Blitz Kids (59 page)

Sick and barely able to continue, Tony was inspected by the ship’s doctor who told the captain that if he didn’t stop forcing the apprentice to paint the decks he would die. The captain simply replied: ‘He’ll finish the bloody job first!’ Unable to force the captain to change his mind, the doctor gave Tony some cotton wool to mop himself down with whilst he kept working. The apprentices finally finished the job: ‘Then the captain announced, “By the way, the war is over.” He had let us all go for a week before telling us. People always said, “If you can sail with Harry Armstrong, you can sail with anyone.” But the war was over, and things started to improve.’

With the war in Europe coming to an end, there was still much fighting to be done in the Far East. Merchant ships continued to head east to supply the Army ready to push the Japanese back. They were escorted by the Royal Navy, with some of the ships proceeding to the Pacific to support American landings. Robin Rowe, now seventeen
years old and a veteran of three years at sea, was on HMS
Howe
as it supported the landings at Okinawa. There he was witness to Japan’s last-ditch effort to defeat the Allies. He watched as kamikaze attacks were launched against the fleet. Planes came from all directions, surrounded by the black clouds of shell bursts, seemingly weaving their way through the arcing lines of tracer bullets as hundreds of anti-aircraft guns opened fire. He saw Japanese planes crash into the sea and, horrifyingly, saw them crash into ships, exploding into balls of flame. In the aftermath of the action, he noticed how the crew appeared more strained than he had ever seen. He realized as he watched the kamikaze attacks that he had become indifferent to the fact that each explosion on other ships meant death and wounding for men and boys just like himself. He later wrote: ‘My senses had become accustomed to the ferocious sight and sound of war, rather as if I were at the cinema.’
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His exuberance was diminished when a pilot switched course and aimed for the
Howe
. It was just 300 yards away, and heading directly for Robin’s position when it was hit by anti-aircraft fire, veered off course and flew over the ship, just 100 feet from where Robin was standing. As it passed he could see the lifeless body of the pilot. Later that day, as he ate his meal, Robin noticed that his hands were shaking.

After the battles at Okinawa, the
Howe
returned to South Africa. Whilst there, the Americans dropped the world’s first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the war came to an end. Three months after the end of hostilities, Bugle Boy Robin Rowe was marched before Major Ross, the senior marine officer onboard HMS
Howe
. He stood before the officer as the sergeant spoke: ‘Boy Bugler Rowe requests to be rated Bugler, Sir!’ The officer granted permission and Robin marched from the office. He’d been at sea for over three years. He was a veteran of Arctic convoys, had bombarded Sicily and survived attacks by the Japanese kamikaze aircraft: it was his eighteenth birthday.

For a generation who had known little but war, peace had a profound effect. There was something unfamiliar about this strange new world in which bombs were no longer falling. To the younger children, war was all they had known. Older children could remember the peace of the pre-war years, but it seemed distant after the monumental changes they had experienced. For many, the war years had been a combination of trauma and excitement, and they had enjoyed freedoms they might otherwise never have known. At the time, most youngsters enjoyed the disruption of their schools and teenagers had enjoyed the benefits of high wages. For those who had volunteered for service before their time, they had exchanged their youth for an unforgettable experience.

Whether good or bad, few of the nation’s children and teenagers had been unaffected by war. The social catalyst of evacuation, bringing together people from all backgrounds and mixing them with the population of the small towns and villages, changed the face of the countryside. There was also the political catalyst, this sense that
the nation should not return its children to the slums in which so many had been raised. As one author noted: ‘Are they, when the war is over, simply to return to the slums, there to resume life as they lived it before, after this glimpse of a better and healthier and freer life?’
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This sense that the country deserved better changed the entire post-war political landscape, bringing the Labour Party to power in 1945, seeing the creation of the welfare state and improving the lives of millions of ordinary people. The generation that had sacrificed so much in wartime felt they deserved reward and protection. The children who had been bombed from their homes now wanted new homes to bring up their own children. Those whose education had been curtailed by war wanted their children to benefit from free education. Those who had seen doctors and nurses give everything to save the victims of war wanted the same protection to be freely available to all. Regardless of party political allegiances, nobody wanted to go back to the pre-war society. As former evacuee Reg Baker put it:

One youngster for whom the political and social changes in wartime were an unforgettable influence was Anthony Wedgwood Benn. At fourteen he had been excited by war and been keen to do his duty. In 1940 he had written to his father:

As war progressed he found that whoever he spoke with talked of the future: ‘During the war there was only one topic of conversation: what do we do after the war?’

The experience of war had a profound influence on his later political life. Having joined the Labour Party aged seventeen, he was asked to stand as a parliamentary candidate at the first post-war election, but declined the offer. Onboard a troopship headed for pilot training in South Africa, he joined in political discussions:

Returning from South Africa aged twenty, he also realized that many of those who had fought so hard for victory had no say in their future: ‘When I got back from the war I couldn’t even vote – you had to be twenty-one. All these men my age who had come back from fighting still couldn’t vote.’ It was not just his sense of social justice that was developed by the experience of war: ‘My hatred of war began at that time – I was keen to take part because I thought we might get invaded, but my dislike of war and what it does to people was growing.’

