5042990 Albert Hodgson Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve from:Middlesbrough, Yorkshire In May 1940 I volunteered to join the Home Guard, which stood me in good stead for life in the RAF, particularly the “square bashing”!
I volunteered in February 1941 to join the Royal Air Force and was sent to Blackpool to do the initial training. Because of poor eyesight I was rejected for air crew so I was given the opportunity of choosing what discipline I would like to learn. I therefore became a Wireless operator. The initial part of the training was to learn Morse code; anyone failing this was immediately taken off the course. I was sent to Compton Bassett in Wiltshire where I was to become one of hundreds of fully fledged Wireless Operators.
The top trainees from each course, of which I was part, then did Direction Finding (ground to air) this course was about six weeks duration. Having completed and passed the DF training we were all considered fit for active duty. After a couple of days leave I was posted to Goosepool, Middleton St George, working with Bomber Command 4 Group. My initial posting lasted seven months, our duty ended with the arrival of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
The stark reality of being at war sadly became part and parcel of everyday life. Working as a Wireless Operator, there was at least two working together on each watch. Counting the aircraft out was thrilling, counting them back in again was another emotion completely. It was awful, when an aircraft failed to return from their bombing raids it wasn’t just an aircraft it was real people, men with families who were waiting for them, just as my Mother was waiting back home in Middlesbrough for me. My Brother had joined the Royal Air Force some six weeks after I had signed up, fortunately being initially posted so close to home, I was able to visit her often.
My next posting lasted just six months, was at Ashbourne in Derbyshire. The final training of the air crew in readiness for operations took place here. I found that I coped with this posting well, knowing that the air crews were just training and that they would all be coming back safe and sound was a welcome change to me. This was the case except on one solitary occasion, when a plane crashed coming in after a training exercise. I was among the many who rushed out that foggy November morning only to be met by the carnage of what had been a two man crew.
Somerset was to be my next posting, Weston Zoyland (5 miles from Bridgewater) working as part of Transport Command. My chum Jack and I were posted together, and initially we thought we were going to Africa; imagine our amazement when our travel warrants arrived to discover we were heading for Somerset!! Part of the American Air force was posted to Weston Zoyland, there were hundreds of Americans and I was involved in teaching Direction Finding to their Wireless Operators.
My stay was some sixteen months and after a week back to Blackpool in order to get kitted out was posted overseas.
A ten day trip by sea on a huge troop ship and by a most bizarre route — because of the dangers of U-Boats etc, I ended up at Port Fuadd in Egypt. My record of never being sick during my time in the Air Force was soon to be at an end — but that is another very unpleasant story altogether!!
My travels took me from Alexandria in Egypt on the SS Manela; this ship was to be my home from December 1944 to August 1945. I was staff, obviously working as a Wireless Operator, but entailed working Point to Point — in other words all ground stations, the Morse messages were thick and fast with each shift was busier than the last.
In August 1945 I disembarked about an hour from Rangoon, where I worked until November of that year. The Larges Bay took me from Rangoon to Singapore, then by rail up to Penang. The Japanese were still active and it was a harrowing 12 hour plus journey. The train had no glass in the windows and snipers were very much the norm in that part of the world. My stay in Penang lasted till April 1946.
The SS Carthage, a brand new troop ship took me home, we were piped aboard at Singapore by the Bagpipes and Drums of the Ghurkha Regiment, something I will always remember with pride. The journey back to Blighty took three weeks. The train journey from Southampton took me to Lancashire to be demobbed, then again by train back home to Middlesbrough.
Considering I was in the Royal Air Force I travelled, over 25,000 miles by sea on five different ships. My only flight was courtesy of a crew who I had directed down when I was working in Weston Zoyland. The five crew were each of different nationalities, I can remember one being an American and another from New Zealand, they took me up on a six hour flight (up to the Midlands if I remember rightly) one day as an expression of thanks for helping them down on a very foggy (cloud zero) night.
It cannot be stressed strongly enough the conditions, deprivation, multiple infections etc. suffered by the troops in the Far East. That is apart from those who also faced the Japanese. This is something none of us can forget and pray that it will never happen again.
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