Autobiography of an Unknown Man

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF AN UNKNOWN MAN

Correlated with the Occurrence of World Events in His Lifetime

By

Christopher James Bruce

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY

Christopher James Bruce on Smashwords

Autobiography of an Unknown Man

Copyright © 2013 by Christopher James Bruce

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF

AN

UNKNOWN MAN

AUTHORS NOTE

I have written this book for three reasons, the first of which is that my life has been interesting, often exciting, sometimes dogged by bad luck in terms of life in general but incredibly lucky in terms of survival, other times blessed by personal achievements which provided me with a considerable amount of satisfaction or doomed by failures which caused me a great deal of distress. The second reason is that I believe that by recording the events that have moulded my life, younger readers and especially my grandchildren, may be made aware of just how big the difference is between the world into which my generation was born and grew up in and the way they experience the world of today. The third reason is that I’ve been asked by my family and a number of friends and to set down my experiences on paper.

I’m not a superstitious person but I cannot help wondering why some people with little effort and even less brain are propelled to the top of their particular field by sheer luck - being in the right place at the right time and these people I envy. Others get to the top and manage to stay there by means of sheer hard work and yet others, who by their efforts have made it to the top but despite their efforts, determination and commitment, do not seem to be able to stay there. These are the people that repeatedly fall off their perches straight back into the mire below. I’ve come to the conclusion that I may just have been one of those people but being the epitome of the eternal optimist I’ve kept on trying to claw my way back. I have regained a few of my losses of the past 50 years and find myself at peace with myself and within my now very limited world. I also believe that there is a lot to be said for being in the right place at the right time and that it may have a lot to do with destiny as they claim in the Far East.

I have finally retired and have returned to Thailand to live with Benz, my Thai wife, the best friend and companion I’ve ever had. When I say I have retired it does not mean that I’ve hung up my boots and placed my feet on the table waiting to depart this planet. I now have the opportunity to do some of the things I have wanted to do for a long time. These things include writing this autobiography, completing my series of joke books and bringing to fruition my pet project, Discovery Golfing Lodge, to be built on land bought and paid for by 6 years of work in the Middle East. The Lodge is located adjacent to the Black Mountain Golf Course reputed to be Thailand’s best golf course and the best competition course in Asia in Hua Hin, Thailand. I hope that I will live long enough to see the completion of my dreams and to travel a little and spend some time with my family in South Africa.

I received great support from my parents right up to their deaths, from my first wife, Anne, without whose support I would not have completed my university studies and my second wife Dolla who supported me through the trauma of my company’s collapse and the re-establishment of my self esteem. I’m extremely grateful to Benz for having arrived in my life when she did. Benz has proved to be a pillar of great support and love in the autumn of my life. When I met Benz I was completely unaware of her capacity for loving and caring, her sense of loyalty and the patience that she would display in dealing with the problems which we have been, and still are, faced with in the course of our lives together. These qualities, together with an unswerving confidence that she could put me back on track enabled me to do just that. I regained my self-esteem and respect and have enjoyed the challenge of making most of our various enterprises successful. She has supported me tirelessly in my endeavours to re-establish myself as a man with a future even if that future, in view of my advancing years, is now limited. I don’t expect to be able to claw my way back to the very top of the pile from which I tumbled but, at the age of 72, I am at peace with myself and my circumstances. I thank them all.

Having written this book, I’m hoping that any of my readers who may have found themselves in a situation similar to mine at some time in their lives will be purged of any doubts they too might have about their ability to live a long and interesting life at peace with themselves and their pasts and that, as I now do, can look forward to a happy future no matter how limited, time wise, that may be. Together with all the negative things that have happened in my life, there have been many positives too and it has been very worthwhile living.

It is to Benz, my Thai wife, the first women with whom I have found real peace and happiness and who has made me feel comfortable under less comfortable circumstances than I previously enjoyed, my family, my children and my grandchildren, all who suffered from my past mistakes, that this book is dedicated.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 A Brief Family History

CHAPTER 2 1940 to 1945 The Second World War Years

CHAPTER 3 1946 to 1951 My English Childhood

CHAPTER 4 1952 A Sojurn in Kimberly South Africa

CHAPTER 5 1952 to 1954 Oranjemund

CHAPTER 6 1955 to 1959 St. Josephs College, Cape Town

CHAPTER 7 1955 to 1959 School Holidays and Home Life

CHAPTER 8 1960 The University Of The Witwatersrand

CHAPTER 9 1961 to 1965 The University Of Cape Town

CHAPTER 10 1966 to 1970 Cape Town And Port Elizabeth

CHAPTER 11 1971 to 1974 South West Africa/ Namibia

CHAPTER 12 1974 to 1982 Home And Hochland Construction - The Namibian Years

CHAPTER 13 1983 to 1992 Home And Hochland Construction Cape Town And Johannesburg

