Captured at Arnhem From Railwayman to Paratrooper Norman Hicks
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Contents
Preface ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� vii Acknowledgements ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ ix List of Abbreviations ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� x Part One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Life on the Railway ������������������������������������������������������������������ 1 A Railway Family, Royston, 1932–9 ���������������������������������������������� 2 Calling Up Lad – ‘Knocker Up’, November 1934 ������������������������ 4 Engine Cleaner, August 1936 ������������������������������������������������������� 7 Passed Cleaner and Firing, August 1937 ��������������������������������������11 The Working Day ����������������������������������������������������������������������13 Royston, Carlton Yards to Garston Docks, Liverpool ������������������14 The ‘Barrow Babies’ – Royston, Carlton Yards to Carnforth ���������������16 Firing Beyer-Garratts �����������������������������������������������������������������18 Registering for Military Training, August 1939 ���������������������������20
Part Two My Years as a Soldier, 1939–46 �����������������������������������������������23 Chapter 10 Royal Engineer at Longmoor Camp, Hampshire, November 1939 �������������������������������������������������������������������������24 Chapter 11 The Paratroops ��������������������������������������������������������������������������33 Chapter 12 Paratroop Training at Hardwick Hall, March 1942 ����������������������37 Chapter 13 1st Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers ������������������������������������39 Chapter 14 First Parachute Jumps at Ringway, April 1942 �����������������������������43 Chapter 15 Training at Bulford Camp, April 1942 ����������������������������������������52 Chapter 16 On Exercise and How ‘Smudger’ Got His Own Back, August 1942 �������������������������������������������������������������������������������59 Chapter 17 Away at Last, 9 November 1942 ��������������������������������������������������71 Chapter 18 Maison Blanche to Bone, 12 November 1942 ������������������������������75 Chapter 19 Returning to Algiers from Bone ��������������������������������������������������80 Chapter 20 Boufarik, Algeria to Beja, Tunisia, 12 November 1942 �����������������84 Chapter 21 Back to Boufarik �������������������������������������������������������������������������89 Chapter 22 By Sea to Bone and on to El Aroussa, 24 January 1943 ����������������92 Chapter 23 Bou Arada, Tunisia ���������������������������������������������������������������������96 Chapter 24 Tamera Valley, 7–14 March 1943 ����������������������������������������������103 Chapter 25 Returning to Boufarik from Tamera, 17 March 1943 �����������������111
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Chapter 26 Boufarik to Mascara for Training, May 1943 �����������������������������114 Chapter 27 Mascara to M’Saken, Sousse, Late June 1943 ����������������������������117 Chapter 28 Sicily, July 1943 ������������������������������������������������������������������������119 Chapter 29 Primosole Bridge, Sicily, 13 July 1943 ���������������������������������������121 Chapter 30 Returning to M’Saken, Tunisia �������������������������������������������������137 Chapter 31 Malaria in Tarranto, Italy, September 1943 ��������������������������������139 Chapter 32 Back Home Again – Donington, Lincolnshire, December 1943 ��������141 Chapter 33 Arnhem, Holland, 17 September 1944 �������������������������������������150 Chapter 34 The Plan of Attack ������������������������������������������������������������������154 Chapter 35 RAF Barkston Heath, Lincolnshire, 17 September 1944 ������������156 Chapter 36 Landing on Renkum Heath, DZ-X �������������������������������������������160 Chapter 37 The Oosterbeek Perimeter ��������������������������������������������������������165 Part Three Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43
