckboards”. A and B Companies were assigned to work with the 840th Engineer Aviation Battalion at Base Air Depot #1 at Warrington. Company B took over construction of a large airplane parking area, while Company A assumed construction of a motor area. “Seco” asbestos-cement huts, sewers, a post office, machine-records offices and “Thorne” huts.
H & S and C Companies continued north another 40 miles to Base Air Depot #2 at Warton. When our convoy pulled into the prospective living site at Warton the first thing we saw, besides a muddy and debris-cluttered area, was a group of new Nissen huts; the second thing a sprawling, uninviting tent area across the field. “That’s us,” we thought; but not so! Transient Air Corps personnel were moved out of the huts and into the tent area. We immediately set up housekeeping in the new, clean huts. Battalion Headquarters, Company Headquarters, and the Dispensary were moved into new huts, along with most of the men. The medics and some of Company C were moved into pyramidal tents. The mess halls were in brick buildings across the field from the living area.
At Warton Company C was assigned the job of paving the taxiway and installing drainage. Work in living sites was accomplished with Air Corps personnel under supervision of enlisted men from H & S and C Companies. This involved waterproofing and the installation of inner linings of huts, blackouts and clothes racks in asbestos Nissen huts, complete installation of plumbing, sewers and grease traps in ablutions, and mess halls. Construction of three MT sheds for the Air Transport Command was carried out in the same supervisory way. Construction of a motor parking area near our living site was assigned to H & S Company. French drains were installed every 20 feet the full length of the area; crushed rock was used as base course and finish surface of the area.
The constant air traffic, planes flying in and out every day, subjected both runways and taxiways to a pounding that was causing serious failures. The field had originally been built for light British amphibious planes, but necessity had dictated that it be turned over to the United States Air Force.
At the outset the paving job at Warton was delayed for seven days during which time concreting equipment and materials were being collected. Once begun the work progressed smoothly and rapidly. Very minor delays were caused by occasional breakdown of equipment and the waiting for delivery of aggregate from civilian sources. The completion date was set for the 20th of May and on that date all the paving work assigned had been completed and work on the living sites was 90 per cent complete. The Battalion Commander and the organization were commended by the Base Section Engineer, Colonel Shaw, and by other United States Army officials and British engineers for the work accomplished at Warton.
Soon after A and B Companies had arrived at Warrington the 840th Battalion received a new assignment and the companies assumed full responsibility for completing the hardstands. The Air Corps was in great need of these parking facilities, as dozens of heavy bombers were arriving daily from the States as replacements for combat losses and for the constant building up of our air power. Until these hardstands were completed planes were parked along the runways. For the first time Company B took over a full-time paving project. The job was put on a two 10-hour shift, basis, with all other projects being dropped.
Here in Lancashire we had opportunity during off-duty hours to visit towns from Blackpool to Liverpool and Manchester, with Preston, Lytham, St. Annes, Chorley, Wigam and others sandwiched between. A and B Companies saw much of Manchester. In these towns we found an atmosphere much different than that in East Anglia. There was plenty of beer, a little whiskey, dance halls, theaters with vaudeville, movies, a zoo. Blackpool, a middle class vacation resort, took us all by surprize and we enjoyed the amusement park, the Casino, hack rides along the beach, the Palatine Bar, Tower Dance Hall, Winter Gardens and the WAAF who were stationed there in strength, and, for some of us, a training day on the beach along the Irish Sea. Easter Holiday and the crowded trains and pleasure-bent people afforded us an amiable introduction to this holiday resort. The term “Browned off” had a great vogue there, and you will remember the Lancashire way of speech: “look” and “book”, for example, pronounced as is the word “spook”.
Seven weeks at Warton and Warrington afforded us ample opportunity for recuperation from the relative hardships of Willingale. While the London area was alerted practically every night, there were no air raids here. Blackpool had not experienced a raid in three years, having had only one or two alerts in the entire course of the war. There was speedy mail service, towns that were virtually a soldier’s paradise, and always the clean, warm quarters to return to. While stationed at the two bases, Warrington and Warton, the majority of officers and men took advantage of the opportunity to fly in what were then our two largest operational bombers, the Fortress and the Liberator. This section of the country is particularly beautiful from the air, -- the seacoast, Blackpool Tower the rivers, the highlands, the large industrial towns of Manchester and Liverpool, -- all were woven into an interesting pattern from the air.
On the 3rd of May we learned that we had been alerted for overseas movement, as of the 30th of April. The unit was relieved of responsibility for completion of work on the living sites. At this late date our organization had not had the standard training period and there had not been opportunity to put engineer and ordnance equipment into the best running order. The unit had no cryptographers and only two radio operators, neither of whom knew procedure as tactically employed in the Army for organizations of this type.
At 0730 hours on May 22nd the battalion left Warton and Warrington for Matlask, Norwich, stopping overnight again at Lutterworth. Upon our arrival at Matlask we were attached to the 924th Engineer Aviation Regiment, which was one of four regiments in the newly formed IX Engineer Command, which was to build airfields behind the invasion armies.
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| Barningham Hall, Matlask, Norfolk, England |
At Matlask it was apparent that our stay there would be brief as no elaborate measures were taken for quarters and no construction work undertaken. The emphasis was on training. Enlisted men were quartered in Nissen huts and officers’ quarters were set up in Barningham Hall, a 17th century English mansion. The surrounding countryside provided an excellent area for training purposes. The three letter companies spent the days training; H & S Company trained for part of the day and spent the remainder in maintenance and repair of heavy equipment. Our stay at Matlask was brief; eight days after our arrival there we were on the move again, this time to Birch, Essex, near Colchester, and about ninety miles south. The entire battalion left Matlask by motor convoy on May 31st and arrived at the new post on the afternoon of the same day.
