Hitler's War On Ducks

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Hello and welcome to a new series of Family Stories, the podcast written by you, our listeners.

This week's family stories take us from schoolboy japes in southeast London to a Nazi vendetta against a fleet of Buckinghamshire ducks to a dramatic escape from Hong Kong to Bombay.

This week we're starting with the story from Nigel Jackson.

My dad was born in 1935 and lived with his parents and older sister Sylvia.

His mother and father decided that their children wouldn't be evacuated during the Blitz, so my dad spent the whole of the Second World War in southeast London.

As they lived just south of the Mill War docks in Peckham, bombers that undershot their target would hit his neighbourhood.

It was one of the most bombed areas of London during the war.

My dad's life as a boy was exciting, and he had a lot of freedom to explore.

After a bombing raid, he and his mates would go out with metal dustbin lids on their heads to see what they could find, and to collect shrapnel.

They often found incendiary bombs, putting them out where necessary, and would climb bombed-out buildings until they reached the roof.

It's quite amazing that they got through the war relatively unscathed, and I do wonder what my grandparents were thinking.

I want to recount a particular story where Dad witnessed a now infamous incident involving the Luftwaffe first hand.

Just after twelve o'clock on the 20th of January 1943, Dad was walking home for lunch from Walker Road School in Peckham to Dennets Road.

Just as he was about to step into their front garden, he heard a plane overhead and noises resembling machine gun fire.

The plane was painted completely black underneath and appeared suddenly over the rising sun pub on Dennett's Road.

The next thing he knew, he woke up in hospital.

He was hit in the knee, likely with a ricochet, as a direct bullet would have made more of a mess of a seven-year-old's leg, and thankfully wasn't seriously hurt.

A few seconds before, and just a mile away, Sandhurst Road in Catford was bombed by some FW 190 fighter-bombers with supporting Measure Schmidt 109s.

Sadly, 24 pupils and two teachers were killed.

Dad was just one of those caught up in the series of machine-gun incidents by these Fokkerwolfs, which happened all over south-east London that lunchtime.

In 2008, Dad had a knee replacement.

Looking at the X-rays, the surgeon asked Dad why there was metal in his knees.

It's German government property, Dad replied, and explained the circumstances.

Dad remembers the V-2 that landed on Woolworth's New Cross on the 25th of November 1944, which killed 168 people, including 33 children.

It wasn't far from where he lived, and he regularly went there with his mum.

My granddad, Herbert, got very close to a V two later on.

He was the overseer of Greenwich Post Office when it was hit, and was one of only two people to walk away from the rubble.

Grandad Herbert said he was amazed at what he was capable of in an emergency like that, throwing lumps of concrete out of the way to get the survivors.

After the war, the various bomb sites were a great source of entertainment for Dad and his mates, like the bombed-out water storage tank at the end of the road which became their swimming pool.

When he was about twelve, he started racing for the Nunhead Dragons in cycling speedway, on a big oval track cleared out from a bomb site.

It became a big sport for a while with dozens of teams and leagues over London for about ten years or so.

The family celebrated VE Day with lots of his mates on the football pitch of the old den.

For them, having a big party with all the cakes and treats was a big thing.

He lives in Plymouth now, but I think the boy from the East End isn't very far away.

Next season, Millwall FC are likely to be visiting Plymouth Argyle Football Club, and the stewards may have trouble with one particular elderly spectator in the stands.

That story was from Nigel Jackson.

The next story is from Chris Webster.

Chris writes, My grandfather, Walter Hansen, was attached to the 1st Canadian Army.

After D-Day, the Allies were moving northeast and they needed a proper port to supply the growing east.

When Antwerp was liberated, its port became the obvious choice.

Much of the Allied force moved there from further northeast, but without securing access to Antwerp through the Scheldt estuary.

The Axis forces recognised the Allied error and reinforced the Scheldt area.

Walter was among those first Canadians who commenced the near-month-long campaign fighting German defences in the area.

Because the Germans had blown up lots of the dams holding back the sea, many Canadian fighting positions were in almost waist-deep water.

After weeks of being soaking wet, Walter removed his boots and then his socks, and with his socks, off came the skin of his feet.

Trenchfoot soon followed.

Walter asked his commanding officer to go back for medical treatment, but the reply was firm.

We're in the middle of battle, you're not going anywhere.

Dutifully, but painfully, Walter returned to his position.

It turned out that the Red Cross did have socks, but Walter had to go back and get them himself, which he wasn't allowed to do.

Luckily, a man from the Salvation Army had caught wind of the dilemma.

This man, completely unknown to Walter, came through enemy fire into the lines and presented my grandfather with two pairs of clean, dry socks and a thermos of hot coffee.

Walter never mentioned the war except for in jest, but he tearfully told us this story many Christmases later.