CHAPTER 14 1993 to 2000 Hong Kong And The Philippines

CHAPTER 15 1999 to 2000 Back To Hong Kong

CHAPTER 16 2001 to 2004 Bangkok

CHAPTER 17 2004 to 2006 Dubai/Oman/Dubai

CHAPTER 18 2007 to 2011 Dubai

CHAPTER 19 2012 Return To Thailand

CHAPTER 20 2013 In Conclusion

OTHER BOOKS BY C. J. Bruce

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF FAMILY HISTORY

The Bruce – Phillips Ancestry

The Bruces

My father, Philip James Bruce, was born on 29th March 1913 and died on 18th March 1983. He was the second son of Robert Bruce and Ann Pearce. Robert Bruce was a Regional Bank Manager with the Midlands Bank, the forerunner of the HSBC Bank in England. Ann Pearce was a contralto opera singer with the Sadlers-Wells opera company in London and later, after her marriage to Robert Bruce she sang for the Huddersfield Girls Choir. Besides my father there were three other brothers in the family; Robert, the eldest, John (known as Jack) the second youngest and Alan, the youngest. All four brothers fought in WWII. Robert, Philip and John in the Army and Alan in the RAF and all of them survived the conflict.

The Bruce Family Crest – Fuimus – We Have Been

Robert and Philip became bankers like their father; John became a solicitor and Alan an aircraft mechanic with the RAF. Robert married Katherine and they had a daughter, Jane and a son, Robert. Jane died of cancer in the 1990s. Robert survives to this day. Philip, my father married Elizabeth Christine Phillips and they had three children. I am the eldest, my sister Elizabeth five years younger than me and Patrick, my brother, 10 years younger than me. John married (another) Kathleen and they had two adopted daughters, Fiona and Sheila. Alan married Mona Wright and they had three children, Anne, Robert and Jennifer.

Alan undertook substantial research of the Bruce family history and told me that he traced the Bruce ancestry back to a Reverend Robert Bruce in 1470. Robert the Bruce died in 1329 so the connection of the Bruce family to Robert the Bruce seems very possible. Alan’s conclusion seems to be supported by the fact that although very little is known of his (Robert the Bruce’s) youth. He was probably brought up in a mixture of the Anglo-French culture of northern England and south-eastern Scotland, and the Gaelic culture of Carrick and the Irish Sea, French being his father-tongue and Gaelic his mother-tongue.

Our branch of the Bruce family has been settled in North Eastern England for centuries. The following is a little more of the history.

Robert I (11 July 1274 – 7 June 1329), popularly known as Robert the Bruce (Medieval Gaelic: Roibert a Briuis; modern Scottish Gaelic: Raibeart Bruis; Norman French; Robert de Brus or Robert de Bruys), was King of Scots from March 25, 1306, until his death in 1329.

His paternal ancestors were of Scoto-Norman heritage (originating in Brix, Manche, Normandy), and his maternal of Franco-Gaelic descent. He became one of Scotland’s greatest kings, as well as one of the most famous warriors of his generation, eventually leading Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence against the Kingdom of England. He claimed the Scottish throne as a fourth great-grandson of David I of Scotland, and fought successfully during his reign to regain Scotland's place as an independent nation. Today in Scotland, Bruce is remembered as a national hero.

His body is buried in Dunfermline Abbey, while it is believed his heart was interred in Melrose Abbey. Bruce's lieutenant and friend Sir James Douglas agreed to take the late King's embalmed heart on crusade to the Holy Land, but he only reached Moorish Granada. According to tradition, Douglas was carrying the heart in a silver casket when he died at the head of the Scottish contingent at the Battle of Teba near Malaga in Spain. (Italics courtesy of Wikipedia). Google Robert the Bruce, Wikipedia for the full history)

The Phillips

My mother Elizabeth Christine Phillips was born on 13th December 1915 and died on 17th June 2006. She was the second oldest child of my maternal grandparents who were of mixed nationality, Grandpa Percy Phillips was English and had come from a horse breeding and trading family which owned horse breeding stables. Unfortunately, with the outbreak of WW1, virtually all their horses were commandeered by the British Army and they never received compensation. Their livelihood was ruined and my Grandfather eked out a living doing I know not what but he did manage to raise and educate five children. Mum once showed me a photograph of Nana, Grandpa and all five children seated in a huge old charabanc and telling me that the family was quite well off at one time but she didn’t elaborate so I don’t know what further disaster befell Grandpa. I remember him chopping and selling firewood as an old, but still proud, man refusing charity from either family or friends.

