The War in Our Area - Camborne - Some Anecdotes from the Papers by Ivor Corkell / Ney Jer [Camborne OCS]
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The following stories have been extracted from the Camborne–Redruth editions of local papers but many of the news items originate from West Cornwall.
Camborne at the start of the war
Most houses had gone to considerable lengths to blackout their windows; shopkeepers had darkened their windows and doors. Cinemas were darkened, as were windows of municipal buildings. Their lower windows were protected with sandbags. Buses presented a weird sight, travelling with curtained windows and dimmed headlights, stealing like ghostly phantoms through the night. Street-lights were fitted with special covers and pavements were edged with white paint. There was a marked diminution of private vehicles and a noticeable reduction in their speed. White checker-spots on the corner kerbs of pavements were a help to vehicular traffic and there were fewer pedestrians after darkness fell. ARP wardens were patrolling the town.
The reporter stated that local people had certainly responded to the expectancy of war and had planned for the inevitable shortages by planting fruit and vegetables in their gardens. Many people now reared chickens in their gardens and allotments. The noise at daybreak was incredible with the entire local rooster population crowing with an amazing cacophony of noise.
The Cornishman reported on an unusual contribution to the war food effort. Mr John Henry Skewes of Lower Brea, Camborne was sending thousands of frogs to London and Scotland to help food cultivation. He was also catching adders and vipers for research. Mr Skewes said that the Railway refused his first consignment of thousands of frogs until special boxes were obtained. He was also experiencing problems as he needed to use a light to catch them when it was dark and the use of lights was restricted.
A sad case came before the local courts and eventually the Penzance Quarter Sessions when a young Camborne man maimed himself by cutting off his first and second fingers to prevent enlistment to HM Forces. The court was told that he took three attempts with a chopper to sever the fingers. He said that he would rather be shot dead in Commercial Square, Camborne than be sent “over there”. Defence argued that at the time of the offence there was no commitment. At the Quarter Sessions he was found guilty and bound over to be of good behaviour for 3 years in his own remembrance of £10. There was clapping in court, which was quickly suppressed.
The Captain was fatally injured when the Dunbar Castle of the Union Castle Line hit a mine on the SE coast. The Chief Officer was H M Robinson of Camborne. He emerged as a hero taking charge of the evacuation and ensuring that his Captain was placed in a lifeboat. He went below and ensured that everyone was off the ship before taking to the last boat. He later saved people whom he found swimming in the water.
A headline read “Does X equal Y?”
It was reported that a local farmer, who had recently purchased a bullock for £15, just before control came into force, sent it to the market the previous week. It was given the lowest grade for which the farmer received £9 14s 3d from the Government Controller. The farmer who was also a butcher was allocated two quarters of the same animal for which he had to pay £7 18s 8d. The other two quarters were sold to another butcher for the same amount and the “fifth quarter” (the hide, horns, trotters, offal, etc) were detained by the Government Controller. So the farmer lost £5 5s 9d on his bullock, bought half back for £7 18s 8d and had lost £13 4s 5d to get half of his bullock. It was stated that this was how the money goes to pay the salaries of the hordes of officials and transport. What was not known was how much the butcher made by selling at the new controlled prices. That was what everyone wanted to know. But they didn’t!
At the end of July Mr Herbert Gordon Jeffrey of Hughville Street related his experiences, to a reporter, when the oil tanker on which he was serving was torpedoed in the North Atlantic in the previous week. “I was knocked out of my bunk with the explosion. We lowered the after port lifeboat but the fire burnt away the painter and the boat drifted off; those in her had to swim for it. I was fortunate to be picked off a ladder on the side of the ship and got into a boat. The oil was now all around the ship and blazing furiously. There was one gap in the blaze and it took an hour and a half to get through it to safety; about two hours after being struck we were picked up by a British ship. I lost everything I had except a ring given to me by my fiancée. The crew were mainly Cornishmen.” Mr Jeffrey, home on a month’s leave said, “I would rather be at sea anytime than on land.”
A headline in the paper read “Nazis 'bag' two rabbits”. A little white tail of a rabbit was found when German raiders dropped four bombs in open countryside. Nearby were the remains of his brother or sister. The greatest damage was done to the nerves of a bull that had a decidedly evil temper at having been rudely disturbed in the middle of the night.