He always gave his charity money to the Salvation Army and credited them for the fact that he still had his feet.

Now, many years after his passing, many of our family give warm socks to the Salvation Army to distribute to homeless men at Christmas.

In Walter's memory, I believe we have distributed around 9,000 pairs of socks in exchange for the two pairs given to Walter.

Perhaps we should add a firmness of hot coffee too.

And that story was from Chris Webster.

The next story is from Ken Sharp.

Listening to your podcast has been an utter delight.

It's as if I've stumbled on a never-ending evening at the pub where I'm surrounded by mates sharing laughs and swapping tales about World War II history.

Speaking of stories in pubs, here's one that I often spin for my friends over a pint or two.

The tale of how Adolf Hitler killed our ducks.

My grandfather was a farmer during the war, reserved occupation of vital importance for keeping Britain fed.

He worked on the family farm in the village of Molso in North Buckinghamshire.

It was a mixed farm, home to crops, sheep, cattle, and most notably, ducks.

However, danger lurked just a mile away at REF Cranfield.

It was a vital REF hub and later became a training ground for night fighters.

As a testament to its enduring legacy, Cranfield boasts one of Europe's largest flight schools and even a prestigious university.

In September 1940, bombers were spotted over Cranfield.

My grandfather was always on high alert, ever wary of German paratroopers landing, and a dedicated member of the Home Guard.

He made the family huddle together in one room for safety.

But as it turned out, there was no defence for what happened next.

On that fateful night, in a daring and strategic pivot, the Luftwaffe unleashed its fury, not on the aerodrome, but on the unsuspecting and innocent residents of Molso, more specifically, our ducks.

Switching targets from Cranfield to the bulk of Molso's duck population and skillfully dropping a bomb right into the barn, in which they were kept.

The excellent Bombs Over Buckinghamshire website, which has painstakingly recorded damages from enemy bombing during the war, laments the loss.

Farm buildings partially demolished, 60 ducks killed.

The second bomb, mercifully, landed in a field half a mile away, with no birds killed.

Grandfather, however, took solace solace in a small victory, gleefully regaling how the offending plane was shot down near Aylesbury on the same night.

Knowing that certain defeat was imminent, and really disliking our ducks, Adolf had another crack in 1945 with the V-1.

The bomb just missed the farm and crashed north of Molso, Old Wood.

Thankfully, there was no damage done, but by this point it was clear our ducks lived rent-free in Hitler's mind.

Of course, air raids are serious and terrifying, but the smile on grandfather's face as he told me that story many years ago was genuine, and it is a fantastic, cherished memory.

That story was from Ken Sharp.

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Our next story comes from John Orchard.

And John writes, My sister Jo visited our 89-year-old aunt in her care home near Bristol shortly before she died.

On this occasion, she managed to get our Aunt Mary to talk about the war, and in particular, the prisoners of war who worked on local farms in Somerset.

Aunt Mary recalled a service at the local All Saints church in Raxall, when the German prisoners of war sang Silent Night or Stille Nachter in German to the whole congregation.

As they sang, the whole congregation rose to their feet as a mark of respect and perhaps also appreciation.

Aunt Mary also recalled that some of the prisoners who were shot down over Bristol attended the church regularly on Sundays as well.

Several of them married local girls after the war and settled in the area.

Aunt Mary's mother invited prisoners of war to their house, forming a friendship with one man in particular, who she continued to support and help after he returned to Germany.

Aunt Mary remembered her packing up parcels and putting in coffee.

One thing we only discovered recently was that the next-door neighbour thought it was terrible that they were helping the Germans.

There must have been others who felt the same way.

I think our grandma probably saw the prisoners as boys like her own, who just happened to be caught up on the other side of the war.

Her generosity was especially remarkable as two of her brothers were killed by Germans on the Western Front in World War I, Harry at Luce and Alfred at Vimy Ridge.

But she didn't harbour a grudge.

Grandma had served as a volunteer nurse during the Great War and later became the head mistress of a school for deaf students in Bristol.

She met our grandpa through the choir they both sang in, and they shared a mutual love of music.

I'm really sorry that I never met her, as she died before me and my sisters were born in April 1956.

She was clearly a remarkable woman, and that story was from John Orchard.

Our next story is from James Bagnall, aka Jimmy Bagpus.

Here is a story about my partner's grandfather, Danny Basil Parrott.

Danny was brought up in Warwickshire.

He enlisted in the army in 1935, joining the Royal Artillery as a Lance Bombardier in 7th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery.

He was sent to Hong Kong in 1937, and when the Japanese invaded in 1941, he helped defend Saiyan.

However their defences were soon overwhelmed and the colony fell on Christmas Eve.

Like everyone else Danny was taken prisoner.

Most were held at Sham Shui Po Camp where the Japanese brutality towards prisoners of war soon became apparent.