The De La Tour Family Crest.

Grandpa’s brother was Harold Fenton Phillips, and his grandfather Phillips was married to Charlotte De La Tour whose father was Viscount De La Tour unless great great Grandfather Phillips was in fact a Viscount himself, as my mother believed, and Charlotte derived her name from him. The viscountcy is a French one but quite what the viscount did to earn his Viscountcy I don’t know although the De La Tour family has a very long history according to research available on the internet. I remember the family crest hanging in the house at Witney but what happened to it I don’t know. It would be interesting to find out who should have inherited the title as I think Grandpa Philips would have been in line if Mum was right but he never did anything about it. Both his sons and Mum’s brothers, Patrick and Terry, were killed before producing any sons and heirs.

My grandmother’s maiden name was Eva Christina McLaughlan. She was born in a village by the name of Delby near Dublin Ireland. Patrick, my brother took Mum to Ireland in 2003 and they found people in the village who still remembered the family. The Irish have very long communal memories indeed.

Philip James and Elizabeth Christine Bruce at their wedding on 25th March 1940.

There were five children in the Phillips family; Peggy, Patrick (Pat), Elizabeth (Betty), Josephine (Jo) and Terence (Terry). Peggy, Patrick, and my mother Elizabeth were married during WWII, my mother on 25th March 1940. Terence married shortly after the war and Josephine in the 1950’s. Patrick had a daughter, Penelope, Peggy had five children to Lawrence Downey. Elizabeth, my mother, had three to Philip James Bruce, me (Christopher), Elizabeth and Patrick. Josephine had one, Philip, to James Deane. Terence had two daughters who I’ve never met as Terry’s wife and their daughters lost contact with the family after Terry’s death in the HMS Truculent disaster in 1949.

Nana, Mum, Liz & me

The Dawsons

Anne’s father was Frederick Cecil Dawson, born in 1901 in Bathurst, New South Wales, Australia, the son of Charles Frederick Dawson (I believe). He was known as Cec and was one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He married Lydia Harvey in the 1930s and they had two daughters, Edna and Anne. He had a very limited high school education and started work with the New South Wales railways at a very young age. When WWII broke out he tried to enlist with the Australian Defence Force but was rejected due to half of one of his feet having been severed in a railway accident.

After the outbreak of war there was a major manpower shortage in Australia and the Government encouraged men who had been rejected by the army to take up further education to fill in the manpower gap at management level. Cec Dawson applied but was rejected because of his limited education. Being the determined man he was, he contacted a lady cousin who was a registrar at Sydney University. The lady pulled some strings and Cec was admitted to a manpower management course. Despite his educational dis-advantage, not only did he qualify in manpower management but he did so at the top of his class. Being an ardent supporter of the Australian Labour Party and a proponent of worker’s rights he then became involved in political rallying for Ben Chifley who he had met via the Railway Workers Union. Ben Chifley was elected Prime Minister in July 1945, the last of Australia’s five wartime prime ministers and served from 1945 until 1949. Cec married Lydia Harvey in 1931 and they had two children, Edna and Anne, before they emigrated to South Africa in 1949 where, after initially working for his brother-in-law Roy Harvey, he started the Dawson’s chain of furniture shops. He died in Cape Town in 1968 aged 66. He was cremated and is remembered by a plaque mounted on a wall in the cemetery at Goodwood (Maitland), Cape Town.

The Harvey’s

Lydia Harvey (known as Linda) was born in Bathurst, New South Wales in 1903. She had an older brother, Roy who emigrated to Cape Town in the 1930s and started a haberdashery company there and a sister Edna. She also had a cousin, Harold Schwarer who helped establish Lewis Construction in Australia in the late 1920s or early 1930s. In 1937 Harold moved to South Africa to open a branch of the company in Johannesburg. This branch thrived and became Lewis Thompson Associates or LTA Ltd. The company eventually became part of the Anglo American Group but is now known as Grinnaker LTA Ltd., and has become an international construction group. I was made a director of the Namibian branch of LTA in 1972. I met Harold Schwarer twice on visits to LTA head office when he was in his seventies. He was a nice unassuming old man considering his great achievements. Lydia died in 1997 at the age of 94.

CHAPTER 2

1940 TO 1945

THE SECOND WORLD WAR YEARS

Bombing and Evacuation

I was conceived at the beginning of WW2 in Chelsea, London, in August 1940, just before the start of the Luftwaffe blitz. My parents had only recently been married and I’m not sure whether my conception happened as a result of Mum’s strong faith in Catholic doctrine at that time or Dad’s anxiety to propagate his genes before facing the possibility of an early death in the service of the British Army. Whatever the reason, I have to assume that the process of conception took their minds off the bombing for a while.

