Crockham Hill September 2023 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 6
insignia, posters, ID cards, ration books, photographs and a
Ministry of Food recipe Woolton pie recipe.
Tom Gorick's toothbrush from Changi prison camp and Tom
Rogers's medals and his D-Day+6 typewriter that 'never worked
properly again after ordeal by sand & sea contrasted with 'liberated'
Nazi armbands and badges.
Several guests shared their memories
of that Longest Day: Felicity
Gladstone told of tanks lining the
roads that disappeared overnight
along with the ammunitions truck
parked at Lewins; Reggie Grainger
was minesweeping the invasion
Channel;
Pat
Allen
ferrying
Canadians to June beach in an assault
craft; Peter Pellereau recalled the
hidden dangers faced by Sappers on
the Normandy beaches; David Rae
Smith fighting his way up Italy with the army that had just liberated
Rome; Ray Tidy testing monster bombs in the New Forest. Rosemary
Calcutt's father was the youngest Major-General in the allied army;
Phyllis Butler assembling timing devices in a Croydon bell foundry, and
Diana Ilchester promoted to precision capstan setter in an engineering
workshop; Nurse Kimmins was kitted out ready to sail to a field
hospital; Aidan Long operating as a surgeon-lieutenant Royal Navy;
Helen Long (Vlasto) at Portsmouth's Haslar naval hospital preparing
for the arrival of battle casualties on D-Day +1.
Among other locals: Michael O'Brien with 9th Field Regt. Royal
Artillery was driving between Rangoon & Mandalay; as a Leading
Wren Johnny Rae Smith was taking an advanced radar course at
Portsmouth; Peter Tebbitt flying RAF Catalinas in Kenya &
Tanganyika; Ted Waterhouse in the 78 Division West Kents had
finally advanced from Monte Cassino; Audrey Waterhouse (Lovell)
with the railways in Great Malvern organising transport for the
wounded; Freda McBride (Wright) having cycled to work on Pilgrim's
Way was told 'we've invaded France'; Alfred Goldstein learned of the
Landings before taking exams at Imperial College under a glass roof as
doodlebugs fell. That evening, Kath Foster saw a reveller stagger out
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