3.  Training And Posting To Field Units

All good things must come to an end, and we took the train to Leeds, in Northern England, for our course with British Royal Army Medical Corps officers. A pleasant town with a fine cathedral, good hospitals and theatres. We were to spend four weeks, training very hard, taking long route marches and night exercises and learning the names of all the military units, items and jargon generally. We found that our Canadian boys were much fitter and quicker at learning things, but of course most of us had some militia training. This made us quite popular with our instructors, so we were qualified at the end of our course.

We also had quite a good time, meeting the civilians in Leeds, including attractive young ladies, whose parents invited us to their homes for dinners, etc. There were a few dances and the shows quite good. There was absolutely no evidence of war there, and I can’t remember any black-out precautions, but they may have been forgotten. They were sending troops to India, Hong Kong, to the Middle East and Gibralter, and we wondered where we would all end up. My good friend, Parker Chesney was sent to India and then to Burma, where he spent a long time.

Imagine my surprise, when I learned that I was being sent to No. 6 Fd Amb (Field Ambulance). When in the militia, in Canada, I belonged to the No. 6 Canadian Field ambulance. When I arrived in Bournemouth, August 27, 1941, I found that the unit was packing up to go on the biggest exercise they had ever had held, ”Bumper”, to be commanded by the new General Montgomery. He would have all the divisions in southern England in his “Army”. My commanding officer was a rather elderly man, quite frail-looking, and the officers told me that they expected “Monty” to get rid of all the older men like him.

I had to pack quickly, and try to remember the names of everybody in the unit, something that happened to me many times during the next few years. We were kept on the move, day and night for the next few days and apparently our division, the 78th, fought very well, having few casualties. I had been made adjutant of the unit, since they thought I had a lot of experience in Canada. If they only knew!  In any event, the result of this was that at the end of the exercise, since our C.O. was kicked out, as they had suspected, I was told that in his absence, the adjutant would attend the briefing with General Montgomery after the exercise.

”Monty”, promptly at 0800 hours (8 A.M.) arrived at the school where we were to have our conference. We had been told to be there early, and to be sitting quietly, with “no smoking”. He entered the hall, and we all stood up. Since we had been told to take off our caps, we didn’t have to salute. He began by saying, ”You have been told that there will be no smoking. I don’t want any coughing either, so if you need to cough, cough now!”

He then went on to say that it was too bad that some of the senior officers had to be changed, but he wanted younger people in command of his units, and of the companies within the units. ”C’est la guerre.”  He was satisfied with the units, and rattled off the names of them, most of whom I had never heard of, naturally. I don’t think he said anything about the medicals, but stayed well out of sight afterwards, when we all had a cup of coffee. I was afraid he would spot my measly three pips and ”Canada” insignia, and say, “What is this captain, a Canadian, doing here?”

The next time I met Monty, in North Africa, he had changed. He was now famous, wearing double badges, joking with the officers about the lack of beer, which was hard to get unless you gave a pint of blood.

On returning to my unit, I learned that we had heard who our next C.O. would be, a Lt.-Col, T.A. Butcher. When he arrived, things changed, with route marches, better training, and very soon plans to take commando training in northern Scotland.

One of our majors was a hopeless officer, from southern England. He had a terrible accent, and few could understand him, even when he knew what he wanted to say, which wasn’t often. One day, we had a full parade, and so he had to be there, with his company. We had to do some tricky maneuvers, and he had his company make a left form. They ended up marking time, and he didn’t know what to say to make them march again. He half-turned so his Staff-sergeant could hear him, and said “What should I say now?”  The NCO replied, “Forward on two left feet.”  Thereupon, the Major shouted out, “Forward on two left feet”. This brought down the house naturally.

Colonel Butcher was a fine chap, small, but very fit. He had been an infantry officer originally in World War I, wounded badly, then recovered and became a medical administrative officer, studying medicine after the war. A prominent London physician when WW II broke out, he handed over his practice to others and joined up. He stayed in France until Dunkirk, and then escaped and came back to eventually end up with us. We enjoyed working together, and had many long hikes, climbing the hills in Scotland when our unit was sent there.

Before leaving the subject of Col. Butcher, I must tell what happened to him. When his unit went to North Africa, after I had left them to become a parachutist, he was driving in his jeep, one day, to the formation Headquarters, I believe. Anyway, some parachutists had been spotted, and he, as an old infantry officer, got as many soldiers as he could to see if they could find them. Apparently they were a small detachment of German parachutists, sent to capture Randolph Churchill, who had been sent out from England to see what he could see. I think they were just trying to get rid of Randolph, who apparently was a nuisance. In any event, our poor Col. Butcher was killed. I never heard whether they did catch all the parachutists, but Randolph was O.K., as usual!  This story hasn’t been told to the public, as far as I know.

Another odd happening, after we had done our commando training, was our receiving embarkation leave. Only those entitled to “Top Secret” information could know where we were supposed to go, but naturally the adjutant heard that it was Murmansk, Russia. If you can remember all the ships that were going to Murmansk in 1942, it can be appreciated that Churchill might have wanted some of his troops there. Why they had to be commando-trained beats me, but he may have had some other ideas up his sleeve. In any event, we had our leave, thank you very much, with more shows in London, and didn’t have to leave the country. Instead, they sent me to London again, to the RAMC College at Millbank, to take a short course on tropical medicine, which became handy later on.