At that time Dad was a captain working in the war office with responsibility for fuel supplies. His responsibilities precluded him from living at home as he was required to be on call 24 hours a day at the War Office. My pregnant mother was left to her own devices in her little Chelsea apartment. At least, that was the case until the bombs rained down on her particular street. I think that this was one of the few occasions when I brought some good luck to my parents. A lot of the houses in the street were demolished and their occupants with them, but we survived. This event was the first demonstration of my luck in terms of survival. Our apartment was left standing with curtains and furniture intact, but bereft of external walls on the bombed side. There was nothing left of the rest of the street but debris. Few of the people that once lived there survived. Mum had suffered no more than shock, she did not have a scratch, which considering the death and destruction surrounding her, was quite incredible.

The photograph above shows damage similar to that to our house as described by my father. Note the clothes still hanging to dry. (Picture courtesy of the London Museum.)

Because of the bombing and because she was pregnant Mother was evacuated by the authorities back home to her parents house, opposite the Buttercross, in Witney, but because of the wartime regulations in force she was not able to contact Dad and he should have been informed of her evacuation by the authorities. Unfortunately this did not happen and Dad arrived home on a short leave to find a devastated street, a house with curtains and furniture but no walls and no precious offspring bearing wife. After a panic stricken day of inquiries he finally found a fire warden who knew what had happened and was relieved to discover that his wife was safely ensconced in her mothers home in Witney. He was granted leave to visit her and I have to presume that there was a somewhat joyous reunion. This reunion was to be the last for the next eighteen months as Dad arranged delivery of fuel supplies to the army around southern England.

The following gives a little history of Witney, it is from the oxtowns.co.uk website. Nana and Grandpa’s house was directly opposite the Buttercross and Town Hall but has long since been demolished:

Since the Middle Ages, Witney has been famous for the manufacturing of blankets using water from the River Windrush which, so the story goes, was the secret of their quality. Over recent years Witney has grown rapidly, yet it still manages to retain its charm as an attractive Cotswold market town.

The market square which lies at the junction of the two main streets contains the Buttercross, a medieval marketing and meeting place where women from neighbouring villages gathered to sell butter and eggs. It has a steeply gabled roof surmounted by a clock-turret added in 1683. Opposite is the 17th century Town Hall. Market Square widens into Church Green which is dominated by the tower and spire of the 13th century church of St. Mary.

The Henry Box comprehensive school near the church of St. Mary takes its name from a local boy who, like Dick Whittington, went to London to seek his fortune. In 1662 having succeeded he left money to fund the formation of the new school.

A short distance from the town centre is the parish of Cogges where a Victorian working Manor Farm museum is situated.

In nearby South Leigh the Church of St James is home to some remarkably well preserved medieval wall paintings and are well worth a visit. The Charlbury road leads through one of Witney's best preserved streets - West End, which gave rise to the song Just an old fashioned house in an old fashioned street.

The Buttercross (Picture courtesy Alamy)

This picture of the Buttercross is the view we had from Nana and Grandpa Philips house. The Prime Minister of England is currently (2011) also the Member of Parliament for Witney.

Home with Nana and Grandpa

Mum remained at home with Nana and Grandpa Phillips until I was duly delivered, a wet, screaming, bloody, little wretch who, for reasons best understood by women, she worshipped and adored. Needless to say, the worship and adoration did not always prevail as I grew up. After my birth at the Witney Infirmary, Mum, who was required to stay away from London continued to live with Nan and Grandpa, decided that she should make her own contribution to the household budget and the war effort and took up a job in the local laundry while patiently awaiting Dad’s return.

My first recollection is of falling off a chest of drawers onto the floor. I landed on my head and cracked my scull. I must have been two or three years old at the time and still clearly remember falling backwards but I don’t recall my life flashing before my eyes! If it did it couldn’t have taken very long! Mum in her panic and in her rush to get me to the doctor fell down the stairs with me unconscious in her arms and nearly killed the pair of us before arriving bruised and breathless at the local doctor’s surgery demanding immediate attention. In the meantime I had regained consciousness and reverted to being the obnoxious, scream -ing little brat that I was. This of course ensured that Mum got the immediate attention that she demanded for me, much to the chagrin of other waiting patients. She had no thought for her own bruises but, for her trouble, was ticked off by the doctor for having left her soiled but precious bundle of joy unattended on the chest of drawers while seeking clean clothes. The doctor put my mother’s mind to rest by advising her that if my scull was as thick as my skin, which, judging by the amount of fuss that I was creating, was very thick indeed, he doubted that there would be any permanent damage. He none the less dispatched the pair of us by foot to the local hospital for an X-ray that revealed a cracked scull.

