Wartime

1939-1945

My father, Ernest Dale, was called up immediately after war was declared. He was 20. He was initially assigned to the Royal Armoured Corps (RAC), and trained for 6 months through the phony war at Tidworth on Salisbury Plain. Then a call came through for volunteers for something undefined in an unnamed location. Contrary to the old soldier's dictum, Ernest volunteered...

He spent three weeks getting there: the trains were sent in erratic patterns "to confuse the enemy". As he put it: "I don't know what it did to the enemy, but it bloody confused me".

Finally, he arrived at Fort William in the far north west of Scotland and was taken by jeep down a rough unmetalled road ("the old road" as he described it repeatedly during the holidays of my childhood) to Lochailort castle. He was shown in to Lord Lovat the following morning. "Ah, Dale."

"Yes, sir!"

"Thank God! RASC at last."

"No, sir."

"What?!"

"RAC sir. Tanks, sir."

"Oh bugger! We asked for Royal Army Service Corps." After a pause, Lord Lovat continued: "Well, it's taken us three months to get you here. Do you know anything about running a place like this?"

"No, sir. But I'll try."

Thus, by the miracle of a misprint, was his life saved. His tank unit were mostly killed in the Normandy landings.

The following are his memories of the war.

My father Ernest Dale died on 27 May 2002.

Andrew Dale, May 2002

Call-up and Tidworth

“Agnostic" I replied.

"You can’t be a bloody agnostic in this army; you are C of E." I felt he wanted an argument so I stayed quiet. Strange that, at the end of the war, one of the four freedoms guaranteed was “freedom of religion”.

One item handed to me was called my best friend - the short Lee-Enfield rifle. Our first lecture was about this sturdy little weapon. Effective range – 2000 yards; calibre 0.303 in. In the base of the butt was a little flap which opened to disclose a tubular brass bottle of oil, a length of cord which had a loop at one end and a brass weight on the other – this was the pull-through. There was also a square of soft cloth which, when put into the loop was pulled from the breech and out through the muzzle to wipe out the oil. The cloth was called forbytwo (4" x 2").

Our training lasted six months, all on Salisbury Plain. Every day we were assailed by the screech and roar of our fighter planes as the young pilots learned to control the Spitfire and Hurricane in mock dogfights. We seemed to have a lot more than we'd believed, and I found out years afterwards that German intelligence had been way out in their estimates of our strength.

Then came the exodus from France of the B.E.F. as every available boat was put across the channel to bring our lads back from an undignified defeat. It was a magnificent success.

This was where some myopic twit didn't seem to notice the difference between RAC Royal Armoured Corps (tanks) and RASC (Royal Army Service Corps - services), so six of us RAC chaps were sent by mistake to Scotland as clerks! This I would consider a happy accident. As we passed through London the returning British Expeditionary Force filled the streets. There was a carnival atmosphere as women volunteers handed out soup, sandwiches and tea to all and sundry. Some of the heroes were in poor shape from the strafing and exhaustion. German Messerschmidts had been enjoying the fun - rather like shooting fish in a barrel.