From Liverpool we entrained to a small town on the south coast called Bridport. Our Batallion (4 companies with support troops totaling about 1,000 men) was stationed at Bridport and we lived in tents. Some of the officers were housed in local homes. Our Battalion officers were housed in an old English mansion on the north side of town called Downe Hall. Bridport is a resort town a few miles west of Weymouth which is just west of Southampton, one of the bigger ports.
After a week or so with the troops doing calisthenics, marches, drills, etc I was selected with three or four others to go to Downe Hall and act as orderlies for officers. We lived in the servants quarters which, though small rooms, were many cuts above living in a tent in the sometimes wet weather. The work was light and I enjoyed the mansion. It was right out of an Agatha Christie novel. The House was set on several wooded acres on a hill overlooking the town. It had the usual panelled dining room and library and other rooms one would expect in such a home. I believe I counted 45 rooms altogether. While there I had a pass to London and greatly enjoyed it. England almost seemed like home to me since I knew that some of my ancestors came from there. One had to be careful of the traffic. I was standing on a corner close to the road and almost got hit by a bus which seemed to me to be on the wrong side of the road.
The officers were quite comfortable in the large bedrooms. I was assigned to waken them at set times. I remember a Major Stribling, an intellectual New Englander who always said "Splendid" when I told him it was time to rise and shine. I took walks through the woods in off time (our work only lasted about 4 hours a day) and loved the wooded countryside. One could imagine Robin Hood or a King hunting the deer. So much of our literature is centered in England that one can almost relive the many books about it that have been read and enjoyed. In all, it was a very pleasant prelude to the harder times to come.
About 9 years after the war ended Julia and I visited England. After Stratford-on-Avon and Bath we drove down to Bridport and visited Downe Hall. The then owner complained that times were hard and he was having to dip into his capital to make ends meet. He was cordial, however, and showed us through the house - little changed since I had lived there briefly.
The time passed too quickly and we soon were trucked to Southampton to take a ship to LeHavre, just east of the beaches where the Normandy invasion had taken place in June. It was now about the last of October and we were headed for the front lines.
After being trucked into Belgium to within 25-30 miles of the front, we marched the rest of the way, often in the dark and always at a fast pace. I do not know why it is but to the Infantryman a march is always "hurry up and wait." You are urged to march at a fast pace for hours only to stop for reasons unknown to the rank and file and wait for who knows what. We soon arrived at our destination and since we were replacing another unit, moved into dugouts and foxholes already there. We were near the German border east of Eupen and South of Liege and near the villages of Lanzerath, and Losheim in Germany. We were just east of the Losheimergraben crossroads which were to figure heavily in subsequent military action.
3 comments:
I felt the same way when I went to England. I guess because I've read so much about England it just felt like home, and it was surprising when something foreign happened. The marching sounds horrible.
Yes, England. Old place, that. But interesting to visit. You have to wonder why they didn't take you the rest of the 25-30 miles, rather than making you march it. But, as you say, for reasons known only to the officers.
We stayed in a few manor houses when we were in England. So old and creaky, I thought. And yes, just like in all the books. Again, your descriptions are great.
Post a Comment