Blitz Kids (42 page)

Generally, life aboard the
King George
V
was bearable for Len Chester. Living conditions were not bad compared to older ships. Once at sea, Len lived on a mess deck with twenty-five other marines, all members of the ship's band. It was a far cry from the days when he had lived on the sergeant's mess deck to protect him from paedophile seamen. But life remained basic. He just did his watch, then slept in his hammock, eating meals whenever he could: ‘I had to collect my meals on a tray from the galley. It was quite a way from the galley to my mess. And, with the ship going up and down, trying to carry a tray full of food down a ladder was difficult.'

During 1943 the
King George V
moved to the Mediterranean. The ship took part in the bombardment of the Sicilian coast during the Allied landing and, having reached the age of eighteen, Len put in a request to transfer to the ranks. However, this could not be done until they returned to England. Celebrating his birthday at sea made him realize how different he was to other boys of his generation: ‘I was a four-year veteran, with two ships and two years at sea.' At home, his old schoolmates were just being called up for military service. It was
whilst serving in the Mediterranean that he learned the full power of a battleship: ‘The noise! When the guns fire and recoil, it shakes the whole ship. Most of the time they fired salvos – just two guns. If it's a full broadside of all eight guns, it's too much.' HMS
Howe
joined in the bombardment. It was the first time Robin Rowe had sounded ‘Action Stations' and the first time he had heard the guns fire in anger. He watched the orange flash of the guns firing, felt the ship shake with recoil, then smelled and tasted the sweet cloud of cordite that filled the atmosphere. Not having closed his eyes, he was temporarily blinded by the flash of the guns. In the following days, the now fifteen year old had a close reminder of the horrors of war whilst in port in Algiers. Following an explosion on an ammunition ship that caused numerous casualties, he saw human body parts floating past. Feeling sick, he moved to the other side of the ship and could not report it. Days later, during a German air raid, one of the
Howe
's guns misfired. As the cordite charge fell from the gun, it exploded in a ball of flame, burning the turret crew and killing a sailor.

When HMS
King George V
returned to England in 1944, Len left the ship and returned to Eastney to commence training to join the ranks. He was joined in his squad by another ex-bugler, who had trained with him. Peter Baxter had been just fifteen years old when, in November 1941, HMS
Barham
had been torpedoed and then exploded. More than 800 men died in the disaster. He admitted to Len that he had no idea how he had survived: one moment he had been eating a meal, the next he was in the water. Once their training started, Len realized that, despite his youth, he had more sea-time than the instructors. He was pleased to find that, as a ‘veteran', the other recruits were eager to listen to him to learn about life at sea. At the same time, Robin Rowe returned to England and found himself back in Eastney Barracks. Two years earlier, he had been a new recruit, sitting there in awe of ‘veterans' like Len Chester. Now Len had moved on and he, still just sixteen years old, was the veteran admired by the newcomers. When he went on leave, he found himself feted by his father's friends. In their eyes, despite his youth, he wore a medal ribbon on his breast and must therefore know everything about the Italian campaign. He didn't tell them he knew nothing apart from what he had heard on the radio. When Robin returned to the sea, some of the new marines onboard
had come straight from training. The new recruits were nineteen year olds who had never been to sea. It fell to the two sixteen-year-old ‘veterans', Robin and his friend ‘Whacker', to teach them about life at sea.

With almost every warship carrying a contingent of boys, it meant there were boys involved in nearly every incident of the war at sea. One of the most famous – and important – naval actions of the entire war was marked by the heroism of sixteen-year-old Tommy Brown. Where his story is different to so many is that Tommy was not a sailor but a civilian, a canteen assistant working for the NAAFI. He had lied about his age when he joined the HMS
Petard
, claiming to be seventeen. In October 1942 the ship intercepted a German submarine,
U-559.
Although the U-boat was sinking and had been abandoned by her crew, two British sailors climbed onboard to retrieve the submarine's codebooks. Tommy joined them on the submarine, rowing out to it in a whaleboat, collecting the codebooks and returning them to the
Petard
. Of the three who boarded the
U-559,
only Tommy had escaped when the submarine sank trapping the other two.