Despite all the criticisms of the UK’s youth, there were many in authority who recognized the sufferings, sacrifice and positive
contribution
the boys and girls of Britain had made to what was a ‘total war’. In November 1945, as part of a Parliamentary debate, members gave thanks for this contribution. Jack Jones, the member for Bolton, pointed to the independence given to children by war and stressed that the rise in delinquency was not universal: ‘It is not a bit of use decrying the rottenness of our young people, and forgetting the millions of splendid characters there are in this country.’
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The member for Harrow East, Mr Skinnard, went even further, noting that a youthful sense of adventure was central to the issue of delinquency. He told the house that youth needed to be guided into using its talents legitimately and the energy of youth should not be wasted. He also felt that war had nurtured the talents of the young,
turning potential delinquents into heroes: ‘If they had been six years younger, many of the young VCs and DSOs would have been in Dartmoor, Borstals or remand homes, for exercising the very same valuable instincts of initiative and courage for which they have been rewarded in the Services.’ Mr Skinnard announced that he was pleased to see crowds of young people in dance halls enjoying themselves. He admitted that he found the area he had earlier worked in had changed beyond recognition, with war bringing responsibility to working-class areas that had once been plagued by violence and delinquency. ‘We have taken these young people into our confidence and tried, during this war, to put square pegs into square holes, and to harness all their energy, courage and resource. We encouraged youth because the country was in desperate need on account of the war.’
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Six years of war had made an indelible impression upon all the children and teenagers who had lived through it. As underage volunteer Eric ‘Bill’ Sykes put it: ‘Anyone who goes to war and survives is lucky. Anyone who goes to war and survives with their life and whole body and mind is extremely lucky.’ He was right. Thousands of youngsters carried a resounding emotional and physical burden. For some it was just regret that evacuation had split their families and that war had taken them away from the places they knew and loved. For others there was a pride that war had challenged them, they had responded and they had used the experience to build upon. But for many there was a deep darkness. What of boys like John Chinnery, who served six years at sea, yet was just eighteen at war’s end and who had been driven to the brink of suicide by his experiences? Or Roy Finch, still seventeen when he went to France as a soldier and just eighteen when he witnessed the indescribable horrors of Belsen concentration camp?

What memories must it conjure up for former Royal Marine bugler Len Chester to hear the notes of ‘The Last Post’: the first time he played it at a funeral, he was just fourteen years old, already on active service, standing in tears beside the graves of six sailors:

Asked about going to war at such a young age, he has no regrets: ‘I’m still here. I’m eighty-six years old. I’ve got a family. If I hadn’t joined the marines at fourteen, I would have been called up at some point. I could be lying dead under the sand of the Libyan desert. How can I have regrets?’

The survivors of the SS
City of Benares
struggled to come to terms with their experiences. While fully occupied childish minds found plenty of distractions, they could not remain occupied forever. Dreams and nightmares about the sinking were a regular feature for the survivors. Despite their maritime sufferings, a number of the
Benares
’ boys made a curious decision: Derek Capel served seven years in the Royal Navy; in 1944 Ken Sparks joined the Navy as a ‘boy sailor’; Billy Short and Fred Steels also chose to do their National Service with the ‘Senior Service’. The lure of the sea also called Colin Ryder Richardson who did his National Service in the Royal Navy. When he joined the Royal Navy, Colin was told that, at all times, he should wear the ‘oak leaf’ emblem he had been awarded in recognition for his bravery following the sinking of the
Benares
. Again, this was a shock: ‘On parade, I was the only one with anything to show.’

It was whilst serving in the Royal Navy that the nineteen-year-old survivor of the SS
City of Benares
first became able to assess the tragedy he had so narrowly survived. After developing an infection at sea, he was sent to an isolation hospital:

Colin came to understand why it had taken so long for the grief to affect him: ‘My mother had told everyone not to talk to me about my
experiences. She wanted me to get over them. There was no understanding of “post-traumatic stress” – you just got on with life.’

Sometimes just getting on with life had its shocks. Having been bombed out from Clydebank, Ella Flynn and her parents settled in Glasgow. The move meant she never learned of the fate of the people she had known until years later:

After a tearful reunion, they heard her story: ‘Mrs Wade and her son and daughter had been in the shelters behind their house. They were buried under the rubble for three days – her son had died first and then her thirteen-year-old daughter Marion had said to her, “Mummy, Jesus is coming for me,” and died.’ Mrs Wade had eventually been pulled from the rubble. A girder pinning her shoulder had kept the heavy brickwork from suffocating her. Everyone else in the shelter was killed.

For Peter Richards the war had been a very personal journey. It was the same for his old schoolmate, John Cotter, with whom he had listened to the declaration of war. At the time they had thought themselves on the brink of a great adventure: ‘This was to prove true, with the award of a Distinguished Flying Cross for John, who successfully completed a tour of bombing operations, and a year in hospital for me after my marginal efforts to liberate France.’

He could not forget all he had experienced. Though never a pacifist, Peter remained resolute, knowing that war could never be treated lightly. Whenever he heard people treating war as a gung-ho episode his mind turned to the poor, bereaved relatives to whom he had handed telegrams revealing the fate of their sons or husbands. Even seventy years after the Blitz, just to hear the news of the deaths of soldiers continues to haunt him:

Whatever people say about the Blitz on British cities, with some observers claiming it was as hard for civilians as for soldiers at the front, Peter Richards knew that this was untrue. He had seen both. He had cycled and run through the streets of London and delivered post through the City as it lay in smouldering ruins. Yet all the time there was one consolation:

Another soldier who endured a prolonged period of treatment in order to recover from his wounds was Ted Roberts. His shattered arm, ‘was dead for about eighteen months. That’s why I never went back into battle. I had to get the nerves to work again.’ The treatment included hot wax baths to build up a protective coating on his arm, allowing the wounds to heal. Electrodes were placed either side of the wound to stimulate the working of damaged nerves. Eventually he started on physiotherapy: first weaving a small carpet to get his fingertips working again, then doing exercises to build up strength in the arm. All the time, he was uncertain whether full movement would return to his arm.