Wartime Memories of Dennis William Elliott
1939 – The War began on September 34th, which was at the end of the school summer holidays, but as my school had no Air Raid Shelters our school holidays were extended until they were built. After 4 weeks we returned to school for 1 hour each day to collect homework and to return the previous days lessons. It was getting close to Christmas before the Air Raid Shelters were all built and we were able to go back to school all day.
During these first months of the war we had to get used to the black out, all houses, shops, offices and factories had to make sure that no lights could be seen after dark and there were no street lights, so on a foggy night it was very difficult to find your way around.
1940 – I left school during this year and started work at the Accounts Offices of the N.A.A.F.I. Although the Air Raid Sirens went quite often, only one raid was made on the barracks up the road one Saturday afternoon where Canadian soldiers were stationed. There was also a raid on a train at Tongham which was hit with ammunition on board. Quite a firework display at night.
1941 - With my friends I joined the Air Training Corp, with an idea of eventually to the R.A.F., during the next 2 years I got 3 flights in wartime aircraft.
1942 – All offices and factories had to protect their property from fire during Air Raids so the staff had to do what was called Fire Watching, all men over the age of 18 had to take their turn but when you were 16 years you could volunteer, for this you were paid 2/6 (12.5 p) which meant I could go to the cinema twice that week.
1943 – The services accepted volunteers from the age of 17.5 and you could choose which one to join but at 18 you were conscripted and you had no choice of service you joined. So with my friends we decided that driving a tank would be far better than anything else so we volunteered for the Royal Armoured Corps. A few weeks later we received our call up papers and travelled to Bovington Camp to start our training.
1944 – Soldiers at this time had to wait until they were 18.5 before being sent abroad so I was too young to take part in D-Day. It wasn’t until near the end of the year before I went to Ostend in Belgium and then onto Brussels.
1945 – In Belgium I joined the 1st Royal Tank Regiment and went onto Holland, after a few weeks on patrol we returned to Belgium and then back to Holland again to a village near Eindhoven, a few days later we crossed the Rhine. At the end of March I was in the lead tank advancing to Osnabruck when the tank was hit twice. Fortunately I was halfway out of the tank when the second shell hit so was blown out by the blast. At this point I was taken prisoner and sent to Stalag 10B, which was at a place called San Bostel, this is a few miles east of the German Naval Base at Bremerhaven in the far North of Germany.
I was liberated by the Grenadiers Guards and flown to Brussels and from there in a Lancaster Bomber to R.A.F. Wing in Buckinghamshire; V.E. Day came the day after I got home.