Prisoner of War ���������������������������������������������������������������������179 Early Days as a POW ����������������������������������������������������������������180 Fallingbostel, Germany – Stalag XIB ����������������������������������������185 POW Lead Miner, Bad Grund, Lower Saxony ��������������������������194 The March to Liberation, 7 April 1945 �������������������������������������221 Liberation, 11 April 1945 ����������������������������������������������������������226 Returning to Longmoor, June 1945 �������������������������������������������237
Part Four Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50
Life Continues �����������������������������������������������������������������������241 Demobilisation – Returning to Royston Shed, July 1946 ���������������242 Engine Driver, January 1947 �����������������������������������������������������244 Coal Trains and Passenger Turns ����������������������������������������������247 Coal Over Copy Pit Summit �����������������������������������������������������250 Trippers and the Scramble into Carlton Yards ���������������������������251 Final Days at Royston ��������������������������������������������������������������253 Parachuting Again ��������������������������������������������������������������������255
Epilogue Another Tennis Racket �������������������������������������������������������������257 Appendix 1 Royston Locomotive Depot ������������������������������������������������������259 Appendix 2 Demise of the 1st Parachute Squadron RE, 1941–5 �������������������260 Appendix 3 Tragino – Operation Colossus ��������������������������������������������������262 Appendix 4 Three Songs of the Paratroops, 1942 ����������������������������������������263 Appendix 5 Roll of Honour of the 1st Parachute Squadron Royal Engineers �������266 Bibliography ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������269 Index ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������270
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Preface
T
his book details my father’s life from his earliest years to the end of steam at Royston Motive Power Depot in 1967. Sandwiched in between his work on the railway and consuming the bulk of this story are his experiences during the Second World War. Tom Hicks started work on the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) as a calling up lad in 1934 and progressed through the grades to become a steam-engine driver. His work on the LMS was interrupted by military service during the war years of 1939–45 and was not resumed again until he was demobilised in 1946, from when he ‘soldiered’ on until retirement in 1982. Tom’s life as a soldier began in 1939 with his enlistment into the Royal Engineers (RE) and subsequent service on the Longmoor Military Railway until 1942. From Longmoor he was accepted as a volunteer into the newly formed 1st Parachute Squadron RE, a small 150-man unit attached to the 1st Parachute Brigade within which he served until 1945. This story follows Tom’s selection for parachute training, beginning with the rough and tumble of the airborne forces depot, followed by more rigorous pursuits as his training as a parachute soldier began in earnest. His war service is told as it was, simply and with humour and endurance that he maintained when the real soldiering began in North Africa, through the invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Arnhem and seven months as a prisoner of war in Germany, most of which was spent working underground in a lead mine. Liberated by the Americans in April 1945, Tom was repatriated to Britain and returned to Longmoor to await demobilisation in 1946. After this he rejoined the LMS and Royston engine shed, where he worked as a driver until the end of steam in 1967. This is where the memoir ends, although he continued as a driver of diesel locomotives at Healey Mills until his retirement in 1982. The wartime element of the book is based on numerous recollections and these have been placed in chronological order by referring to the historical accounts of the day and a wartime diary written by Tom during his time as a POW. Throughout these recollections humour is always to the fore, but there is also fortitude and pride. What cannot be doubted is that my father mostly enjoyed his railway and military life and hopefully this is conveyed through this book.
