Sussex War Heroes: The Untold Story of our Second World War Survivors

To Mum, Dad and Alice

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Iwould like to thank a number of people for their help with making this book happen. Firstly, The History Press for agreeing to publish it and in particular Nicola Guy, Ruth Boyes and Emily Locke. For allowing me to use their photographs, I am extremely grateful to those at The Argus.

Special mention must go to Dame Vera Lynn for agreeing to write a foreword and her daughter Virginia for arranging it all.

Most importantly of all, thanks goes to the survivors who allowed me into their homes and offered me coffee, tea, biscuits and even whiskey. They put up with me pestering them for hours on end, asking dozens of questions about something that happened more than seventy years ago.

Some of the subjects we covered were not easy to talk about and I no doubt caused some distress by bringing up these matters. However, those I spoke to were nothing but hospitable, helpful and so incredibly modest.

I would like to thank my mother, Jane, and father, Phillip, who instilled in me an interest and passion for history and in particular for the Second World War. Finally, my partner Alice, without whom this would not have been possible. Her advice and guidance resulted in the book you are holding.

CONTENTS

Title

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword by Dame Vera Lynn

Introduction

Arthur Ayres                Dunkirk, Deserts and Drop Zones

Bill Lucas DFC            Hitler, the Olympics and Me

Bob Morrell                 To Hell and Back in the Far East

Shindy Perez              Surviving Auschwitz’s Gas Chambers

John Buckeridge         Life and Death on Snakeshead Ridge

Jack Lyon                    My Part in the Great Escape

Patrick Delaforce         From Gold Beach to the Gallows

Maurice Macey            Spitfires, Skylarks and the Caterpillar Club

John Akehurst DFM    The Reluctant Hero

Sources

Plates

Copyright

DAME VERA LYNN

FOREWORD

In the winter of 1940, at the height of the Blitz, I was still performing in London’s theatres. In the West End there were air-raid shelters, sand bags outside buildings, and windows were taped to stop them from shattering. But other than that, it was a city unchanged.

The bombs fell each night, but the people of London were not going to let that stop them, they wanted to carry on as usual. People went to work, the buses ran and the restaurants and hotels remained open. There was no hysteria and no panic.

Entertainment was seen as key, with the morale of the British people vital to the war effort. So it was a busy time for me and I was in demand not only for live performances, but for radio appearances and the like. But I knew that what I was doing was important, it was more than just singing.

I was living in Barking at the time and would travel into the West End each day in my little Austin 10. I loved that car but it did have a canvas top so I would always have my tin helmet on the passenger seat just in case the air-raid sirens went.

I would park up outside the Palladium or Adelphi or wherever I was that night – you could park anywhere in London in those days – and I went to get some dinner before I would go on stage and sing. By the time I had finished the Germans would often be on their way over and I would have to make a decision. It was quite a journey home, which took me through what was known as Bomb Alley – a part of the East End regularly targeted by the Germans. So I had a rule: if I had gone through Aldgate by the time the sirens went, then I would continue home, with my tin helmet on. If I hadn’t reached Aldgate, then I would turn back and return to the theatre and spend the night there. Behind the stage door there was a big thick wall, where they kept the scenery and props. I would sit behind that and I would listen to the bombing outside with the theatre nightwatchman for company.

Each morning London would wake; the people would assess the damage and get on with life. There was no question of giving in; we knew we had to get through it. I have always thought of that resilience, that strength and that fighting spirit as something unique to the British. My generation had that special something in abundance, but I would like to think that if something like that happened again, the current generation would be the same.

The spirit I witnessed during the darkest days of the Blitz in London is the same that got our brave boys through their darkest days fighting in Europe, Africa and the Far East. Without this strength of mind and character I am not sure we would have made it through.

Like everyone else during the war, I wanted to do my bit. Everyone had their talents and mine happened to be singing. I had been on the stage since the age of 7 and I was well known by September 1939. But I knew I was not just singing for singing’s sake any more, I knew it was more important than that.

In 1941 I began recording a regular show for the BBC called ‘Sincerely Yours’ and I would travel to the recording studios in Maida Vale and Piccadilly. I would sing, respond to requests from servicemen and do whatever I could for the war effort. At the time I was also receiving thousands of letters from around the world from British servicemen. They were asking for me to reply, send messages to their loved ones and give dedications on the radio. I realised how much these men must have been missing home and I made sure I replied to each and every one. With the help of my mother and another girl, who we got to help with the workload, we typed responses to all of them and had hundreds of photos of myself printed to send out.

I knew how important it was, some of these men had been away from home for four, five, six years, and just to hear from someone they could relate to meant so much to them.

But I wanted to do more, especially for those who were fighting thousands of miles from home. I had read in the newspapers about the boys fighting out in the heat in Burma and so I decided I would go there. I asked ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) if they could arrange it for me, but they initially said no because it was too dangerous. I somehow managed to persuade them and after being made an honorary colonel – I was not allowed to go out there as a civilian – I packed my bags and set off with my pianist.

