6.  Joining 1st Airborne Division

One feature of being the adjutant of a unit is that you read all the letters that arrive, and there are a lot. One day, a ”Secret” envelope came to 6 Fd. Amb, and when I opened it, read that the War Office wanted any medical officers who would be willing to parachute to join the new 1 Airborne Division. They had to be fit, have perfect colour vision and be prepared to carry a pistol to defend their patients or themselves. As the adjutant, I passed the letter to all officers, but had no takers. Rather than send in a nil return, which we never liked to do, I put my own name down.

Not long after that,  a secret message came to the C.O., saying that Capt. Kerr was to report to the War Office, giving the address. I thought that possibly, since some of my letters had been severely censored, with names of cities cut out, they thought I was a double agent or something. In any event I took the train to London, 18 July, 1942, and found the address they had given.

It was a rather plain office building, and I climbed the stairs to a dingy office, where another medical officer was sitting in the waiting room. We soon decided that we were there because we had volunteered for parachuting. Sure enough, when we met a nice elderly “Colonel Blimp”, we were told that our applications would be considered as long as he was satisfied. He asked a few questions about our views, making sure that we had nobody depending on us, wouldn’t mind being a prisoner-of-war and were afraid of nothing. We were told that very shortly we should hear that we could join 1 Airborne Division, being formed by Major General Frederic (Boy) Browning. He had just been given the job of assembling the division, with two parachute brigades, one airlanding (glider) brigade and some other troops. He already had the 1st Para Bde formed and a raid had been carried out on Bruneval, a radar station on the coast of France.

There was to be a medical support, with a field ambulance for each brigade, consisting of three or four sections, including a medical officer and about twenty medical assistants, together with two surgical teams, having a surgeon and surgical assistants, like operating room nurses. The airlanding troops would fly in Horsa gliders pulled by our Whitley bombers, while Hamilcar gliders could carry jeeps and even a small tank or bulldozer. They would need a big four-engine bomber to pull them. The War Office had promised the very best equipment. Parachute pay, two shillings a day would be paid but not to me, since the Canadian Army didn’t yet have any parachutists, and I already was paid more than my C.O.!

General Browning had been a guards officer and was considered one of the brightest generals. Parachuting was a relatively new military occupation although it had been a sport in many countries for several years.

The Germans had used parachutists for several easy operations in the Netherlands, and I met a German surgeon when I was there in the sixties. He was the chief surgeon of the Hanover Hospital. He had been in their army as a medical officer, was quite bored when he was called up, and since he liked parachuting, joined a unit as their medical officer. He enjoyed the drops into Holland, and thought it was fun. They did almost no fighting, because the Dutch gave up right away. However, he was next sent to Crete. There, he was machine-gunned, with multiple chest wounds, perforated lung, etc.,  He nearly died, and was resuscitated and eventually boarded out of the army, so he must have been pretty low. In any event, over the years, his lungs expanded and he was quite healthy when we had dinner together. We enjoyed comparing notes, and found that I had landed on the airfield in Greece, from which he took off for his flight to Crete!

When I left my 6 Fd Amb, 16 July, 1942, I found my new unit, 17 Parachute Field Ambulance, in Amesbury, a pleasant village near Stonehenge. It had a good hotel and pub. We were in a nice old abbey, which is now a convalescent home, I found when we returned a few years ago.

I was the first medical officer to arrive, just after Capt. Alan Brown, a dental officer, who has been my friend ever since. He and his wife, have visited us in Westmount, while Gaetane and I have stayed briefly with them in. Only a couple of clerks had arrived and two N.C.O.’s. The commanding officer, Lt.-Col. Michael Kohane, a wild Irishman, was still in London, where he went whenever he could find an excuse. Naturally, I assumed that I would be the adjutant, as was confirmed by the C.O. when he arrived.

It was only a couple of hours to London, and a short drive to Salisbury. All our interest was in getting our parachute wings, and so we had to keep very fit to be able to pass the tests before going to Hardwicke, near Chesterfield, for our training.