A Camborne man was a passenger on a liner sunk 400 miles off the NW of England. Mr H Sincock of Manor Road was interviewed in his bedroom where he was recuperating after 5 days exposure to sun, wind and rain following his escape. “A submarine launched two further torpedoes at us. The first turned the ship half around and the second missed.” He climbed into a lifeboat but the derrick ropes jammed and had to be cut. The lifeboat toppled and he was thrown out and sustained a six-inch cut on his shin. He then helped launch a further six rafts before jumping into the water. He could not swim but had a lifebelt and just kept paddling as instructed during the practice drill. He was in the water for 1hr 50min before scrambling aboard a raft and with the rest sang "Roll out the Barrel" until they were picked up by a tramp steamer. The same tramp picked up 248 others. The 10,000 ton liner took an hour and seventeen minutes to sink. The First Officer stayed to the end. “He was absolutely magnificent. He made sure everyone was off and went over the whole ship to make sure no one was left behind before breaking open the bar and placing a bottle of brandy in each of his jacket pockets to ensure the survivors had a tot apiece to warm them up. Then he took hold of a trailing derrick rope and ran swiftly across the deck. As the taut rope reached its full swing he let go his hold and catapulted into the sea where we helped him into our raft.”
The headlines read “When Time Flew” when two soldiers, natives of Yorkshire, were charged at Camborne with the theft of a mantel clock valued at £316. They were given the benefit of the Probation of Offenders Act and the charge was dismissed. The defendants, both privates, were in the back room of the Railway Hotel, Camborne, with two local ladies. When they left at 10pm the clock was found to be missing. On the way back to camp, having left the two ladies outside of Camborne Library, Ramsden asked Fletcher the time. Fletcher pulled the clock from his greatcoat pocket and Ramsden remarked “That is a funny wristlet watch”. Fletcher said he had taken it from the Railway Hotel. Later when Fletcher went on leave he handed the clock to Ramsden and he left it in his billet. Both the defendants pleaded “not guilty”. The owner identified the clock and said that when he heard that the two soldiers were raffling the clock at a billet in Camborne the news “got his goat”. The owner said that “if you had sent the clock to your mother I shouldn’t have said anything but I got wild when I heard that it was being raffled.” A 2nd Lieutenant who had sat through the case asked for Legal Aid. And the Chairman, Mr J Shopland, said, “I don’t think it will be necessary. We accept the defendant’s story and the charge will be dismissed under the Probation of Offenders Act”. Both defendants were given good military characters.
A Tuckingmill butcher was fined for supplying 15lb of skirt to a lady as food for her dogs. It was suggested that it was a lot of meat for the dogs and he and the receiver were both fined £3.
The conductors on Western National buses were asked to call out the names of stopping places. There were 32 stops between Camborne and Redruth. Stops had been fixed as previously anyone could ask the driver to stop anywhere, as it was illegal to keep someone a prisoner on a bus against their wishes.
Two Londoners visiting their evacuee child in Camborne were asked by Sisters from the convent to take back a parcel to Tottenham to which they agreed. On the way back the parcel broke and when they discovered food they decided to report the incident. The Sister said that from time to time they received food from Ireland and the food sent was surplus to their needs. She had more food than she could cope with. In return the London convent were going to send cornflakes and porridge that could not be obtained locally. The defendant was fined £1.
Two girls called at a house at Roseworthy and asked to be taken in, as they were to be Land Army girls working on a local farm. Money and gloves were stolen from the house and a note was left saying, “I am sorry I had to do this. I will be far away when you read this. Please don’t worry. Get my money from Betty and give it to the missus and tell her I’m sorry I worried her.” She said that she wanted to get back to Exeter where she lived.
A milkman, Ernest Williams, was summoned to appear before the Camborne and Redruth Justices for adding water to his milk. However it could not be proved that it was Mr Williams who added the water.
The courts heard an unfortunate case of suicide. A young man from Reawla took his life by hanging and cutting his throat. He worked on a farm but then had to additionally help in the butchers as all the butchers had been called up. There was an unfounded rumour that he had received calling up papers.
The paper reported an amusing story on the 26th November about a crashed German Heinkel bomber. The bomber crashed in a field and buried its nose in the hedge on the farm of a Mr Thomas. Mr Thomas and one of his workmen Mr Harris, both members of the Home Guard, approached the aircraft, which had its tail high in the air (no doubt swastikas clearly visible) only to be met by three German airmen, one of who was an officer. The officer enquired whether they had landed in Brest or in England. Mr Thomas replied that they had landed in England and then proceeded to ask them if they were Polish, Czech or Belgian. The officer looked at his men and replied “English”. Mr Harris returned to the farm to collect their Home Guard rifles and on his return invited the Germans to hand over their rifles. The officer replied that they would only hand over their revolvers to soldiers. He informed Mr Thomas that there were two of his crew near the plane and they subsequently joined them. Whilst they waited for the police Mr Thomas’s mother supplied them with buns, splits and tea. When the police arrived they immediately saluted and the officer ordered his men to hand over their arms, which they did. The airmen were taken into custody.
