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Arthur Hoare

1939 I was 16 in July and I had 3 brothers who were in the Auxiliary Air Force reserve. I had an elder sister and my father had become an incident officer in the ARP in Westminster. My first job was in Birchin Lane, about 80 yards from Bank Tube station in London. I was with my friend Peter on fire watch. We had to make sure all the windows in the building were locked. Many fires were caused by sparks from paper moving from one building to the next. I was there the night the Bank Station was bombed. The bomb dropped down the escalator and the entire road area above collapsed. The Army engineers had to install a bailey bridge to get traffic across for quite a while after.

My sister was in London when France capitulated. My 2nd brother was in Brussels at the time and escaped via Bologne. He ran and jumped onto the last ship leaving the port. I met him at Victoria and he looked like a brigand, with torn trousers and a rifle flung around him. He went to Kenley Aerodrome and was trained on Hurricanes. Whilst he was there I came home from work and he was at home. He was with a young Welsh lad with curly blonde hair. They had to return at the end of the day. The next morning the young blonde man had to bail out of a plane after being scrambled to deal with German planes. He was killed by Messerschmitts whilst in his parachute.

On the 11th November 1940 my sister was killed. The building she was in was hit by a bomb. I was told she was killed outright. Later I discovered she had been discovered alive 3 days later but had died in hospital. This really tore my parents up. My brothers tried to protect me and suggested that they could get me a desk job in the RAF. I didn’t want that. I wanted to go up. I rebelled. I can remember being on the No. 11 bus coming home from work and looking at the rescue vans in the street where she worked. I just looked not realising that she was in there.

My friend Peter ended up flying Brewser Buffaloes off Woolworths carriers , a stop gap aircraft carrier, it was basically a liberty ship with a metal strip for the planes. They accompanied the Russian Convoys.

I went to Great Scotland Yard to try to join up. It was a main recruiting office for any of the services. I was being truthful and told them my age and couldn’t get into any service. I could join up with the young soldiers regiment (apprentice battalions). An Army sergeant suggested I joined the Royal Signals and I responded that if I was going to join the army it wasn’t to be a postman! The sergeant went every colour at the comment. And in the end I joined the Royal Signals. I was a trained as a wireless operator and field telephone operator. I was sent to Catterick, south of Darlington. I was trained there from early 1942 and finished training in the autumn of September. I was posted to an artillery regiment readying to go to North Africa. They were stationed in London. In December we went north to Greenock near Glasgow. We formed a convoy in the Firth of Clyde. The chippies were still on this ship fitting up lifeboats. The boat, the Bergensfiord, was built in 1913 in Birkenhead. We were all in hammocks down below. The convey went right out into the Atlantic, around Northern Ireland and down through the Straits of Gibraltar. We got off at Algiers and marched about 10 miles decked out like Christmas trees with all out gear. The officer with us was a young lad who was born and bred in Catterick. He pushed us so hard we passed regiment after regiment. We were marching through the sun. Every hour were supposed to take 5 minutes break. We passed the DLI Durham Light Infantry who shouted ‘put a bullet through him or we will’.

We were loaded onto boats up the coast to Bone. We landed there and unloaded petrol. They all leaked and we were soaked. If a spark had hit we’d have gone up. We continued our travels to a place outside of Tibesa in Tunisia. We were sent there because the American 2nd corp was in a terrible state. They send some rag, tag and bobtail regiments down to help them out. The British general, Anderson was not a particularly good communicator. He was supporedt by Gerneral Alexander who apparently said to Eisenhower ‘Surely you’ve got better than this?’ He offered to send his officers down to train Eishenhower’s men. Alexander was the last British Officer at Dunkirk. He held the Japanese back in India and when Rommell went out to North Africa he was sent out to be in overall charge with Montgomery under him. His statue is outside the guard’s chapel on Birdcage walk. We took more prisoners in Tunis than the Russians took at Stalingrad. One of the good things in war was this. I was in a truck with a Jewish chap from London. We stopped and down below we saw 4 prisoners, gerries (Germans) at the side of the road. They were in bits covered in filth and their lips dry. Sammy looked at them and he unhooked his water bottle and gave it to them. We only got one bottle a day. The Germans took a sip each and handed it back and then said ‘Danke’. We then offered them cigarettes. It was an example of humanity that you don’t often hear about.

