'Training. Training. Training. All the time. Reveille at half past six and then you used to have to do your barrack room up and then breakfast at eight and then your first parade at nine--or maybe breakfast was at half past seven.'
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Dinner?
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'If you were in barracks it would be at about twelve, half past. You'd get your tea about five.'
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And supper?
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'No, no supper.'
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Could you go out for a drink?
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'Oh aye, you could go out in the village. You could go to the pubs if you had the money. But you were always on something, man. We were always on duty doing something. Fire picket, guard, fatigues--owt! Anything that wanted doing.'
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That was where you saw your first German plane.
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'Oh, we'd only been there a couple of days and the buggers started. We used to see them regular, man.'
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And the first one?
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'It'd be one of them Focke Wulfs, or two of them.' The Focke Wulf Fw 190 single-engined fighter bomber. 'They just used to come over. I can't remember the first one. We got used to them at the finish.'
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How often?
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'There was always a couple, practically every day. Bloody whistle used to go "Aircraft, action!" If we were out marching we used to dive. Aye, they straffed us a few times.
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Did you fire back?
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'We hadn't bloody time! He'd just, "Frrrrruuuuupp!" and he was away!
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Did you see any shot down?
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'We saw a couple come down. We saw one come down, I think they brought the bugger down themselves--they thought it was a Jerry and it wasn't! One of them two-seaters.'
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This was a RAF Beaufighter which was shot down by a nearby AA unit in late 1942. Standing orders were to shoot at any aircraft approaching from the sea at less than 100 feet.
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Didn't you once take a shot at one?
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'Aye! It was during the day. If you were on guard during the night, you were on picket during the day, it was a 24-hour job. Why we had this sentry box, there was like a road went down to the beach and the main road went along the coast at Winchelsea. And we had a sentry box and everything, where you used to do your guard duty, you know, two on and four off--two hours on guard and four hours off. And during the day you used to do what you'd call 'picket'. There were two of you used to stand at this sentry box to stop anybody going down to the beach or the beach road. Used to come down with your gear on, ammunition and everything. And there was a Bren Gun down there and it had a tripod. You used to mount it on a tripod and you could fire it up a height.
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'Anyway, this plane came over, he was a Jerry, about 1,500 ft off the coast and the ack ack was firing at him. And I says, "I'm gonna have a go at the bugger an'all!" And I fired a mag off, a full magazine, 30 rounds. Well, I had to report to the Sergeant Major, a magazine full of ammo. To the "Black Rat", the bloke I used to see at the Reunion.
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C Company Sgt Major Arthur Pearson, so nicknamed on account of his smart 'patent leather' haircut--amongst other reasons!
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'He says: "You never in the world tried to shoot that plane down!" he says. "You couldn't have hit it with a Bofors gun, never mind a Bren gun!"
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And was it hit?
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'No, it just sailed straight over!'
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NEXT PAGE
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