Mum swore that I was never the same again and she was probably right but the lucky side of my existence predominated and Mum and I survived once again. Maybe it was the fall that knocked the material good luck out of me while embedding the life saving luck that enabled me to survive in later life. My second recollection is of hearing air raid sirens going off and being grabbed by Mum and rushed off to the air raid shelter a short distance down the road. We tumbled down the shelter stairs and found a place

The white house on the left was our next door neighbour’s house. The Buttercross is diagonally across the road behind the position from which the photograph is taken. The entrance to the bomb shelter is the black square hole next to the tree. (Picture courtesy of Panoramia)

to sit on a bench. I sat on Mum’s lap in the darkness and watched the lady on the opposite bench who was holding a candle and shivering with fright. At the time that lady seemed to me to be very old but looking back she was probably in her forties and had experienced the terror of the first world war. Witney is very close to Brize Norton where the American Air Force Base was located.

The official opening of RAF Brize Norton took place on 13 August 1937, but No 2 Flying Training School, the first unit to be stationed here, arrived on 7 September 1937, before the building programme had been completed. The Station was used for various forms of flying training until July 1942, when it became the home of the Heavy Glider Conversion Unit (HGCU), later renamed No 21 HGCU, which remained at RAF Brize Norton until 31 December 1945. Between March and October 1944 the Station was used as a base for parachute and glider operations by Nos 296 and 297 Squadrons, both equipped with Albemarles. On D-Day, these Squadrons were involved in dropping paratroops and launching Horsa gliders for the purpose of capturing bridges, six miles inland from the coast, over the River Orne and Caen Canal. On the same day, two more gliders were placed directly on a coastal battery controlling the estuary of the River Orne, which was in a position to oppose the seaborne landings. All of these operations were completed successfully. The Squadrons were involved in the airborne landings at Arnhem in September 1944, and throughout the period March-October 1944 they were also engaged in dropping personnel and supplies to the resistance movements in Europe. (As a matter of interest Jan Pranger, who became a friend of Cecil and Lydia -Dawson, my in-laws, and my first wife Anne and I, was one of a small Dutch Commando team who flew with No. 296 or 297 Squadron from Brize Norton to be dropped at Arnhem. Jan described the carnage to me. It was horrific. Most of his stick of paratroops were shot before reaching the ground. Jan survived and took part in the attacks on the bridges at Arnhem which unfortunately failed but he survived and emigrated to South Africa after the war.)

On 31 December 1945, RAF Brize Norton was transferred from Flying Training Command to Transport Command, and became the home of the Transport Command Development Unit and the School of Flight Efficiency. The Army Airborne Transport Development Unit joined these units in May 1946. Flying Training Command returned to the Station with No 204 AFTS in August 1949, but their stay was only to be a short one and they left in June 1950 when the first Americans began to arrive.

The USAF formally accepted control of RAF Brize Norton on 16 April 1951. Until early 1952, the main task of the USAF elements at RAF Brize Norton was to support US Army engineers engaged in extending the runway and building taxiways, hardstandings and accommodation.(The above in Italics is extracted from the web pages of RAF Brize Norton, with thanks)

Because Witney was not far from Coventry and Brize Norton there was a danger of air raids but I don’t recall any other occasion when we had to take shelter. I do recall returning to the shelter with some of my playmates after the war and my recollection of that visit is of the missing benches, darkness and the stench of urine. We were terrified and made a hasty exit.

As I previously mentioned, the Brize Norton airbase was close to Witney and the Americans took it over at the end of the war. GIs from the base would hang around Witney when they were off duty. They were mostly huge, kindly, black guys with an endless supply of chewing gum. We kids just loved them. At the time there were no sweets of any kind in England and all food was strictly rationed so the GIs from the airbase were like angels to us. Although I was too young at the time to understand, I suspect that Witney was less short of chewing gum and silk stockings than some other towns and cities in England.

Meeting Dad

The third and my most memorable recollection is of meeting my father for the first time. At the time I didn’t understand the meaning of having a father. Mother, together with Nana and Grandpa represented my understanding of our family and it came as a bit of a shock when the great man visited. Mother had, of course, told me that he was coming home, it was 1944 and the second time that she was to see him since I had been born and her excitement was contagious. The great man finally arrived in khaki uniform with lots of bright buttons and insignia and was immediately the centre of attention. I don’t remember disliking Dad at that time but I don’t remember liking him either. I do remember being exceptionally obnoxious in my attempt to get more attention and I suspect that he was quite relieved when he could escape to the peace of war! Dad told me later that after his 1944 home leave he was seconded to the American army, firstly to help with the mobilization of fuel supplies for the Normandy landings and later aboard a fuel laden landing craft carrying fuel for the allied invasion. I think that he was relieved to be away from his son and heir but terrified that his landing craft may be struck by shell fire during the landings. As it happened the all fuel landing craft were held back pending the securing of the beaches before they were ordered to beach. As a result he spent two days floating in the English channel eating Southern fried chicken and ice cream. He told me that all through his later life he felt a measure of guilt about the fact that so many of the men he knew were being killed he was enjoying the hospitality of the American crew.

