My National Service memoir of my service with the Royal Regiment of Artillery 15th Independent Observation Battery as a Surveyor RA starts and ends with a picture. Below I am fresh recruit, happy in anticipation of all that lies ahead. This picture that is probably worth more than the proverbial thousand words, also tells its own story. I am very young man, perhaps someone with more of a youth about me than a man. [Read more…]
Like every other young man in Britain after the end of World War II in 1945 I was required to do my National Service. That is, compulsory service in the armed forces of the Crown. Unlike most of my comrades, I decided to write about my experience in this National Service memoir. It begins here. [Read more…]
So I left home for the training regiment, Royal Artillery, Oswestry.
After a train journey from Paddington Station in London through the Midlands and parts of England I had not seen before I arrived at Oswestry, Shropshire, at about mid-day. Outside in the station yard there was a military presence and it was not long before I was in the back of a truck along with many others being taken to Park Hall Lines, a hutted camp on the outskirts of the town. [Read more…]
The Training Battery which we joined had been doing its job for many a year and occupied a series of huts known as Horne Lines situated on the far west side of the School of Artillery. The School itself was in a series of fine brick buildings and barrack blocks on Knighton Down out on Salisbury Plain about 12 miles from Salisbury along the A344 road. [Read more…]
In 1950 all long distance travel and beyond the borders of one’s own country was generally by sea. The passenger liners were the prime carriers. Air travel was still in its comparative infancy, expensive and the first (and in the world) transatlantic flights by the British Comet jet passenger plane did not take place until 1958. It was long before the 747 revolutionized travel and shrunk the world. [Read more…]
Before chronicling my National Service experience in Hong Kong, I would be remiss in not setting the stage on which the events played out. Here I provide a short note on Hong Kong, the events in China at the time, and global political scene in the the 1950s with relevance to Hong Kong. [Read more…]
Returning to my story, on the Devonshire we heard the unit was to be stationed in the New Territories under canvas but little else. After our run ashore and one more night on ship we disembarked to begin our service in Hong Kong. [Read more…]
After our eventful weeks at Lo Wu and the trials and tribulations of serving there the Battery moved to a new camp site. [Read more…]
Stanley Barracks Hong Kong became our home for the next nine months or so until we left for demobilization and home in May 1951. Before discussing my time there, I present an overview as a lot happened and some context would help. [Read more…]
Major CJW Pollard became CO on 16 March 1951.
15 Independent Observation Battery RA was reformed in 1951 in Hong Kong as 15 Divisional Locating Battery RA.
On 17 December 1951 it embarked on USS Union at Victoria for Inchon, Korea arriving on 20 December. It then moved to Britannia Transit Camp en route to its operational deployment.
In Korea it was attached to 61 Light Regiment, RA, saw action and suffered casualties among our old comrades.
And so on Sunday May 6 1951 at 930AM we embarked upon the Dunera and at 3 pm sailed for home. Compared to our departure from Liverpool as the Devonshire made its way down the Mersey on a dark and dirty January night with no ceremony this was different ; pipes and drums from a Scottish regiment bade us farewell and it was a bright sunny day. [Read more…]
Writing about my return to the Royal Artillery Depot Woolwich is difficult as I have no distinct memories, and nothing to jog my memory. But after some thought I can perhaps provide an account of what occurred. [Read more…]
Having been dismissed from Woolwich, Ian Styles and I made our way in FSMO with our kitbags to Hendon on the other side of London. [Read more…]
As this memoir started with a picture, it also ends with one. For although I can try to encapsulate the sum of my experience in this last chapter, a look at me here in the last days of my service in Hong Kong could perhaps tell you all that I hope to share. [Read more…]
National Service – Notes and CommentThese National Service notes and comments will provide context to the experience of National Service by providing some background to military life and conduct as well as insight to its social implications. I have tried to cover those aspects that have relevance. [Read more…]
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