The books and documents were taken back to England where they were passed to the cipher teams at the top-secret Bletchley Park. Once analysed, the documents rescued by the canteen assistant were used to break the ‘Enigma' code, giving the Allies a precious intelligence tool that saved thousands of lives in the years that followed. Following his heroic acts, the truth about his age became known and he was sent home to await call-up for military service. The compensation for being sent home was that Tommy was awarded the George Medal for his deeds. Sadly, he did not live to receive his medal. He died in a house fire in 1945, trying to rescue his young sisters.

Another youngster who had a curious experience at sea was
sixteen-year-
old Jim Hutchison. Jim – the Royal Navy's youngest qualified diver – found himself alone in the sea after his ship was torpedoed off the coast of Africa. After some time treading water, Jim accepted death was imminent. Suddenly he spotted something floating in the water. He swam to the object only to discover it was a shark. The creature had been killed by the torpedo blast but was still floating. Jim hauled himself up onto the shark and hung on until a rescue boat appeared. As he later recalled: ‘I bet I'm the only person whose life was saved by a shark.'

Even in wartime, the Royal Navy was full of tradition, with the old hands seemingly a class apart from the newly conscripted men. They had traditional ways of speaking and dressing and were different to the newcomers. As one new recruit, Ray Clarke, later noted:

The differences were just as pronounced among officers. Members of the Royal Naval Reserve, wearing the interwoven rings of rank on their sleeves, were easily distinguished from members of the Royal Navy, whose insignia was straight, or the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, who wore the waved lines that earned them the name ‘The Wavy Navy'. When Derek Tolfree joined the Royal Navy as a sixteen-
year-old
midshipman in 1942, he noticed a degree of onboard snobbery: ‘Most of the other midshipmen were from Navy families. And socially, the RNVR were much closer to the regular officers than the RNR. We were just sailors trying to be gentlemen – they got on together better. They were from the same class.' As a counter to this situation, Derek discovered there was a good reason to remain proud of being a member of the RNR: ‘We were better at seamanship. RNR officers were professional seamen – it was their everyday job. On ships, the RNR officer would be the navigator. The Royal Navy spent much of their time on other business, like parading and gunnery.'

When Derek first joined HMS
Nelson
, he found the battleship stunningly large: ‘like a floating barracks'. As a midshipman he was the equivalent of an apprentice in a merchant ship: the most junior of the officers who was there to learn how to be a ship's officer: ‘I assisted the officer of the watch. There would be a duty lieutenant commander, junior officer of watch, and a midshipman. That way we picked up the trades, learning to steer and so on. Also, the midshipman ran the ship's boats. I also did courses on torpedoes.' Life on the
Nelson
gave him certain reminders of his time on a training ship. Once again,
the junior officers were segregated from the senior ones: ‘We lived in the gun room – it was just for midshipmen. The ward room was only for commissioned officers. We had a sub-lieutenant to watch over us. He was like a prefect, like we had at school.' He remained with the
Nelson
for six months, escorting convoys to North Africa and Malta. As he later explained, during this period he never felt tense about enemy action. He was more nervous about making mistakes: ‘I wanted to keep my nose clean and not cock things up.'

From HMS
Nelson
, Derek was posted to HMS
Westminster
, an ageing destroyer that was part of the Rosyth Escort Force, accompanying convoys along the North Sea coast. It was a far cry from life on a battleship. The officers dressed casually and lived far more closely than on the vast battleship. As Derek noted: ‘That was a very happy ship.' However, escorting coastal convoys was not a glamorous role:

Although not glamorous, coastal work required a high standard of seamanship:

He recalled one attack:

However, the burden of his duties meant the attack did not unnerve him and it was repulsed. During Derek's service on the
Westminster
, the destroyer was credited with three ‘kills' as it kept the enemy away from the convoys.

