For Five Shillings a Day: Personal Histories of World War II. Dr. Campbell-Begg Richard

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СКАЧАТЬ of individuals who took part, using the relevant extracts from their accounts. Its 18 chapters are supported by illustrations of the contributors and the events described, and in each there is a short introduction by the editors giving background details of that particular campaign or operation. Biographical notes on the contributors appear in the Appendix. The language, grammar and idiom used by the contributors in talking of their experiences are largely reproduced in the written account in the book. All this tends to give the reader the feeling of being right alongside the raconteur as he or she relives the experiences of long ago.

      For the general reader with an interest in the Second World War, I can think of no better starting point from which to grasp the huge scale of the conflict and yet its dimension in terms of the individual. For the specialist reader there are countless personal insights into what will, of course, be a more familiar story.

      Sadly, at least five of the contributors will never read this book: they are gone. But thanks to the endeavours of Peter and Richard their experiences will not be forgotten. I am sure that all the contributors would say, ‘What I did was nothing special. Better men than I did much more. Some were killed before anyone could record what they did and others did not get my opportunities to make a mark.’ On the other hand, each one of these survivors can be seen as representing dozens of their less fortunate comrades.

      As for me, and countless men and women of my generation, we will ever be in their debt. At 64 I have never heard a shot fired in anger, never seen anyone killed or grievously wounded, never been frightened by anything more lethal than a cricket ball, hardly ever been in any physical distress, and my only real worries have been over such unavoidable subjects as women, money and promotion. The contributors to this book have been far more fundamentally tested. I am deeply grateful to them for helping to spare me their experiences.

      The wonderful words inscribed on a memorial stone near the entrance to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission War Cemetery at Kohima, Assam, India, can never be quoted too often:

      ‘When you go home

      Tell them of us and say,

      For their tomorrow

      We gave our today.’

Introduction

      It is the sheer scale of the Second World War that most of us, however keen to grasp its course in outline and the interrelation of its geographically and sometimes time-separated parts, find daunting. In terms of its time-span, its land masses and oceans that were the scene of prolonged conflict, its nations, races and peoples committed to or drawn into the conflict, its human and material cost, the statistics of the Second World War challenge the capacity to comprehend.

      At one and the same time, the link between the Eastern Front and its Stalingrad, North Africa and its El Alamein, the Arctic, Atlantic and Mediterranean with their sea-lines, the aerial bombing offensives, Home Front war materials production and civilian morale, is clear, and yet it is only retained in a collective sense by the most self-disciplined mind. As we write this we can almost hear the protests of readers, ‘Have they not heard of the Pacific War too?’ To which we make response that indeed we have, and this book will certainly not fail by under-representation in that respect.

      While the editors of this book have no grand ambition to succeed where few have attempted and success is rare – achievement in conveying a worldwide vista of warfare – they believe that in reducing the unmanageable scale to one of individual participants recalling the part they played in key events, general or special circumstances, major campaigns or battles, they bring the reader as near as he may wish to be to living through the challenge of World War from September 1939 to August 1945.

      This book had its roots in the first meeting of the editors in Leeds in 1993. The rescue of the evidence of wartime experience was the main subject on the agenda. Retired New Zealand doctor and public health specialist Richard Campbell Begg, a naval officer in the Second World War, had responded to a New Zealand newspaper appeal by British historian Peter Liddle, keen to draw attention to his work in rescuing the evidence of wartime experience. At that stage Peter was the Keeper of the Liddle Collection, a world-renowned archive of personal experience in the First World War, based at Leeds University. Over some years he has been turning his attention to the Second World War, and has already achieved a substantial collection of material of personal involvement in that war, so much so that since the original meeting with Richard it has been necessary to set up a separate collection, which is also housed in the city of Leeds as a Second World War Experience Centre with charitable status and its own Trustees, staff, Patrons and Association of Friends. Peter has left the University and feels highly privileged to have been appointed the Director of the Centre, which continues to grow and flourish.

      The New Zealand doctor had travelled to Leeds, his recollections had been recorded on tape by interview and, with personal accord quickly established, the possibility of association in the rescue work was discussed. It was not long before Richard, in his responsibilities growing younger by the day, was recording men and women resident in New Zealand. The friendship between Richard and Peter developed, with the doctor travelling not only through much of New Zealand in the work but returning to Leeds on three further occasions fuelled by an increasing awareness of the importance, urgency and fascination of the work. He had found that there were few areas of British and New Zealand service experience in the war not covered by one or more of the people he was meeting. So graphic were many of the tapes, and so wide their representation of air, sea and land service, that it was clear the material invited being shared with a wider audience than that of researchers in an archive.

      This book grew as a result of a decision to draw together, as appropriate, the most striking of the testimony. It contains extended recall of the experiences of 53 men and one woman. Most theatres of war are represented from beginning to end of the conflict. This is the story of the war by those who were in it, given spontaneously without rehearsal 53 or so years after the event. For most, it was the first time anyone had asked them to relate their experience and had then been prepared to sit and listen, sometimes for hours on end. With remarkable lucidity and recall, with humour, sometimes with emotion, even distress, thoughts and descriptions of events long ago were vividly expressed.

      With most theatres of war covered, and with the three Services and the Merchant Navy represented in many ranks, from those quite senior to those very junior, it has been possible to present a chronological story but also one from differing perspectives. In the book, as the war progresses, we sometimes meet for a second time those whose story in a different theatre and from a more junior rank has already been presented, and this may bring the reader to a still closer identification with the memories of some of those whose story is told here.

      Each chapter has a contextual introduction so that the wider scene from which the particular vignette is chosen is properly made clear. The book is largely the written expression of oral testimony. As such there has been a little editing to clear away ambiguity, any lack of clarity through imprecision in the words as spoken. In the main, grammar has been left as expressed.

      In the first chapter, what the ‘Phoney War’ was like for the ordinary soldier is made clear, and just as clear, the drama, confusion and swirling events from the German attack that would leave him evacuated from Dunkirk or St Nazaire or captured. Naval operations in the North Sea, including the first battle between battlecruisers, when HMS Renown engaged the German ships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are next in line for recall. For the Battle of Britain and related developments there is graphic record; vivid descriptions of London burning, Coventry blitzed, aerial dogfights, crash landings and parachute descents, and a wealth of detail including men recalling their treatment after serious burns.

      The story now moves to North Africa and the great campaigns fought there. There are two chapters СКАЧАТЬ