Escape was on many of the prisoners' minds.

Danny teamed up with John Taffy Whitehead, a former Welsh miner and fellow bombardier and two others to plan an escape.

At the start of 1942 they gathered what food and supplies they could find and escaped the compound undetected during the dead of night.

They had to work their way through a filthy typhoon drain, crawling on their hands and their knees.

Near the exit of the drain they encountered a Japanese sentry who challenged and then charged at the escapees.

Luckily Danny managed to trip him up and then Taffy dispatched him.

During daylight there were further tense moments when the group had to hide in bushes for nearly eight hours to avoid Japanese troops.

After this torturous period, they moved through the plateau and up the hills.

Finally, they managed to get down into Chinese territory where an incredible adventure began.

By March Danny and his friends made it to the Chinese town of Shu Kwan where they were finally able to rest and eat.

Here they encountered European and American missionaries and also a floating brothel run by a Portuguese consortium.

A few days later the men were on a train from Hengyang to Qiang when the vehicle stopped in the dark and troops with heavy boots and flickering torches boarded the vehicle.

They weren't Chinese and the escapees feared the worst.

Then, to their astonishment, they heard British voices, English and Australian accents.

These were men of Tulip Force known as Mission 204 who had been organised and trained by Madmike Calvert in Burma.

The force was intended to support Chinese nationalist forces.

Accompanying the Tulip Force, Danny and the escapees were fed, clothed and told they could leave at any time.

Taking this opportunity, Danny was sent to India via Burma on another perilous but tedious journey.

They managed to arrive safely and travelled to Bombay.

For his bravery, Danny received the military medal and a letter of congratulation for gallant and distinguished services in the field from Field Marshal Archibald Wavell, Commander-in-Chief in India.

Meanwhile, Taffy continued to serve with Tunip Force.

He later wrote a book about his exploits called Escape to Fight On and provided audio testimony which you can find online at the Imperial War Museum.

After some training and recuperation, Danny joined the Chindits in early 1943.

Many of the Chindits were afflicted with illness and Danny was one one of the lucky ones to survive.

He made it back to India but was admitted to hospital several times.

Following his recovery, he was based at British headquarters for a while, delivering lectures about survival in the jungle and his escape from the prisoner of war camp.

In 1944, Danny was sent home requiring further medical treatment.

He met his wife to be Marjorie at a Nafi canteen in Avonmouth where she worked.

Soon he was discharged from hospital and then the army.

Danny rarely spoke about the war, but he and Marjorie lived a happy life.

He passed away in 1988.

Her partner and her mum were very proud of him.

That story was from James Bagnell, aka Jimmy Bagpuss.

Over to James.

Our final story in this episode comes from Alan Maislin.

Alan writes, Captain Irving L.

Maislin served in the 57th Fighter Group, famed for the Palm Sunday massacre when the Allies downed 24 JU-52 aircraft and disabled another 35 over Tunisia.

He didn't shoot down any enemies.

He was the fellow who gave the pilots their winning smiles, the company dental surgeon.

First in the blue, the Army Air Force sent him to Libya, where they commandeered a trailer abandoned by the retreating Rommel forces.

They converted it into a mobile dental office.

Yankee ingenuity has served Captain Maislin in good stead, the Hartford Courant reported.

A jam can and an empty bomb casing represent the dental cuspidor.

The washstand is an empty helmet resting on an empty bomb casing.

The fountain is a lister bag spigot connected to an American water can.

His dental tools were also makeshift.

They're on display in the 57th Fighter Group exhibit at the New England Air Museum.

Growing up I'd heard about the trailer and seen the picture with his dog Dopey resting on the step.

When I visited the museum, I saw it again in the section about dental medical care for the 57th.

Then I went to the section on the motor pool.

There the caption under the picture revealed a surprise.

The trailer had been a mobile brothel for the German army.

Yes, my father spent the war in a rolling whorehouse.

Because Captain Maislin would also use a trailer for living quarters, they installed a stove to provide heat in the cold desert nights.

They wanted to vent it through the ceiling, but my father insisted that now that he actually had a roof, no one else was going to put a hole in it.

When my father insisted on anything, woe to anyone who protested.

Therefore, they gerry-rigged a side vent.

But not well enough.

For the duration of the war, from North Africa up the boot, lead from the stove leached into his body.

By the time they reached Sicily, he was incapacitated with lead poisoning and sent home.

Thank you for hours of fascination.

That story was from Alan Maislin.

That's all for this episode.

If you've got a family story you'd like to be considered for the show, please email it to Wehave Ways podcast at gmail.com.

That's Wehave Ways podcast at gmail.com.

We look forward to hearing from you and hearing your incredible family stories.

Please label the email Family Stories so that we don't miss it.

Thanks for listening and bye-bye.