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viii  Captured at Arnhem
The book is not intended to be a military history, although factual details have been included to give context to the experiences described. Explanations of words and events within the text are given to provide the reader with more detail, particularly for those who may not be familiar with the times and terminology. A selection of contemporary photographs is also included to give a visual flavour of the era. In the account of the war years military strengths and casualty figures are mentioned, and these figures have been taken from a number of wartime histories. Sometimes the numbers vary between sources and I would therefore use the term ‘as far as can be ascertained’ in relation to them, but I have included them in order to give a fuller impression of the events described. Norman Hicks April 2013
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Chapter 1
A Railway Family, Royston, 1932–9
M
y family arrived in Royston in 1932 from Stockingford on the outskirts of Nuneaton where my father was the running foreman at the LMS engine shed. Stockingford was a small country shed of only three roads, and it was so quiet that the engine crews were able to find time to tend an adjacent allotment between turns. We had only been in Stockingford for three years when it was announced that the shed was scheduled for closure, and my father was given the choice of moving to Coalville at Leicester or to the new shed at Royston in south Yorkshire. We were a railway family which had its base in Widnes; here, before moving to Stockingford, my father had been a driver and then deputy foreman at Tanhouse Lane Engine Shed. At Widnes we lived at Ditton where my mother was the tenant licensee of the small Railway Arms pub, a situation that came about because my father was not allowed to own a business while working for the LMS. Sandwiched between terraced houses, the pub nestled up to the embankment of the main line to Liverpool. We were so close to the track that every passing train shook the windows and rattled the knobs on the brass bed that I shared with my younger brother Bob, momentarily drowning out the murmur of the drinkers downstairs. My father’s brothers were also engine drivers and both Bob and I were named after two of them. My namesake Uncle Tom was later killed by a train while walking through New Mills Tunnel on his way home to Gorton, and his funeral was held on the day that King Edward VIII abdicated in 1936. After leaving Ditton our stay at Stockingford passed all too quickly and my memories are now dimmed by the passage of time. I recall that we lived in a terraced house at 5 Webb Street, where the most distinguishing feature of the street was a recreation ground at the bottom with swings that could be used free of charge, a facility that was unheard of in Ditton. The houses in Webb Street had pig sties at the bottom of the gardens and many of our neighbours kept pigs, although we didn’t as my dad was on a good wage and so the sty became a place where we played. Winter days were spent leaning against the wall at the end of the street where heat radiated through from a baker’s oven on the other side, and summers were spent roaming freely if surreptitiously in the private wooded grounds of nearby Arbury Park.
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A Railway Family, Royston, 1932–9 3
Dad’s new position at Royston shed was to be one of the two running foreman who were responsible to the shed superintendent, or shed-master. The running foremen were usually ex- engine drivers but the superintendent was more often than not from a LMS-sponsored college that produced its managers, and its graduates were known to us as premium men. Not only was Royston a newly built engine shed but it was supported by a brand-new estate of 120 houses. Built on a broad street with front and rear gardens, it had a tree-lined square on which stood a hand-operated fire cart. The cart was manned by an on-call fire team of six volunteer railwaymen. The houses were spacious and equipped with the luxury of both an indoor, upstairs toilet and bathroom. The houses on the estate were financed and built to the specification of the LMS. The new estate was named East End Crescent, reflecting its position as the last development on the east side of Royston. The houses were so modern that the local mining families would walk along the broad street to admire them in the evenings. The Crescent housed the influx of railwaymen that were required to staff the busy new shed, fulfilling the roles of the drivers and fireman, fitters, boiler-smiths, guards, signalmen, labourers, clerks and foremen. East of the Crescent ran the busy four-track Midland main line which separated the new houses from the engine shed and its yard, while to the north Monckton colliery sat smoking on a hill among its chimneys and coke ovens, sending out gaseous flares as it looked down on the village and Royston’s railway workings. To reach the shed we had only to cross the road and turn left at Pools (Dalby’s) farm followed by a short walk down the lane and under the bridge that carried the main line, with a journey time of a little over 10 minutes.