At Birch we went through a period of intensive training. H & S Company divided the time between training and rebuilding equipment. Specialist schools were conducted by the 924th Engineer Aviation Regiment. Eight men attended radio school, two men cryptograph school, four men half-track drivers school, three men camouflage school. The 37 mm. AT gun crew and the 50-cal. machine gun teams practiced on the firing range. Construction of a Refueling and Rearming airstrip in the fields above Ipswich constituted a three-day battalion problem from the 3rd to the 5th of June.
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| Heavy equipment pool -- Willingale |
A limited amount of construction work on the Birch airdrome was carried on at this time. Gas clothing and respirator stores, grocery and local produce buildings were constructed, as well as various clean-up jobs. All construction equipment and vehicles were being cleaned, painted, and overhauled for the impending cross-channel movement.
Unessential personal belongings, letters and photographs that we had carried with us for almost two years, were sent home. We traded two barracks bags for one duffel bag, mastered the problem of cramming almost all of our gear into the one bag. But even at this time we were able to visit London, Colchester and Chelmsford again. One of Germany’s secret weapons made its appearance, -- the V-1 “buzz-bomb”. Men returning from pass to London or Chelmsford attested to its great destructive power.
During our three weeks’ stay at Birch the imminence of invasion became increasingly apparent to us. We heard of big pre-invasion maneuvers off the ports of southern England and some of us saw a fraction of the material and equipment stockpiled against the day when the all-out effort would begin. The night of the 5th of June and the following morning we knew that the invasion was on. The first waves of bombers and fighter planes roared over our heads toward France; hundreds of them - wings and tails painted with three white and two black stripes, the D-Day markings.
After an unexpected alerting on Sunday afternoon the battalion left Birch on Monday, June 26th. Coggleshall, Braintree, Great Dunmow, Bishops Stortford, Hatfield, and St. Albans were all familiar, but then we were on new roads to Aylesbury, north of Oxford to Witney and Burford. We arrived at Great Barrington in the edge of the Cotswold country just at dusk, and established ourselves in the camp area assigned to us. We had expected to stay several days in order to waterproof our vehicles and get everything all set, but orders were to leave for Southampton early next morning and load at once.
For the heavy equipment section the trip to Great Barrington was a nightmare. Leaving Birch in the gloomy dawn they were on the road over twenty hours. Rain was falling and a cold wind blowing as the heavily-loaded trucks threaded their way westward. Brecheen, Huber and the other grader men nearly froze in the “cab-less” patrol graders. When they arrived in the muddy parking area at Great Barrington that black rainy night it was to find orders to pull out for Southampton just 2 ½ hours later. There was just time for coffee and route instructions, get gasoline in the tank, and they were off again, -- wet, cold, and more tired than ever.
Tuesday morning we were on the road by seven o’clock and threaded our way south on strange roads and through heavy traffic to Abingdon, Newbury, Whitchurch, Winchester to our staging area on the estate of Lord Louis Montbatten near Romsey, just northwest of Southampton. Our trucks and equipment had been loaded in what we thought the most workable arrangement, but we found that they must all be changed to fit a prescribed standard, -- tractors, cranes, rollers, --all had to be shifted from truck to trailer or vice versa! Then the waterproofing had to be completed and passed by an Ordnance officer before we could board ship. We blocked off the city street along which all the trucks were parked and started to work.
It was Thursday at two o’clock when we received our orders to send all vehicles to the “hards” at Southampton to load on three LST’s, and some six of the largest pieces to go on another ship. Everything was re-assembled into three convoys, the truck drivers and machine operators being in this party with Major Barber in charge, the remainder of the battalion staying behind as a marching party. We had known since Great Barrington that our first job was to be a transport field at Colville-sur-Mer, south of Grandchamp, and not too far from “Omaha” beach. The marching party stood beside the road and watched us as we started laboriously on our way.
The trip into Southampton was slow, but we finally moved the heavy loads down to the harbor and to the paved, sloping hards against which the huge, gaping mouths of the LST’s were pressed. The lighter cars and trucks were planned for the upper decks and went in first and up the elevator to the open space above. Then trucks and trailers moved on, the dismounted tractors clanging and clattering up the steel loading ramp and onto the steel deck plates of the tank storage area. Twice during the loading the air-raid alarm was sounded and all lights were extinguished, yet the loading went ahead in the dark; the noise of trucks and tractors drowned out the planes overhead and nobody paid any attention to them. The second raid was still on when the last truck went aboard, a Red Cross doughnut truck hitched a ride with us, the loading ramp was hauled up into place and the great door plates closed together.
Friday morning was clear and a pale sun shone from skies that had given us little but rain the past week. Our ship had moved down the harbor into the Solent and we anchored now in the lee of the Isle of Wight. A silver barrage balloon had been raised from the stern of the ship, just a little brother to the large ones that floated over London, and it tugged gently in the morning breeze. In the distance we could see a dozen other ships at anchor, two of them being the other LST’s with the remainder of our equipment. Shortly after noon the signal flags of readiness were lowered, anchor was weighed and we started on our trip. As we swung around the island and into the English Channel we joined other ships and formed into three single files, a mile or more apart, stretching out of sight in both directions. On the flanks a busy destroyer and corvette shepherded us along. We followed a set course, undoubtedly swept clear of mines and protected against submarines. The channel was calm and the journey across was almost like an excursion.
