A Dispatch Riders Tale

Unsung Hero `s of the 20th Century

Born in Birmingham in the last year of the Great War in1918, to an Irish father and an English mother, Bob was the eldest of three boys and three girls, Tommy, Jimmy, Katie, Sally and Annie.
It soon became obvious to his teachers that Bob was a fine artist with a wealth of artistic talent. Unfortunately the years between the two great wars of the twentieth century were lean times and he suffered from being born in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the mid nineteen thirties; the civilised nations of Europe were still recovering the disastrous depression of the late twenties and early thirties. The only Countries on the rise were the fascist run states of Germany, Italy and Japan and they soon, would be casting a storm shadow that would devastate Europe and Asia.
On leaving school in the mid 1930s, he started his working life as an apprentice goldsmith in the jeweller’s quarter of Birmingham only to have that avenue of his career quickly terminated by the lack of demand for such luxury goods as jewellery. After a short while he managed to get a job at Millers the electrical people, here he picked up his interest and skills in the electrical trade.
Due to his interest in electrics and in particular radio he had also joined the Royal Signal regiment as a territorial volunteer.
Life was fun and being a young man he enjoyed it to the full, but all of this was about to change when he and a whole generation of that age had their youth abruptly cut short.
If Chamberlin thought waving a scrap of paper signed by Hitler would guarantee peace then he was deeply mistaken.1938 saw the Nazis trick the west and invade Czechoslovakia unopposed. It was quite obvious to all but the gullible, that the dark clouds of war were slowly developing, to create the great storm that would engulf the whole of Europe.
Both France and England drew a line across the sand and told Hitler; invade Poland and its war.
At 4 am on the morning of September 1st 1939 the Nazis war machine started the catalyst that would result in the death of millions of innocent people across the entire globe. By September the 3rd, Britain was once again at war with Germany.

Poland fought gallantly but once The Soviet Union also invaded from the East it was doomed to six years of death and destruction by the Nazis, followed by forty years occupation by the Soviets.
Similar in attitude to the regular lads in the armed forces, Bob was like so many others of his generation, enthusiastic and patriotic towards their country. Their reward for being so patriotic was that these poor souls were the first to get drafted into the army and thrown into the giant caldron of war at the outbreak of hostilities in the autumn of 1939.
On joining the regulars he was appointed into the Royal Signals and went over to France with the expeditionary force in 1939 as a dispatch rider.
The autumn and winter of 39/40 was known as the phoney war, Germany was building up and transferring its forces to the western front after crushing the poorly defended state of Poland. In France the Expeditionary force spent its time enjoying the late autumn and getting to know the French girls.
The Allied commanders were still living in the distant past of cavalry charges and the stiff upper lip of public school. They were to learn very soon that the new generation of German generals had ripped up the old manual of war and replaced it with a more violent technique called Blitzkrieg.
It was for the time being, all treated like a great big holiday. In England the public enjoyed the late autumn sun and in France the troops enjoyed the wine and hospitality of the local French people.
The horrors of World War One belonged to another generation and everyone expected the whole show to be over by Christmas. Nobody could have predicted that it would last over five years, cost the lives of millions of people and produce horrors of unimaginable proportions. Genocide, concentration camps, blitz, fire-storm and nuclear blast were all unknown words to the unsuspecting populace of 1939 Europe.

During the spring of 1940, the storm hit Europe with hurricane force; on the 9th of April 1940, Nazis forces invaded Scandinavia with lightening speed, driving the allied forces out of Denmark and Norway in a matter of weeks. 

The Blitzkrieg had arrived and was driving all before it.
Before the allied forces of France and England could get their breath, from the defeat in Scandinavia, Hitler’s hordes marched into Belgium and Holland on the 10th of May 1940, crushing the tiny armies of these two small countries with their jack boots like insects. Once done, France was next, as the Nazis hordes infested northern France with their armed divisions. Their armed columns spread through France like tentacles of cancer, destroying all before it. The Luftwaffe’s flying machines of war spat out their venomous fire on columns of innocent refugees fleeing before the wall of steel heading towards them. This was sheer carnage of the innocent. The Allies had no answer to this vast machine of war.
This time armed tanks replaced men on the battlefield and their mobility was deadly, fast and furious. With the Luftwaffe mastering the air and the outdated commanders of the allied forces still trying hang on to the outdated tactics of the First World War and relive past glories, the collapse in France came quickly. The Nazis hordes just simply rolled back the allied forces ripping open the French countryside like a tin of corn beef, trapping vast amounts of allied forces in pockets along the northern coast of France. German commanders likened their advances to a drive in the country, enjoying the sites and enjoying corpus amounts of free food and wine on the way. France was on the brink of collapse and most of England’s experienced troops were trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk with the Germans ready to drive them into the English Channel. Then two miracles happened, for some reason Hitler ordered his tank commanders to stop to allow the infantry to catch up and the Royal Navy along with civilian volunteers mounted a great fleet of little boats to bring back the defeated troops from Dunkirk and Calais. From certain defeat a small victory was gained, although the British had lost vast amounts of equipment it managed to bring home over three hundred thousand troops to fight another day. The remains of the expeditionary air force also limped home giving valuable experienced pilots to the Royal Air Force who was already outnumbered for their forthcoming Battle over the skies of Britain.
It was however too late for France, she was doomed to spend the next four years in virtual slavery to the conquering Nazis masters.