Derek had been lucky. By being posted to coastal convoys he faced fewer dangers than some of his former shipmates from his days training at HMS
Worcester
. He later discovered that one of his mates had gone into the Merchant Navy at sixteen as the member of a tanker crew. His ship was sunk and he spent many days adrift in a lifeboat. The experience convinced him that he would be safer in the Royal Navy and so rejoined the RNR and was called up for service. He was on three ships, all of which were lost. On the third occasion he was lost at sea.

Despite the dangers of life at sea, the former sea-school boys had sailed the world, learned much and matured beyond their years as a result of their sea service. Derek Tolfree found this was particularly evident whenever he went home on leave in the latter years of the war: ‘The uniform was smart and you thought you were “Jack the Lad”. I would see lads I had been at school with who had just been called up. I was already a sub-lieutenant, when they were just training. I'd been three years at sea. I grew up quickly.'

With war came a change in the lives of Britain’s youth. As well as an increased spirit of independence, the war years saw a vast rise in youth crime and juvenile delinquency, causing serious concern for those in power. One Home Office report noted it was important not to consider juvenile delinquency a ‘pale shadow’ of adult crime, rather its progenitor.
1

Even before the outbreak of war there had been a noticeable rise in criminal activity among juveniles. In 1938, over 36 per cent of all indictable crimes were believed to have been committed by juveniles – 26,000 boys and 1,700 girls. As a result the Home Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare, commissioned a study of the subject. As Hoare had noted, the numbers of offences by juveniles ‘began to assume serious proportion’ among overall crime figures.
2
Whereas the early 1930s had seen indictable juvenile offences at 300 per 100,000 of population, by 1936 the figure had risen to 568 per 1000,000. However, the fruits of the research were not published until 1942, by which time proposals were already underway for a fresh inquiry entitled ‘The Effect of the War on Crime’.
3

In 1938–9 convictions for indictable offences by children under fourteen had reached 16,208. By 1940–41 that figure had risen by 58 per cent to 25,604. In just the first twelve months of war there were 41
per cent more crimes committed by boys and girls under fourteen. Of particular concern was that offences by girls had risen by 100 per cent – mostly committed by girls under fourteen. The big difference between the boys and girls was that the boys tended to operate in gangs whilst delinquent girls usually acted alone. In the same period, convictions of those aged between fourteen and seventeen had reached 18,694, a 44 per cent rise on the figures for 1938–9. In Essex, juvenile crime rose from 437 convictions in 1938 to 609 by 1942. The MP for Leyton East pointed out that the rising crime levels should be viewed in light of the falling numbers of children in the area as a result of evacuation, effectively magnifying the crime levels.  

In April 1941, to address the rising criminality among the young, the Home Office arranged a conference to discuss how the offenders might best be dissuaded from a life of crime. Its concern was that: ‘unless effective steps were taken to deal with juvenile delinquency now there might well be a serious increase in adult crime in a few years’ time’.
4
The Home Office acknowledged that the rising numbers of offences reflected the changing times. The nation’s boys had been gripped by the high spirits at the outbreak of war. With a heightened desire for adventure, many committed low-level offences that reflected a desire to share the adventure they believed their fathers had embarked upon, as the report noted: ‘It would be unwise to ignore the effect of the excitement and unsettlement of war on adolescent boys’.
5
It was not just the excitement of war that helped to change society, the horrors unleashed on the nation gripped the minds of Britain’s youth. In March 1941 one newspaper described the rise of juvenile delinquency in London as ‘perfectly appalling’ referring to the ‘demoralising effects of violent events on the juvenile mind’.
6
 

Furthermore, the initial rise in offences had coincided with the closure of schools as the first wave of evacuations had disrupted young lives. Truancy became an easy option for boys distracted by the experience of war. In some areas truancy and poor time keeping were considered, ‘very serious problems and a fundamental factor in juvenile delinquency’.
7
During 1941 the authorities in Birmingham reported 40 per cent truancy rates and suggested that it would be better for the truants to work illegally, earning their wages, to prevent them resorting to crime.