A Brother and Uncle Lost

After Dad’s home leave and return to war I once again became the centre of the attention in which I revelled. Another event that became embedded in my memory of my early life concerned Mum’s younger brother, Patrick, besides being her brother, was Mum’s best friend. There was a 2 year age difference between them and they had grown up sharing all their experiences from the cradle to Patrick’s untimely death. I was too young to remember the actual event but I remember Mum often talking about it.

Uncle Patrick had spent his time at war in Burma fighting the Japanese. Having survived the fighting and the decimation of the Indian Armys’ 20th Infantry Brigade, to which he was attached, by the Japanese, he returned with

Captain Patrick J. Phillips.

the Brigade to Calcutta with the remaining survivors. The Brigade was restored to full strength before being ordered to return by sea to Chittagong for a further attempt at dislodging the Japanese from western Burma. The armed troop ship, the 3,962 ton El Madina was part of Convoy No. HC-44 which was torpedoed by Japanese Submarine number RO-111 commanded by Lt. Cdr. Nakamura on 16th March 1944 whilst sailing from Calcutta to Chittagong in the Bay of Bengal. The ship started to break in half and sink immediately due to the huge hole blown in her side by the torpedo and many of the crew and returning soldiers were trapped below deck. Pat, his friend and others who realized the plight of the trapped men went to their assistance and many men were freed and rescued but Patrick was trapped below deck by the rising water. He was never seen again. The family was told by the friend, who also helped with the rescue of soldiers trapped below deck and who survived the attack and eventually returned to England, that Patrick had survived the torpedo explosion only to lose his own life trying to help more trapped survivors. The family’s, and particularly my Mum’s and Nana Phillips’ grief, was long and heartfelt. In a bizarre coincidence, Mum’s younger brother Terrence, was serving aboard the HMS Nigeria at the time.

The HMS Nigeria.

Me at the British War Memorial.

The Nigeria was en route to Singapore after major repairs and refitting in America after being torpedoed in the Mediterranean and badly damaged. On her voyage to join the British Indian Ocean Fleet she was diverted to help the rescue operation for the crew and soldiers aboard the El Madina. On 12th July 1944 the submarine RO-111 was sunk by the USS Taylor. There were no survivors. Terrence was unaware of how close he was to his brother when his ship was sent to the rescue site and only found out after the war. Patrick is remembered as Captain Patrick J. Phillips age 27, Royal Army Ordinance Corps, Service Number 228829, son of Percy John and Eva Phillips, husband of Marjorie Ellis Phillips and father of Penelope. He is remembered on the 18th face of the British War Memorail in Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma).

Nursery School

By the age of three I was becoming too much of a handful for my grandparents while Mum was at work so I was dispatched forthwith to nursery school. My Aunt Jo was in the WAAF and drove what seemed to me to be a monster of a truck. It was an army 4x4 Bedford and it was this vehicle that became my personal transport to and from nursery school.

I remember getting into it for the first time and being overawed by its size. I used to love the smell of that truck and the roar of its engine. I was also the envy of all the other kids who could only stand and gape as I was dragged aboard. How my Aunt Jo got away with using an army Bedford as a chauffeur driven delivery vehicle for her nephew I’ll never know.

At about this time I managed once again to demonstrate my obnoxiousness. I was with Mum standing in the butchers shop queue when a dog arrived and promptly lifted a piece of precious meat and made off with it. I thought I’d be a hero and went chasing after the dog but a little old lady evidently decided that that was not a very wise thing to do.

My nursery school was on the right hand side of this picture of St. Mary the Virgin Church, Church Green, Witney which was re-built in 1243. (Picture courtesy of Geographic)

She caught hold of me and was in the process of handing me over to Mum when I bit her arm and bolted. You can imagine how horrified my mother was. By the time she had finished apologizing to the little old lady I had disappeared. It took her hours to find me and by the time she did the meat supply at the butchers shop had long been exhausted. I was dragged off home screaming to receive my first belting. I deserved it!

Army on the Move

Not long before the war ended, I presume it was shortly before the Allied landings in France, I remember seeing huge convoys of trucks carrying everything imaginable from men to tanks heading south. I was with some playmates and we were sitting on someone’s garden wall when the convoy started passing by. The road was paved and wet as it had been pouring with rain for a couple of days prior to the convoy passing.