First we stopped off in Egypt, before visiting more troops in India, and then finally we reached our journey’s end, Burma. It was hot, humid and the conditions were basic to say the least. But it was worth it to see the reaction of the boys out there. Some of them had not seen a woman for four or five years. Their spirits were lifted and I truly knew then the importance of what I was doing. They had been through a terrible time and many of their friends had died. The English countryside must have felt like a world away to them and there was no guarantee of when they would return.

As I was leaving, a young soldier said to me, ‘Now you are here, home doesn’t seem so far away’. That meant a lot and I have never forgotten it.

They were all so brave and just so grateful that I had come out to see them. They would ask about home and how we were getting on and what we were eating and simple things like that. But the sad reality was that many of them would never see home, their loved ones and families again.

In the years since I have met hundreds, if not thousands of veterans at events and commemorations. Like those in this book, they all share that incredible fighting spirit, courage and humility. They never make a big deal of what they did for this country during the war, but the fact is, if it were not for them, the world could be a very different place today.

I was a young woman at the time, but it is a period of my life I will never forget. I often think back to my experiences in Burma as it has a special place in my heart. I have always tried to help out where I can in the years since and I was awarded the Burma Star medal in 1985. I attended and performed at the Burma reunion for fifty years at the Albert Hall and they were fantastic events to be part of. The audience would be full of veterans and together we would remember the brave boys who didn’t make it home. But as each year passed, I noticed a change. With each concert there would be fewer and fewer veterans and more family members taking their place. With most of the veterans of the Second World War now well into their nineties, it will not be long until they are all gone. That is why books such as this are more important than ever. We must record their stories before they are lost. We must remember them.

Dame Vera Lynn,

February 2016

INTRODUCTION

On an unremarkable December morning in 2014, I was sitting at my desk in a dark corner of The Argus’s Hollingbury office, cursing the limited power of the central heating. With two jumpers and a winter coat not quite managing to keep me warm, I got up to make myself a coffee when the phone went.

Many journalists will recognise the following dilemma. If I pick it up, I could be on the phone for the next twenty minutes, absorbing someone’s rant about their neighbour’s overgrown hedge or some other trivial matter us Brits like to moan about. On the other hand, it could be the next Watergate – or the Sussex-based equivalent.

With empty mug in shivering hand and halfway to the kitchen, my curiosity got the better of me and I ran back and answered it.

‘My father has just died and I have found this incredible diary you have to come and look at,’ was the gist of the conversation after the usual pleasantries.

Almost every son thinks his father is incredible – as I do mine – but as reporters up and down the country will know, what a son thinks is so fascinating about his father is usually of little or no interest to the wider public.

But being a sucker for history and hopeful this man’s house would be warmer than the office, I took a punt and went for a drive to Peacehaven. Over the next couple of hours I was told John Akehurst’s story. His friends and neighbours knew him as a former pub landlord who was quiet, polite and unassuming. But there was another side to him, one that the modest family man did not speak about.

Like many of his generation, with war on the horizon, he joined up. He went on to become one of the most experienced members of Bomber Command, clocking up more than 750 flying hours. Such was his talent that he was recruited for Winston Churchill’s secret Special Operations Executive (SOE) and carried out covert missions across occupied Europe, including the assassination of Hitler’s right-hand man Reinhard Heydrich. He later crash-landed in Germany and went on the run for weeks before being captured. He tried to escape by jumping from a moving train, which saw him court-martialled by the Nazis and put in solitary confinement for nine months. After spending the next few years in prisoner-of-war camps across Europe, he escaped during a forced march behind the backs of the distracted guards.

His incredible story is fit for a Hollywood blockbuster. Yet his neighbours, friends and even his own family knew little, if anything, of it. And had it not been for his diary, nobody ever would.

Amazed at how such an incredible story had gone untold for seventy-odd years, I started to wonder if there might be others out there like John. Just days later I received another call, this time from Margaret Martin from the Java Far East Prisoners of War Club. She wanted to raise awareness for their work and suggested I speak to one of their local veterans who fought out in the Far East. I did not get my hopes up, having convinced myself that John’s story was a one-off, and made the short drive to Bob Morrell’s terraced home in Brighton.

Within minutes of sitting down, my writing hand was cramping as I struggled to keep up with his remarkable story. Just like John, here was a man who had endured almost unthinkable horrors during the war. But when he returned, he went home, found work and got on with his life. If you passed Bob in the street today, you would not give him a second glance – blissfully unaware of the physical and mental trauma he faced while fighting for our freedom.

From this point on, I knew I had to get their stories out there. I called some of my contacts and asked if they knew of any other locals who had served in the war. Within weeks I had spoken to an Auschwitz survivor, a participant in the Great Escape, a Bomber Command pilot cum Olympic athlete and one of the first soldiers through the gates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp – and all within just a few miles of where I live. I am sure the same is true wherever you are in the country, but this book is about those from Sussex – the place I now call home.