The lack of full-time education was recognized as the prime factor in rise of juvenile delinquency. In some areas as little as 7 per cent of children were receiving full-time regular compulsory education. In part, this was due to the lack of shelter space at schools as building materials were diverted elsewhere. In Wolverhampton 1,000 children were in part-time education. The council found that local delinquent youths were more interested in working than going to school and were attracted to a scheme that employed them in basic roles such as mending household goods. This and other similar schemes helped lower the local figures for youth crime, leading to the assumption that the youths just needed to be kept busy.  

The correlation between crime and school closure was explained by the local authorities in Bristol, where juvenile crime peaked between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. In 1940 the city saw an increase in planned crimes by youth gangs and in the first twelve months of war there was a 41 per cent increase in children under fourteen found guilty of indictable offences. In the fourteen- to seventeen-year-old age group there was a 22 per cent increase in crime. A council report blamed: ‘the absence of fathers on military service, the taking up of war work by mothers, the breaking up of home life owing to evacuation and the closing of schools in the early stages of the war’. Also the rising wages for school-leavers and the closing of youth organizations, combined with adolescent boys being excited and unsettled by war, were considered factors. The lower level of youth crime in Bristol than other cities was explained by the fact that there were fewer closed schools than elsewhere in the country.  

Noting that the main cause of the high crime levels was a lack of parental discipline and increasingly uncertain home lives, the Home Office recognized the need to provide youths with organized
distractions
. Similarly, the Department of Education was convinced that male teachers were the best influence to prevent boys falling into crime. In particular, it was the younger male members of school staff who encouraged boys to take part in extracurricular activities, especially sports. However, it was these young male teachers who had been called up into the military, to be replaced by women and older, retired men. In order to prevent delinquency, and to bring the schools back into the centre of the lives of British children, the Department of Education
suggested that schools be encouraged to keep their playgrounds open in winter evenings to encourage children to play there rather than risk the dangers of blacked-out streets.  

It was not just the children and their teachers that were blamed for the falling standards in wartime. In 1942 Ralph Assheton at the Ministry of Labour blamed parents for the rising levels of juvenile delinquency: ‘Since elementary education became compulsory, I suspect there has been a tendency on the part of parents to think they needn’t bother to bring up their own children because the state was doing it.’
8
However, officials at the Ministry of Education thought that this couldn’t be presented to parents who would simply retort that wealthy families sent their children to boarding schools for thirty-six weeks of the year and were paying for their children to be brought up by someone else.  

The changing situation did not just affect schoolboys. School-leavers were confronted by a high demand for their labour, as industry upped production to cope with the demands of the military. These boys found themselves earning wages far exceeding peacetime averages. This often meant they had money to spend rather than save. Magistrates noticed boys appearing before them who were earning between £3 and £5 a week. As a result of their new-found wealth, these boys faced ‘new temptations’, spending their money ‘riotously’ and often
displaying
a recklessness seldom seen pre-war. As one MP told the House of Commons, high wages for children meant: ‘young people have an overrated opinion of themselves, and have been able to spend more money than is good for them’.
10
 

The courts and newspapers recorded the behaviour of youth gangs in parts of London. Teenage gangs were seen roaming the streets, even during air raids, often flitting from shelter to shelter, finding the best locations for drinking, gambling or casual encounters with girls. One Army deserter organized a gang, aged between fourteen and sixteen, to rob shops in south London’s Elephant and Castle area. Soho saw the rise of a teenage gang named the ‘Dead End Kids’ who – like the
teenage
fire-fighters in Stepney – chose their title in homage to the group of young New York-born actors who had appeared as a street gang in 1930s films. In Fulham a gang of twenty youths, mostly aged between sixteen and seventeen, ruined local dances. They rushed into dance halls, clutching beer bottles and drove away the dancers. Even when
arrested, their high wages meant fines did not deter them: ‘This gang broke up a dance hall, kicking in the doors, breaking furniture and windows and pulling away the gas pipes. They are a vicious group. The use of violence is not unusual. Much of the juvenile drinking in pubs is done by this small, vicious minority.’
11