CJB sitting on the wall 1945

The convoy lasted all day and at the end of it there was nothing left of the road, at least outside the house, except for a huge tract of mud. I still wonder how many of those men and machines returned from their invasion of France.

VE Day

My final recollection of the war years is of VE (Victory Europe) day on Tuesday 8 May 1945 which marked the end of the War with Germany. For almost six years from 1939 to 1945 Britain fought the toughest war it had ever experienced. The six years of bloodshed had killed approximately 380,000 members of the British Armed forces and 67,000 civilians.

I remember Mum, Nana and Grandpa being glued to the radio as news of the end of the war filtered through and being bewildered by the townspeople who seemed to me to have gone mad. It was difficult for a four and a bit year old to understand what all the fuss was about. I can remember hundreds of people on the streets singing and dancing and waving Union Jacks and all the street lights that night which I saw for the first time as the blackouts which had been imposed throughout the war were lifted. I can remember my grandparents and Mum’s excitement, Mum’s happiness at the thought of Dad and his three brothers Robert, Jack and Alan, who had all survived the war coming home from Belgium and France where they had

People on the streets in Witney on VJ Day August 1945.

been posted as the war ended Nana’s renewed sadness at Patrick’s death at sea and her happiness at the prospect of Terry’s return from Africa. Aunties Jo and Peggy, Mums sisters arrived and the party was on. I can still remember that day as if it were yesterday.

Although the war in Europe had ended the war in the Pacific between the Americans and Japanese was still ongoing. It didn’t end until after the USA had dropped atom bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on 6th August and Nagasaki on 9th August and the Japanese surrendered on 14th August 1945, VJ Day.

Overall 50 million people were killed during WWII; 15 million were soldiers, the rest were civilians and included in round figures 20 million Russians, six million Jews, four million Poles and 67,000 British.

World Events 1940

January: Rationing was introduced in Britain early in the New Year.

Date Unknown: South Africa. The early 1940s saw the pro-Nazi Ossewa Brandwag (OB) movement become half-a-million strong, including future Prime Minister John Vorster and future head of police intelligence; Hendrik van den Bergh. The anti-semitic Boerenasie (Boer Nation) and other similar groups soon joined them. When the war ended, the OB was one of the anti-parliamentary groups absorbed into the National Party. An era of Nazi-type legislation followed, including the banning of anti-apartheid terror movements such as the Communist Party of South Africa and the African National Congress.

April 4: Under pressure from the advancing Allies, the Italians abandoned the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa. South African troops occupied the city for the Allies on the 6th April.

April 20: Squadron Leader Marmaduke Thomas St. John Pat Pattle DFC & Bar was killed in action. He was a South African-born Second World War flying ace of the Royal Air Force with a very high score and is sometimes noted as being the highest-scoring British and Commonwealth pilot of the Second World War. If all claims made for him are in fact correct, his total enemy aircraft shot down was in excess of 51. Pattle is mentioned in Roald Dahl's second auto- biography, Going Solo. Dahl flew with him in Greece and calls Pattle the Second World War's greatest flying ace.

July to September: The Battle of Britain was the first battle to be fought solely in the air. The 'Blitz' of Britain's cities lasted throughout the war and saw the bombing of Buckingham Palace and the near-destruction of Coventry claiming some 40,000 civilian lives.

World Events 1941

February 9: Winston Churchill, in a worldwide broadcast, told the

United States to show its support by sending arms to the British: Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.

June 15: Rommel, the Desert Fox, attacked Tobruk to the north forcing the British back, relying on the minefields of the Gazala lines to protect his left flank. The British began a retreat eastward toward Egypt, the so-called Gazala Gallop. A memorable feat was the SAAF Boston bombers of 12 and 24 Squadrons who dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on Rommel’s Afrika Korps as it was pushing the Eighth Army back towards Egypt during the Gazala Gallop in early 1942. Axis forces reached the coast, cutting off the escape for the Commonwealth forces still occupying the Gazala positions. With this task completed, Rommel struck for Tobruk itself Tobruk's defence was left to the 2nd South African Infantry Division, buttressed by a number of remnants of units recovering from the Gazelle battle. Rommel struck Tobruk swiftly and in strength. The 2nd South African Division, was completely surrounded by German forces and Tobruk fell. The prize included the capture of the 33,000 defenders, the use of the small port due south from Crete, and a great deal of British supplies. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured at one time. Hitler promoted Rommel to Field Marshal for this victory.

June 20: The 2nd South African Division under Allied General Klopper officially conceded defeat and handed control of Tobruk to the Germans.