The men and women I have met and interviewed over the last few months are both the inspiration and subject matter of this book. Because, while the Second World War is the event that brings them all together, this is not a book about war. It is not about leaders, armies, weapons and battle tactics. It is about human beings and our courage and resolve. It is about how we cope when we are pushed to our physical and mental limits, and about how we find hope when all appears to be lost. Because history is not a set of dates and figures, it is about ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

With each chapter you will be introduced to a resident of Sussex who lived through and experienced in some way the most all-encompassing total war the world has ever seen. Some of the most pivotal moments are covered, be it D-Day, the evacuation of Dunkirk or the Holocaust, and all through the eyes of those who were there on the ground.

With the interview subjects now well into their twilight years, this is likely to be the last time these personal tales are told. And so, as this incredible period passes from living memory into history, we are at a crucial point in our understanding and remembrance of the Second World War. We will soon lose our most significant primary source from one of the most destructive events of all time and this is our final opportunity to hear from those who were there.

Oral history is a powerful means of storytelling. But given the horrors that their generation faced, many found it too difficult to talk about their wartime experiences and took their stories to the grave. That is why the accounts in this book are all the more poignant.

So next time you see an old man or woman struggling across the road or getting off a bus, ask yourself what they might have done during the war. You’d be surprised.

Ben James

February 2016

ARTHUR AYRES

DUNKIRK, DESERTS

AND DROP ZONES

Most of the experiences of those in this book offer a mere snapshot of the Second World War. But for Arthur Ayres, his story spans the entirety of the six-year conflict. From the beach at Dunkirk to the sands of the Western Desert and bridges of north Holland, he saw it all. But despite spending the best part of his youth trying not to be killed by the Nazis, it was an unlikely friendship with a German officer that saved his life.

Arthur joined the Territorial Army (TA) in late 1939, having become bored with his job as a plasterer. He was not someone who had been destined to join the forces from an early age, nor did he particularly want to. His dad served and was injured in the First World War, but it was hardly a family tradition.

‘I’m not sure why I joined, I guess I was bored, it was one of those spur of the moment things. I remember coming back from work one day to where we were living in Mile Oak Road, Portslade, and my mum and dad were waiting for me. They said it had been on the radio that all Territorials must report to the drill hall in Brighton, which was in Queen’s Square. I wasn’t worried, but I was an only child so I think they were certainly anxious about what would happen to me.’

At the drill hall, Arthur’s details were taken and he was issued with a helmet and gas mask and told to report back at 9 a.m. sharp the following morning. He went home for a final night in his own bed and a last home-cooked meal before he ventured into the unknown.

He recalls: ‘There were no tears at the door, but I suspected my mother would break down after I left.’

When he arrived back at the drill hall, trucks were waiting to take the men to Worthing, where they would be based for the next six weeks. Arthur had been assigned to the 211 Field Park Company of the Royal Engineers, who were based at Muir House in Broadwater. There he would undertake basic training, which consisted mainly of drill on Broadwater Green and marches in full kit around Worthing. But it wasn’t all bad, as Arthur, who still lives in Portslade, remembers.

‘We were spoilt really; we had three meals a day served to us in the Odeon cinema by the girls there. The lads used to love that; they were all very pretty and very good to us. We used to go and lie on the beach as well when we had the chance, it was all very relaxed compared to the training that was to come.’

Arthur remembers one lazy morning in particular, the morning of Sunday, 3 September. He was on the beach at Worthing with some of the other boys, gazing out to sea, pondering what the future had in store. All of a sudden two trucks arrived to take them back to Muir House where they were told to line up. Their commanding officer, Captain Reggie Matthews, addressed them and delivered the news they had all been expecting.

‘He said, I have some grave news, England has just declared war on Germany. I remember looking down at my watch, it was 11.05 a.m. I looked at the others around me and they all looked rather worried, but we just got on with it. We were at war. It had all happened so quickly.’

After their six weeks in Worthing they were to take the train to Chard, in Somerset, for their next block of training. The girls from the Odeon cinema came to bid them farewell at the station and there were tears as well as hugs and kisses. But at the other end, their reception was not so welcoming. Their new sergeant major knew it had been easy for them so far, and he was determined to let them know it.

‘He glared at us and said, Good morning you shower of bastards, you have had a bloody holiday up until now, from now on I am going to make proper bloody soldiers of you shower. Do you understand me? We all said loud and clear Yes sir and tried to keep on the right side of him. This was proper training now, we were getting ready for war.’

Arthur was based in Somerset for the next few months, where he went through battle training and was taught to use a Bren gun, the British light machine gun which doubled as a makeshift anti-aircraft gun. The training was tough, physically and mentally, but Arthur could feel himself getting fitter and stronger with each day. With numbers thin on the ground they were joined by soldiers from the Royal Engineers from Yorkshire, which led to great rivalries and friendly arguments about who had the most beautiful countryside. But with Easter 1940 just around the corner, regional rivalries would have to be put aside as they received their deployment to France.

Arthur and his pals were sent to Southampton where they boarded a ship bound for Cherbourg. They were now part of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) with the objective of pushing the Germans back and stopping their march into France. As part