Two young medical officers joined the unit, Dick Sharpe and Tinker Palmer, both first class athletes and wonderful guys, followed by a major Devine, whose first name I have forgotten, but he was always “Major Devine”, and he had an M.C. which he had won in Norway. He was six foot two inches, and we warned him that statistics showed that people over six feet had a high casualty rate.

Soon, word came that Major Devine, Alan and I could go for our training. We were so happy to see Chester, a pleasant little town, the cathedral having a twisted spire that had made it famous. Our training was pretty rigorous, with long distance runs, route marches, trapeze work, climbing over obstacles etc. There were a few injuries, but I can only remember having a sore knee once, which I tried to hide. Then we were considered fit to jump from the balloon. Suspended in a square basket, with a hole in the floor, we went up six hundred feet, then one after another, fell through the hole, hoping that the parachute would open. It did, 9999 times out of ten thousand. If you did 10 jumps, your odds were one in a thousand that your chute would fail.

After two balloon jumps, we were allowed to do our jumps from a Whitley bomber. This was an old plane, too slow for bombing missions by then, with the belly-turret removed, leaving a hole half-way down the fuselage, through which ten of us would jump, five in front of the hole and five behind. Major Devine, another captain, Alan and I went up, to jump in that order, followed by lesser ranks!  When the first two had jumped, Alan and I looked down through the hole, as the plane circled for another drop. As we flew near our landing zone, we saw the ambulance rushing towards the chutes on the ground. Was it our major or the captain?  The two of us jumped, all the time looking down toward the ambulance, hoping that we didn’t land on top of it.

It was Major Devine and he had a fracture dislocation of the shoulder. I probably gave him a shot of morphine, because I always had syrettes in my battle-dress pocket. In any event, we went to the hospital with him, and it was confirmed that his shoulder had a fracture-dislocation. We never saw him again, but heard that he had to work in a hospital after that.

Now that we were qualified, we could wear the prized parachute on our right shoulder. The Americans soon found it looked better on the chest, and when the Canadians finally started to parachute, they did the same. Alan got his two shillings a day, and I had to wait for a while, but more of that later!

One of the more amusing little jaunts that I took, as adjutant, was to northern Ireland. The War Office wanted me to interview parachute recruits, examining them to be sure that they were really fit, as they had claimed to be. They had to report in Belfast, where I spent about a week, as I remember. They were officers and men of all services. I had been given a secret black list, of those that I should consider unsuitable, although they could have been turned down by somebody higher up. It seemed to rain every day, but there they often said it wasn’t raining, it was only a soft day. That meant it wasn’t pouring.

When I returned, I reached the unit at suppertime and all the officers were in the mess. I was greeted by, “All the drinks on Captain Kerr”. I said how happy I would be to buy everyone a drink, but wondered if there was a special reason. They told me to read the last Order. There it was. Captain Kerr was entitled to $2.00 per day parachutist’s pay, and this was effective 28 July, 1942. Back pay of $432.00 (L96.12.11) had been entered in my bank account.

We now began to train in earnest, with exercises and special trips. Even the R.A.F. wanted to give us some experience flying with them, and so I spent a couple of days with one of the Whitley crews. My plane was skippered by a Canadian, which was more fun. He asked me to fly as tail-gunner, and showed me how to turn the turret and fire the gun. We flew across the channel, but we didn’t go far into France, because our Whitley didn’t fly very fast, and we didn’t want to get into too much trouble. When we came back and landed, I found it pretty bumpy in the tail, after bouncing a few times. I got out of the tail  when we had stopped, and they suddenly realized that nobody had told me I should leave the tail before the plane landed.

Needing quite a few more privates as medical assistants, our C.O. had a bright idea. There were a lot of conscientious objectors, who belonged to the N.C.C., the Non-Combatant Corps, and they were used as labourers mainly. Many were highly-educated, teachers, ministers, etc. He thought that they might be willing to parachute, provided they didn’t bear arms.