December 7: The Japanese, tired of American trade embargoes, mounted a surprise attack on the US Navy base of Pearl Harbour, in Hawaii. In the surprise attack, more than 350 Japanese airplanes sank 12 US ships and destroyed or damaged more than 300 aircraft. More than 2,300 military personnel were killed and 1,100 wounded. More than 1,100 men on the battleship Arizona died and the ship sank. The Japanese attacked nearby Hickam Air Field and destroyed nearly 20 bombers and fighters. A few US fighters managed to get into the air during the attack. Twenty-nine Japanese aircraft were shot down by US pilots and by ground fire. The next day, President Roosevelt stated that December 7, 1941 was a date which will live in infamy and declared war against Japan. Japan's allies Italy and Germany declared war on the US. This ensured that global conflict commenced, with Germany declaring war on the US, a few days later. Within a week of Pearl Harbor, Japan had invaded the Philippines, Burma and Hong Kong. The Pacific war was on. More than 2400 American servicemen were killed that day and America entered the WAR. And with neutrality ended some 950 tanks were sent to Britain together with food, trucks, guns and ammunition.

World Events 1941 to 1943

Between 1941 and 1943 in the Western Desert and North Africa the SAAF fighter, bomber and reconnaissance squadrons played a key role in the Western Desert and North African campaigns from. The SAAF bombers were also instrumental in continually harassing the German forces retreating towards the Tunisian border after the Battle of El Alamein whilst the South African fighters of 223 Wing contributed towards the Allied Desert Air Force attaining air superiority over the Axis air forces by the beginning of 1942. Between April 1941 and May 1943, the eleven SAAF squadrons flew 33 991 sorties and destroyed 342 enemy aircraft. The South Africans had the distinction of dropping the first and last bombs in the African conflict; the first being on 11 June 1940 on Moyale in Abyssinia and the last being on the Italian 1st Army in Tunisia.

November 16: The Warsaw Ghetto was established in the Polish capital in German-occupied Poland. Germany forced Jews in Warsaw, Poland, into a walled ghetto. From there, at least 254,000 Ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp over the course of two months in the summer of 1942.

World Events 1942

June 12: In Amsterdam, Anne Frank received a diary as a present for her thirteenth birthday. The diary was published after the war and shed light on the treatment of Dutch citizens by the Germans.

June 21: The war between Germany and the Soviet Union entered its second year. The Soviet Union lost 8.7 million military personnel in the last 46 months of the war, more than 6,200 per day. The Germans lost 2,415,690 military men against the Soviet Union alone – an average of about 1, 700 per day.

July 27: The British stopped Rommel's drive from Tobruk to Egypt and the Suez Canal at the 1st Battle of El Alamein, about 100 miles short of Alexandria.

September 17: US General Leslie R. Groves was appointed to direct the Manhattan Project, a top secret effort to build an atomic weapon before Germany or Japan. The Manhattan Project was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. The project cost nearly US$2 billion (about $26 billion in 2013 dollars). Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissionable materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. Research and production took place at more than 30 sites across the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Little Boy, a gun-type weapon, and the implosion-type Fat Man were used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively.

December 7: Hitler ignored the German-Soviet non-aggression pact and invaded the Soviet Union. Slowed by the bitter Russian winter, the German war machine failed to conquer Moscow.

World Events 1943

January 4: Soviet armies launched Operation Ring, against the Germans at Stalingrad. Hitler had grossly underestimated the Soviet Union's ability to defend itself. The German army still had a lot of power, but all that Hitler could hope for was the spending of a vast amount of money while continuing to occupy the Soviet Union.

January 23: British forces re-captured Tripoli from the Nazis.

January 31: German troops at Stalingrad surrendered, including their commander, Field Marshal Paulus and 16 other generals.

February 8: In the Pacific, Japan ended its three-day evacuation of Guadacanal after being defeated by the US Navy, Army and Airforce.

March 5: At the five-day Battle of the Bismarck Sea, north of New Guinea, much of Japan's navy was destroyed.

March 13: Plans by army officers to assassinate Hitler when he visited army headquarters at Smolensk failed.

July 5-12: The Germans strike back at the Soviet Army in their last major offensive on the Eastern Front. The battle was the largest armored engagement of all time. The Russians won. The war between Germany and Russia was fairly well decided.

October 25: The Japanese opened the railway from Burma to Siam (Thailand), built with British and Commonwealth prisoner-of-war labor. (Bridge Over the River Kwai). 

October 1943-March 1944: British and Indian troops began their campaign in Burma. (Captain Patrick Phillips RAOC, my uncle, was seconded to the 20th Indian Infantry for this campaign.) The Allies mounted two operations