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Robert Borland鈥檚 Recollections of World War 2 (part 3)

My Father鈥檚 Travels
My father was later transferred from the RE鈥檚 to the REME and trained on tanks and their engines. He also worked on marine landing craft engines and the waterproofing of truck engines. This meant going on fairly long training assignments.

We went with him, staying in digs with families that had rooms to spare. We lived in Newbiggin in north east England, Granton on Spey (I remember Ghurkhas being there), and Hawick, where we went to school and I was taught to knit, ugh!

My father was usually stationed on army camps which had truck depots. He was promoted on a number of occasions but he had a habit of watching the destinations of trucks picking up and delivering materials and if one should be going to any of the Clyde ports from Ayr to Greenock he would cadge a lift from the driver.

From these places he could get to Wemyss Bay and then a ferry or the mail boat to Rothesay. He did not bother with a leave pass, thus being AWOL and losing his promotion. He always made sure any truck he was in was returning to his camp and he made sure he caught it, so he was never charged with desertion.

About eight weeks before the D-Day landings, he made a beeline for home in a truck that was passing through Wemyss Bay. When he got to Rothesay my sister was in bed with chicken pox. He rubbed shoulders with her. He contracted the chicken pox and carried it back to camp.

He swore that the medics scrubbed the sores of his back because chicken pox is supposedly infectious only when the sores are present. I鈥榤 sure there was panic among the military brass about the spread of the disease among the troops, so close to D-Day. He landed in France on D-Day 6, the 11th of June, at Mulberry Harbour.

The RAF in Rothesay
Soldiers and sailors were plentiful in Rothesay but you hardly ever saw any RAF bods. However, when I was about 9, I was heading to the pier for some fishing, as was my usual practice in the school summer holidays, when I passed an RAF sergeant coming off the ferry. He gave me a very strange look as he passed and I gave him the big frown.

After I had finished fishing I headed to my Granny鈥檚 for tea and there was this RAF sergeant. He turned to be my father鈥檚 elder brother Johnny, who had joined the RAF in 1919 and had not seen my father for many years. He said that he recognised me because I was a ringer for my father! Hence the strange look he gave me in passing.

One of my sisters and I have arguments even now about whether he brought bananas or blood oranges for us.
Exotic foreign fruit was impossible to get during the war.

My Experiences with German Bombers
An incident that sticks in my mind was when my mother wakened me one night to point out a distant fire that was lighting up the night sky. It came from the direction of Greenock. I know Greenock was badly blitzed but my mother said it had been the Tate and Lyle sugar factory in Paisley. But that was quite some way away. I just can鈥檛 remember which it was, but it was some inferno!

There was only one casualty on Bute due to enemy bombers. Apparently a German bomber was being chased down the Clyde by a British fighter. To increase speed the bomber jettisoned its bomb load while flying over Bute. This managed to kill a cow. Don鈥檛 know what happened to the bomber.

End of part 3

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