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Chapter 2
Calling Up Lad – ‘Knocker Up’, November 1934
O
n our arrival in Royston we were forced into temporary digs on Midland Road until our furniture and possessions were found, as the container in which they were being carried had somehow got lost in transit! However, after a couple of weeks our belongings eventually turned up and were unloaded at the goods shed behind Royston station, from where they were duly carted round to the top end of East End Crescent for us to begin our new life at no. 92. Once settled, I started attending the Catholic school in the nearby village of Cudworth (‘Cudduth’). Each day I travelled to and from school by bus with other Catholic children, unless of course I was playing sport or detained and then I had to walk the 3 miles back across the fields to Royston. I left school in 1933 at the age of 14 and remember my first joyous feeling of liberation as I ran down the school steps for the last time, for my schooldays to me were a period of stuffy and austere confinement. My first job was as a grocery delivery boy which entailed pedalling around the village with a heavy bike and basket. Then in November 1934, at the age of 15, I joined the LMS Railway. Starting at the bottom, my role on the railway had the grand title of calling up lad, or ‘knocker up’ as the job was known within the environs of the shed. The knocker up’s responsibility was to call at the homes of the various train crews to wake them up prior to their shifts during the night. I was one of the two knocker ups that were employed on a permanent basis working six nights a week. Knocker ups only worked in the hours of darkness as the day-shift crews bore their own responsibility for arriving at work on time. As I was 15 I had to work for two years in this job before I became eligible for promotion to the next grade, engine cleaner. The minimum age that one could start work on the railway was 15 and my father being a foreman probably influenced my application. However, that was as far as the nepotism went, and from the start I was allotted more than my fair share of difficult and dirty jobs to dispel any notion of favouritism. The foremen were respected figures around the shed and they dressed accordingly. The working attire of my father as an LMS foreman was that of a bowler hat, pinstriped trousers and a collar (white) and tie, which my mother must have found difficult to get clean.
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Calling Up Lad – ‘Knocker Up’, November 1934 5
My knocking up shift started at 2300hr and ran through the night until 0700hr the following morning. The job entailed visiting the houses of engine crews and sometimes a guard an hour before they were due to sign on for their shift during the night. On arrival at a house I would knock with a measured thump on the outside wall with a steel cotter pin, and I was not allowed to leave until the wake-up call was acknowledged. This took the form of a muffled shout through the curtains, and I would then deliver my message with a hefty adolescent bellow of, for example, ‘Brown 0515 for Toton’, stating the time and the job. I would then meticulously record the call in my book. We had some awkward customers on some of these calls, who would on occasion report that they had not been knocked when in fact they had just gone back to sleep. These chaps were usually the ones who were partial to a night at the pub. When we had one of these disputed calls we were allowed to take a second man from the shed to act as a witness on their next call. This was routine procedure and acted as a stimulant for the suspected intoxicant to get out of bed. The engines still went out, though, even if a driver did not show, as Royston was a busy shed and there were always relief men on hand to cover most situations. The duties of the two knocker ups were shared between home and away rounds. The home round was on East End Crescent and the away round was to houses as far as 1½ miles distant. The outlying round required a cycle which we had to provide for ourselves, while the home route was covered on foot. We sometimes had to knock three men to crew a train, the driver, his fireman and a guard. On many occasions one would live at the top of the street and the other ½ mile away at the bottom, both requiring the knock an hour before their shift was due to start. We couldn’t be in two places at the same time and therefore one was bound to be called early or late, and some of these men would report us for not knocking on the dot. I was an exceptionally diligent knocker and wouldn’t stop banging on the wall until my call was acknowledged, which often would come as an indignant ‘orl rate … orl rate’ and a positive shaking of the curtains. We were out on our rounds in all weathers, on pitch-dark nights, in rain, snow, frosts and dense fog. Sometimes it was so windy or iced over that I had to hang onto fences to keep myself upright. On the away round we had to negotiate narrow muddy lanes and stiles with the only illumination provided by a weak carbide lamp and I was frequently pitched off. My dad worked six-day shifts per week which alternated with that of the other shed running foreman, while the shed superintendent worked regular days. Dad’s hours were on a two-week rota, afternoons from 1400hr to 2200hr one week followed by a week of nights starting at 2200hr until 0600hr. When he was working nights I used to go to work an hour earlier than my 2300hr start so that my mother could settle down and go to bed. We used to walk
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6  Captured at Arnhem
together side by side down Pools Lane and under the bridge to the shed with me pushing my bike, a steady but dark 10-minute journey. After completing my two years as a knocker and having reached the age of 17, I gained my first promotion to that of an engine cleaner. I was to spend a year in this job before being allowed to ascend to the footplate on firing turns as a passed cleaner at 18, the minimum age that was allowed by the LMS.
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