In any event, the War Office agreed that I could interview a large group, and select those I wanted. This was fascinating. I met some very bright college graduates, and chose about twenty, including a teacher, who became my clerk, a theological student, who became my batman, a movie director and others, who then were alloted to my No. 3 Section, when I handed over the section I had previously trained to another medical officer. Right through the war, we stayed together, dropping in France and Greece and working our way up Italy. Our only casualty wasn’t among them, but was my corporal, who was captured and spent his days as a P.O.W. in a salt mine. He was well treated, being a hard worker.

As we became better trained and better equipped, the Airborne Division began to undertake more complicated roles. We had all kinds of special equipment, including a secret signaling device, so that an agent could set up a homing signal to bring a plane to a target in order to drop supplies or parachutists. This was called a “Rebecca”, after Daphne du Maurier’s novel, she being the General’s wife. One day, I was told that they were trying out something secret, and would drop a device from a fighter plane, giving me the map reference of an isolated spot on Salisbury Plain.

I went there, and to my surprise, saw a lady and two small children walking around some trees. I noticed that her car was parked on the road nearby, so drove up behind it. Very politely, I told her that I was Captain Kerr, and we planned to have an exercise in that area;  civilians were never supposed to be near an exercise in case somebody got hurt. She said, “Oh, the General thought I would be interested, and thought I should bring the children.”  I said, “You’re Daphne du Maurier”, probably gasping a little at meeting this pretty lady. She said, “Come children and meet Captain Kerr. He’s one of Daddy’s officers”. Turning to me, she said, “You’ve read some of my books?”  When I assured her that I had read and enjoyed them, we had quite a chat about literature, Canada, children and whatever, until the fighter zoomed overhead.

When my wife and I visited England a few years ago, we found her and enjoyed a glass of sherry and a long chat, in her lovely home, which looks like Manderley in her best-known novel ”Rebecca”. When I asked her if she had enjoyed watching “A Bridge Too Far”, she confessed that she had not seen it, because some of her friends told her that it didn’t do General Browning justice, which is quite true.

Lady Browning still kept in touch with some of her husband’s veteran officer friends, and had enjoyed Michael Packe’s “1 Airborne Division”. I had known him quite well and also enjoyed his book, which as he states  in his preface, is neither a history nor a novel, but somewhere between the two.

I think he probably quotes General Browning much better than the film, when he tells of his addressing the almost two thousand survivors of the Arnhem expedition. “You’ve had a bad time. You’re going to be flown immediately, but before you go, I wanted to see you, and explain the bigger set up of what has happened.”  After describing the tragic events that had gone wrong, he ended, ”You can imagine my feelings when I knew the situation that my old First Airborne Division were in, for after all, I formed you in the first place, and know many of you.”  Having been kept in the Mediterranean theatre, I missed Arnhem, dropping in France and Greece instead, but many of my old friends were killed or taken prisoner there.

Lady Browning told us that General Browning had died in 1965, and one of her touching articles, appreciated by other widows was written then. “Death and Widowhood”. It is included in her “The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories”, which is highly recommended. What a wonderful author and a lovely lady.

Some of our exercises, planning for operations that didn’t materialize were too realistic, because there were often accidents. One was meant to be a drop in Norway, I believe to blow up their heavy water plant, which the Germans hoped to use for their atomic bomb, which they fortunately never did manage to make.

We were to drop with some Norwegians, who spoke little English. A couple in my plane knew no other language. One of them was No. 1 and there was confusion about the red and green lights. This chap was standing at the door, because we now had C-47’s and started to move as though to jump. The Crewmaster shouted “No!”, but he thought he said “Go”! and went. He was completely lost, when he landed and of course, nobody on the ground spoke Norwegian. I forget how he eventually found us. We were also flying too low, due to some malfunction in the altimeter, or something like that. In any event, when our parachutes opened, about five seconds later, we hit the ground. Everybody was in a daze. Even worse, we dropped a crate of homing pigeons to send messages back. Their parachute didn’t open, and the crate went whistling down to earth. It didn’t fall like a rock, but when it hit the ground and split open, the birds just stumbled about as though they were drunk.