The small units further south, unfortunately didn’t have the same opportunity as their colleagues in the north to be evacuated across the English Channel to England. Their only options were, capture, or to keep moving south towards the Mediterranean with the fleeing French. At least by moving south, they had the remote hope of boarding a boat from one of the ports along the south cost of France. As Bob and his friends travelled further and further south they eventually reached the Mediterranean port of Marseille in the far south of France.
By now the government of France had collapsed along with her armies, Petain was suing for peace with Germany and Italy had stuck the knife in the side of France by latching on to Hitler’s victories. The French had now given up hope with its armies crushed and its people with no stomach to carry on the fight, the political leaders gave way to the demands of the Nazis conquerors. As with any defeat, certain factions who wished to advance their political and financial power collaborated with invading Nazi hoards in order to establish themselves with the new order now smothering Europe. These evil collaborating traitors would shake the hand of the allied troops looking for a safe haven to stay for the night and then took every opportunity to give allied forces positions away to the Nazis for personal gain over their fellow countrymen.
Betrayed on more than one occasion by these collaborating Frenchmen, Bob and his fellow comrades had several close shaves with the various French police and Nazi forces alike, sometime only avoiding capture by seconds.
On reaching Marseilles, chaos reigned. They had to search desperately along with the fleeing civilian refugees for any transport they could find to escape the disaster of France. The rich and famous, Allied forces and ex-pats were all desperately trying to flee the giant German war machine thundering toward southern France. After a few days of sleeping rough on the harbour and searching for a space on a ship out of this hell hole, The little band of brothers in arms managed to find an old filthy rusty coal boat crowded with every aspect of human life thrown together in such a small confined melting pot, the rust bucket was not fit to be used for scrap, never mind sail on the sea, but it was an escape route out of France and away from spending the remainder of the war in a prison camp.
People lay were ever they could, the lucky ones even managed to rig up some shade while others fried in the relentless Mediterranean sun. Only night would bring some relief on the long journey ahead.
All along the harbour lay abandoned Rolls Royce’s  and Bentley motorcars, as the rich and famous gave everything away for a one-way trip out of France to try and escape from the German war machine that was quickly devouring the French countryside. The rich rats managed to buy salvation whilst the poorer mice had no choice but to beg the mercy of the conquering hoards and endure four years of slavery by the conquering forces of evil.
Once on board the cramped old wreck of a coal boat, they made the best of the, none existent facilities. There was little water, no shade and filth and squalor everywhere. The only sanitation was a bucket washed out with seawater and deposited in the sea. The only food available was what they took on board. This was a gamble of desperation and not a luxury Mediterranean cruise.
The old boat slowly hugged the Spanish coast on its slow journey towards Gibraltar and salvation, knowing that if they had been detected by the Spanish, they would end up being interned in Spain or even handed over to the Germans.
All on board this rust bucket were slowly baked to a crisp by the relentless Mediterranean sun and covered from head to toe in black coal dust from the battered old freighter. The only water available for washing was sea water scooped up with the bucket they used for a toilet.
Having hardly any kit or belongings and spending a nerve racking week or so hugging the coast on the old freighter, the rusting hulk with its filthy and exhausted refugees finally arrived in Gibraltar.
Suffering from exposure and extremely dehydrated, the small band of brothers disembarked from the rust bucket to be once again taken into the protective arms of the British army. The only items they still had were half a dozen cartons of cigarettes taken from ransacked and deserted navvies abandoned in France.
Bob and his friends were soon dispatched back to the United Kingdom to rejoin the shattered remains of his regiment. At least this time they did have clean sanitation, clean clothing and a clean bed to sleep in. On arrival back home in England he discovered that most of the friends who he had joined up with in 39 had after the fall of France and Norway, had either been lost in battle, or were spending the next five years in prison camps as the guests of Adolf Hitler.
On his return to England he was given the luxury of a couple of weeks leave to recuperate and spend some time with family to recover from the ordeal he had just gone through.
England was now in the grip of an aerial bombardment from the Luftwaffe, her cities were being blasted to rubble and her soldiers, other than those in Africa were left helpless and unable to do anything other than watch the RAF gallantly defend their country.
Whilst spending time at home, with his family, his family received a telegram to tell them that their son had been reported as missing in action. It was strange ironic moment, as it was Bob who answered the door to receive a telegram from the telegram boy, he opened the telegram announcing that he was officially listed as missing in action, whereabouts unknown; such is the confusion of war.
After being re-equipped and rested he was posted to various camps around Britain to re-equip and retrain, many weeks and months were spent training and retraining for the task ahead, like coiled springs waiting to pounce.
It was on a journey through Chester, he passed through Shrewsbury on the way to Nesscliffe camp and it was this fleeting visit to Shrewsbury that helped him to come to the decision to move to the town many years later when looking for a new location to live away from Liverpool in the sixties.