In north London, teenage postman Peter Richards began to experience a social life with broader horizons than the old days at the youth club. Increasingly, the boys and girls began to mix and he no longer laughed at mates who went to dances. The girls were now not just long-haired creatures who ‘danced backwards’, but something with a definite appeal. With his weekdays filled by work, sports and evening trips to the pub, Sunday evenings saw a new form of entertainment. He began attending a newly opened dancehall: the Clarence. This was the era in which new forms of dance music flourished and was embraced by the nation’s youth. In the words of George Melly, then a jazz-loving pupil at Stowe School: ‘Suddenly, as if by some form of spontaneous combustion, the music exploded in all our heads.’
12
 

The Clarence was a weekly club held in a local church hall. It needed club status to avoid the laws limiting dancing. To meet the rules, the local youths all queued up, signed their names on a ledger and received a number. This was, ostensibly, their membership number which they quoted as they paid their entrance fee. Once inside, there was a four-piece band, comprising piano, trumpet, saxophone and drums. Dances included waltzes, foxtrots, quicksteps, then maybe a tango or a rumba. Enthusiastic local singers would join the band onstage to add vocals to the songs as the crowd danced. For Peter Richards, it was a chance for everyone to get dressed up to impress the girls: ‘The cinema pushed the latest fashions. We didn’t just look like our dads. The youngsters almost wore a uniform. A suit and shirt and tie. Haircut: short back and sides and Brylcreem. We were very conscious of shining our shoes.’ As he recalled, looking good was just as important as in peacetime. The particular problem was the restriction placed on clothing, meaning that trousers could not have turn-ups and suits had to be single-breasted: ‘There was a lot of subterfuge, especially about turn-ups. The ploy was to get the tailor to cut the trousers with a longer leg so that you had an inch of material to turn up. I used to be very conscious of turn-ups.’

The club was a place for teenagers to dress up and be seen. Girls scraped together whatever make-up they could find, put on their best frocks and paraded for the boys. The boys got changed from their work clothes, put on their best shirts and brightest ties, combed their hair and did their best to impress. It was a world far removed from the stinking dullness of air raid shelters. Although unlicensed, the club offered beer to its customers. This was served not at a bar but in the gentlemen’s toilets. The toilet attendant, employed to prevent vandalism, sold it to the boys at a penny more than pub prices. As Peter Richards recalled, it seemed strange that the boys paid ‘over the odds’ for beer when they could walk across the street and buy a glass.  

There was one element that livened up the dances, albeit violently. As Peter remembered: ‘what made the Clarence unique was the clientele. The men were a really mixed group, comprising petty villains, “razor boys”, lads from the gym and those who might be called ordinary.’ The gangs carried cut-throat razors which were opened and wielded at the first sign of trouble:

As the blood flowed, the gangs practised a form of ritual humiliation in which a rival’s tie was slashed off just below the knot, then stuffed in his pocket as a symbol of defeat. Strangely, as Peter Richards noticed, the band never stopped playing despite the unfolding carnage. All those who didn’t want to be involved would move to the edge, leaving the gangs to fight until one was victorious. Fortunately for Peter, the gangs only fought among themselves, leaving the more innocent youths unmolested: ‘It was a different attitude. If you weren’t one of the “razor boys” they left you alone. You didn’t upset them though.’

Some observers believed youths seen hanging around cafes were to blame for the rising crime rate, thinking the cafes brought them into the company of disreputable types. Suggestions were put forward that cafes should be licensed to prevent youths using them. Accusations were also made against cinemas and the films they showed. Another target were the ‘pin-table saloons’ where youths hung around playing pinball. However, the Home Office found no evidence to link films or cinema-going to juvenile delinquency. Instead, cinemas actually kept youths occupied and out of trouble. If anything, American films were aspirational: they showed British youth a world of cafes and restaurants where all manner of food was available. They showed well-dressed people in bright, casual clothes. It was a lifestyle of which the average British teenager could only dream.