A Mr Andre D Astugues who had been the representative for the Royal Cornwall Gazette in Camborne was called up by the French Army in the spring of 1940. With the collapse of France he became a prisoner in the hands of the Germans. He was sentenced to death but he escaped the night before he was due to be shot and fled to his uncle in unoccupied France and was now working on the land.
An amusing incident was reported on the 30th September when the previous week a burglar entered a shed at the rear of a house in Pendower Terrace, Beacon, and stole a bicycle which he proceeded to ride down Beacon Hill at a fast pace. At the foot of the hill the thief not realising the bicycle was fitted with a fixed wheel tried to free-wheel. The result was that he went head over heels over the handlebars but ran away when approached by a military sentry. The owner of the bike was traced and the bicycle returned.
On the 28th October the paper finally reported a bombing raid at Penzance, and stated that a plane had been brought down at St Just. A Dornier 217 crashed into a house having been shot down by a night fighter. It was reported that the two occupants of the house took shelter at short notice in their newly acquired Morrison shelter, which subsequently saved their lives. They escaped through a window but had forgotten to take their cat. They returned to the house two days later to find their shaken cat sitting in the rubble. It was reported that the cat is all right again after its ordeal.
A German lady gave talks to local towns on “A Mother Fights Hitler”; a tragic story of how Hitler wrecked the lives of a German family. Her eldest son Hans was a lawyer. He defended many victims of the Storm Troopers and was responsible for the conviction of a number of Brown Shirts. One fateful day Adolf Hitler was summoned as a witness and broke down under Hans' questioning. Hitler never forgave or forgot the young lawyer and on the night of the Reichstag Hans was arrested and tortured. After five years in a concentration camp he was killed. His jailers were the men and friends of those men that he had tried in court. They exacted their revenge by torturing him physically and mentally before his death.
A report of action was recorded describing how Sgt R I Andrews of Ponsanooth held off an enemy tank attack, often single handed, in Tunisia. He was awarded the DCM. It was his first action. He was in command of a 6-pounder anti-tank gun. Seventeen enemy tanks approached and passed in front of his gun at 1000 yards. He waited until four tanks had passed his sights before opening fire and knocking out the first and second tanks. This stopped the initial attack but a German Mark IV Special returned fire and shelled the gun pit. Sgt Andrews replied repeatedly hitting the tank. Another tank acted as an armoured observation post for an 88mm gun positioned behind a ridge. The pit was shelled so severely that Sgt Andrews ordered his crew into cover whilst he lay quietly beside his gun awaiting his opportunity. With the gun silent the Mk IV tank advanced slowly forward. Sgt Andrews seized his chance, loaded and fired the gun himself and scored a direct hit. The German tank crew withdrew before abandoning their tank. For the next hour Sgt Andrews continually fired the gun single-handed although being continually shelled and machine-gunned. The pit parapet was blown away and was hit by a 75mm shell and extensively damaged by machine gun fire. When the enemy fire died down Sgt Andrews recalled his crew and operated the gun for the rest of the day.
A Camborne man who had been granted compassionate leave from his base in Scotland for a month was forced to return to his base when no further extension was received. On his return he was sent to the cookhouse to peel potatoes. After peeling three potatoes he was informed that there had been an extension to his compassionate leave and he was sent back to Camborne where he found an extension letter that had arrived after his 1000 mile round trip back to his base had begun.
A Naval Patrol Station in a South West town once had a pet bulldog. During a blitz it disappeared and now, after three years, it has been traced. The bulldog was very scared. It jumped into a lorry and was driven to Camborne where it was adopted by the local NFS. The animal, worth about £40, was presented originally to the Patrol Station for services rendered to its owner, who was being attacked by a bagsnatcher. Patrolmen saved her belongings and her gratitude to them was the reward of the bulldog.
An ex-Camborne man S/Sgt Thomas K Mills, whose parents had moved to Detroit, was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for heroism in an attack against Cisterno, Italy, whilst on his first day in combat. Aged 21, he was subsequently killed in Southern France on 25th September 1944 but had never told his parents of the action in Cisterno which won for him the third highest battle decoration awarded by the US. When intense mortar and artillery fire killed his platoon sergeant on 23rd May 1944 in Italy, S/Sgt Mills, under fire for the first time, took command of the unit. Disregarding shells, which were exploding as near as 5 yards from him, he dragged a machine gun to an exposed ridge and began firing at two enemy machine guns 150 yards away. Mills knocked out both Nazi guns and then moved his men, giving first aid and organising a defence. The unit was relieved after seven hours of fighting.
Whilst the war brought pain and sorrow and acts of heroism the papers also reported events that brought a smile and lightened the days ahead...
Ivor Corkell is a Bard of Gorsedh Kernow. Bardic Name: Ney Jer
Some images are representative of events or ships/aircraft, but will be comparable as far as possible
Originally published in Kernow Goth journal :
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