After many months spent in training Bob was eventually posted to North Africa to serve with the eighth army in the North African desert campaign as a dispatch rider.
The arrival of General Montgomery saw a new wave of optimism spread through the exhausted ranks of the 8th army. Rommel had pushed the British back to the gates of Alexandria and only the ridge outside El Alamein was between Rommel and the defeat of the British in Egypt. If Egypt fell, then Nazis Germany would not only control the Suez canal cutting off the lifeline to Asia, but it would also have a direct link to the middle east oil supplies.
Montgomery trained and retrained his new army replacing many of the tired old leaders; he gave the 8th army belief in themselves. With new supplies now arriving from America after the USA had been plunged into war following the attack on Pearl Harbour in December 41 by the Japanese, Montgomery was now ready to give Rommel a taste of his own medicine.
On the night of October 23rd 1942 the night sky over El Alamein was illuminated by a thousand heavy guns sending a torrent of hot metal and high explosive into the German forces. This was followed by an attack of over 195,000 allied troops supported by over a thousand tanks and 750 aircraft.
With Germany stuck at the gates of Stalingrad in Russia and the crushing defeat at El Alamein the height of German conquest had been reached.
From El Alamein to Tunisia the army of Montgomery finally pushed Rommel back to the sea and inflicted on Hitler a crushing defeat that he was never to recover from.
The journey across the North African desert was hot, tough and often fraught with danger. If the bullets and bombs didn’t kill you then disease or accidents could. Road conditions were appalling and dispatch riders were often killed by accidents, sniper bullets or mines. The role of these unsung heroes was often underestimated and almost ignored by the history books, yet these gallant guys often saved the lives of hundreds of troops by keeping the lines of communication open. They worked alone and endured some of the harshest conditions, finding themselves often behind enemy lines by the rapid fluency of fast moving modern warfare.
After the defeat of the “Afrika Korps” Bob sailed to Sicily with the invasion force. At last the allied forces were a short step of reaching mainland Europe. Italy was faltering, their forces has suffered crushing defeats all over the Mediterranean. Mussolini was on the verge of being over thrown and it was only a matter of time before Italy collapsed. Sicily fell quickly and the British then landed on the toe of Italy, The remainder of the campaign would see them travelling the full length of Italy. By now Italy had surrendered and the Italian forces had been replaced by die-hard German infantry. The campaign was long and hard with the weather having as much impact on the progress of the forces as the Germans. With the collapse and surrender of Italy it was hard to know who was friend or foe. Before, everyone was the enemy, now the people, who had been a few months before, been trying to kill you, were now waving flags and throwing flowers at you. Throughout the Italian campaign Bob was stunned by the povery and corruption that the population of Italy were suffering. This once beautiful country was slowly being turned to rubble by the wheels of war. Travelling through Naples showed him the cruelty of war, a city polluted with corruption and filth, children in rags begging on the street and young girls of ten or eleven offering their bodies to prostitution for a few morsels of food and fresh water. The population was barley surviving the disease and squalor of war. This was the legacy of  Mussolini, he had promised his people an Empire of Roman proportions, in actual fact he gave them poverty, defeat and destruction.
Bob also had the opportunity to visit numerous other Italian cities and areas of historical interest he had read about before the war, including Pompey. Although his love of Art was his passion, the despair of War and the destruction of these once beautiful cities, appeared to dull the flame that had driven him before this nightmare had begun. The despair and destruction he witnessed through Italy would stay with him for the rest of his life.
He could never get his head around why the Vatican had not done more to stop Italy going down the road of destruction, here in the heart of Rome were people of power living in relevant comfort whilst their flock around them suffered from the hate driven war lords of Nazis Germany and Fascist Italy.
During the course of the Italian campaign he often found himself on more than one occasion behind enemy lines whilst riding dispatch, once riding past a troop of German soldiers before either of them realised who the other was, such was the confusion of war.
The campaign in Italy was to cost the Allies dearly as the German forces made the Allies pay for every yard of soil with the blood of their soldiers.
After many adventures he finally ended the war in Yugoslavia as a driver for a high ranking officer.
Bob was offered promotion to serve in Palestine but declined the offer having seen enough death and destruction to last several lifetimes.
Just before he died after suffering in the later stages of cancer, he remarked “At least I have had the privilege to live my life and see my family grow up, that’s a lot more then most of my mates ever had the chance to do”.

Prior to the war starting, Bob had met Eleanor just the once through some distant relative, during the war he bumped into Eleanor once again and they were soon falling in love. Like many others in these uncertain times, they decided to get married sooner rather than later. Eleanor who was now in the ATC was able to get hold of an ex-army parachute, thus having the luxury of having her wedding dress made out of pure silk, the material used to make army parachutes.

In early 1944 they had their first son and for a while Eleanor lived with her mother and farther awaiting her husband to return home from the Italian Campaign.

After the war they lived with Bobs parents in Birmingham, but Eleanor was soon home sick and disliked living in Birmingham. Therefore it wasn’t long before both of them moved back to Liverpool. Here they lived until 1963 before moving to Shrewsbury.