Joining the Army

In 1938 my father joined the British Army. The reason he joined the army was to get a trade.  Education in Northern Ireland in the 1930s ended at age 14. Things got better by the 60s - I managed till age 16!

Of course his education had led him to be an astute observer of geopolitical events! Actually as he told me later he believed the propaganda and that WW1 was the war to end all wars. However "The best laid plans of men and mice oft go awry…"  and I am proud to say that I did that quote straight off the top of my head and only later googled it for correctness. I also just noticed that Microsoft does not recognise googled as a proper past participle and only recognises microsoft with a capital M!

Be that as it may. Microsoft recognises this as a proper sentence!  I doubt any  direct translation to another language would make sense! As I was saying Dad underwent army training and was apparently good at most practical things. He could shot straight - his results gave him a score of being a marksman - not that he ever used it or so he says. He also learned to drive army trucks where you had to double declutch (lost art) and was good at that too. I believe all this because  I have some army records and also because Dad to my knowledge did not lie.  In fact getting him to talk about the war at all took at least 3 pints of light and bitter. The comment on his army record that said most I thought was "A useful man to have around"! He could fix most anything!

So September 1939! Germany invades Poland (I mean we didn't really care about the Sudetenland did we!).  GB declares war on Germany. France declares war on Germany. And as September progresses nearly everyone  declares war on someone else. Great events are afoot! Dad goes to France as part of the British Expeditionary Force. Nothing much happens so he swans around France for 9 months of "The Quiet War"  and catches Syphilis in the process! The Germans spoiled all the fun by invading France in May 1940.

Now the story gets interesting. Apparently at one stage Dad's  Company were entrenched in hills overlooking a valley coming down from the Ardennes  alongst which the German columns were advancing.  They as Dad said "had them in their sights"  but the order to fire never came.  The Captain responsible had pissed off!  I did get the impression however that the rank and file were not actually totally dismayed by this dereliction of duty on the part of their commanding officer.

Retreat followed but the BEF had been too far advanced ever to make Dunkirk. So for a period of 2 or 3 weeks Dad and other members of his company found themselves living off the land. Now during this period they were actively looked for food and one poor cat fell foul of this activity. So the cat got roasted and they had to tell one of the guys that it was rabbit otherwise he would not have eaten it. Unbelievably they told him afterwards and he vomited it up. They were really short of food at this stage! 

They eventually got captured by the Germans because the Germans were "tidying up" and they were rounded up in a French barn whilst asleep because  apparently the French farmer owning the barn was fed up about the food that they had taken (or was it the cat!). Apparently at this stage becoming a British PoW was quite civilized - but that changed later.

To be continued ...