My own closest escape was due to an attack of severe sinusitis, my first since landing in England. With a high fever, I couldn’t possibly fly, and so on our next exercise, phoned the medical officer in one of our battalions to take my place. He said he would be glad to go, since he had just returned from his honeymoon. Sitting in the mess, taking aspirins and coffee, I watched the time and expected a call from my friend, Alan Brown, as soon as the unit had landed.

When the phone rang, I answered, but instead of saying that everything was all right, he told my that my chute hadn’t opened. Poor Capt. Spicer was dead. I had to phone his widow, and the local undertaker to arrange a funeral right away. Our poor little colonel was completely beside himself. Never have I complained about sinusitis since then!

I already mentioned that the C.O. knew how to get things done at the War Office, where he had a few friends that he would drink with whenever he went to London. Our unit had no regimental funds, having just been formed the day I arrived. Others had fine silver accumulated over the years, paintings from previous members and thousands of pounds in their officers’ and sergeants’ mess funds. He asked if he could be posted back to his previous unit, 127 Field Ambulance, persuade as many as possible to become parachutists, and then have the War Office close out 17 Para Fd. Amb.

They bought the idea, and he did convert quite a few to parachutists, the others being posted elsewhere. So we now had silver and quite a lot of money in the bank. He then had everybody, except me, transferred from 17 to 127 Para Fd. Amb, I then being responsible to close the unit.

Imagine my horror, one day, when a bright young lieutenant, Royal Army Service Corps arrived at my office, where I had one clerk, fortunately a very bright sergeant to say that he had brought me all the transport for the field ambulance. On the road was a row of ambulances, jeeps, motorcycles and a beautiful big Humber Pullman, the limousine alloted to generals and brigadiers. He apologized for the Pullman, saying that they had no Snipe available, and he realized that a staff car would be needed, and it would be changed as soon as possible.

I told him the War Office had made a mistake, that the unit wasn’t being formed, but was being abolished. He looked stunned. It was a Saturday, and he said they all had to return to their base unit right away, and he would send drivers for the vehicles on Monday. I told him that I had only one driver to act as guard for all the vehicles, but would be able to drive the Pullman myself that night, a pleasure, even though it had no flag on the front!  He went away laughing.

Speaking of flags on the front of Pullmans reminds me of the misfortune which befell one of our new young officers right after joining the unit. Lieutenant Dick Bonham-Carter (now a prominent London physician) knew very little about the army, and was walking down the main street of Amesbury, when a military policeman stopped his motorcycle, saluted him, and asked his name. Poor Bonham told us that he didn’t know why the policeman would want to know his name, but we did. He must have failed to salute the General’s car!  Sure enough, the next day, a call came to say that Lieutenant Bonham-Carter should report to General Browning.

When Bonham went to Divisional Headquarters, making sure that his Sam Browne was polished, he waited for a few minutes in the reception area, and was summoned to enter. He saluted smartly, and immediately said how sorry he was that he hadn’t noted the General’s flag. General Browning smiled, and said, “Oh, we all make mistakes. How is your Aunt, Lady Violet?” Bonham was made a prisoner-of-war at Arnhem.

On the subject of Headquarters, when we eventually knew that we were to proceed to North Africa, I thought that on my next trip to London, I should stop at our Canadian Military headquarters to be sure that they knew I was leaving the country, because my mail was always delayed anyway. I met a corporal in the appropriate office, and when I told him my name, he said, “That’s funny, I saw your name in the “Dead” file. Anyway, he told me that I had been posted to West Africa some time ago.

When I said that I was just going to North Africa, he looked in a posting file, and there it was. Captains Jessel, Kerr and Knox will proceed to West Africa. Suddenly, I remembered reading in the “Times” military obituary column, that a Captain A.L. Kerr had died of blackwater fever in West Africa. The War Office had pulled out the card of the wrong Capt. A.L. Kerr!!