My first battle was the Kassirine Pass. It was Rommell’s last fling and it was the first time I ever saw a tiger tank. They were so superior to anything we had. They could pick our tanks off miles away. We were just beginning to get the Sherman tanks. We talked them Ronsons after the American lighter ad ‘One light and their out.’ The Germans had 88mm guns, they were fast and lethal. We developed the 3.7, it was an anti aircraft gun. It was almost a naval gun. We got out of Kassirine Pass. We stopped the Germans. We were in a dug out one night. And we kept getting message about German paratroopers. There was a stream of traffic of Americans going in the opposite direction. No one would stop to tell us what was going on. They kept shouting that the Germans were right behind them. A black solider stopped and when we asked him what was happening he said ‘I don’t know boss but I know my nose is pointing towards Constantine and I ain’t stopping until I get there’.

North Africa was far worse than people talk about. The 8th army were used to fighting in the desert and many of them were dressed very smartly in shorts and cravats. They had trucks in bits with blackened pots hanging out of the back in which they’d make tea. We used to have to go ahead of the group to communicate back about the conditions. We’d keep in touch and then we’d loose touch and discover our lads had used our signalling wire to make washing lines.

I understand the concept of friendly fire. We were bombed by American aircraft. No one was killed. We were strafed by an American aircraft and we showed our fluorescent vests en masse which should have alerted him to us. But he attacked us 3 times. On this fourth attempt he was shot down.

From North Africa I went to the South of Italy to Naples. I became a D Day dodger. Italy was horrendous. I wasn’t far from Naples when Vesuvius erupted. It was not easy job evacuating farmers. There were lava streams coming towards them and they didn’t want to go. I can remember the rain and the cold at Xmas 1943. We had tarpaulin up and we built walls of snow. I was wrapped up with uniform and battle dress and a blanket. The officer came around with a brand new bucket filled with the best tea. It was made with condensed milk and rum and it went through us like a thermometer. It was wonderful. The Christmas dinner was great. I don’t know where they came from but the cook had found 6 turkeys cooked in mud ovens. The cook was a head cook in the Caledonian Hotel in London. We had potatoes in rolled oats.

We went to Casino. Some soldiers who had been to Stalingrad said Casino was worse. Lady Astor stood up in parliament and said get some of the soldiers back from Italy calling them the D Day dodgers. She was very ill informed. The number of New Zealanders who were killed there was heartbreaking. They fill the cemetery. The Ghurkhas were there. No one insults the Ghurkhas. The worst thing in Italy was the damage. In Africa there was little to damage. The German army in Italy was different. It wasn’t headed by politicians, it was a soldier’s army.

One night we were camped up. We saw a truck approaching with 50 Italians, fully armed in it. Our officer said don’t do anything, keep your guns handy but don’t shoot. The officer came over to us in a fantastic uniform. He came over our officer and said ‘excusa me do you know the way to the nearest POW camp’.

At Salerno I saw the American setting up tents in rows. Our CO went over and offered some advice and said they shouldn’t have been in lines. He was told where to go and later the Americans paid for it when the camp was attacked. In the space of 2 football pitches 250 were lying dead. That night my tin hat went missing. It was a psychological support at much as anything. I was distraught over its loss. The next day it was returned to me by another soldier who admitted taking it. He wasn’t spoken to by many men after that. In contrast my friend Alex, a scot, came and sat with me while I was on wireless duty because he knew it was dangerous and lonely. That was friendship.

One of our friends was in a bad way. Our MO was useless and told him to bed down and take two codeine. He was looking rough and we took him to an American field hospital. When we arrived in we were met by hotlips Houlihan who took one look at our friend Tubby and told us to go and have coffee and doughnuts and come back in 10 minutes. He had double pneumonia and they kept him. He caught up with us 3 months later. He told tales of a great experience. They looked after him so well. But he wasn’t impressed with the breakfasts, baked beans in maple syrup.

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