Joining Hands Across the World

With all the publicity and media reports about the Centenary of the end of the First World War and the signing of the Armistice, my thoughts have turned to my father, Gilbert Fleming, who fought in World War II. He volunteered for the Army in 1942 nine days after his 18^th birthday and served with his local regiment, the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Paisley, Scotland. He completed his basic training in Scotland and then transferred to the south of England before being deployed to North Africa. He saw action in Libya and developed a taste for dates there. Who says the Scots don’t eat fruit.

He was part of the invasion of Sicily, codenamed Operation Husky and then onto mainland Italy and took part in the assault of Monte Cassino. It was there while out on a night patrol that his platoon was ambushed, and he was wounded by a mortar round that landed quite close to him. He was fortunate in that his best friend was to his left and slightly ahead of him. He took the full force of the blast and was killed instantly. Coming around and lying on his back my dad could feel that his left leg was badly damaged and bleeding profusely. He couldn’t move. He didn’t know it then, but he had also lost some of the fingers on his left hand. The fighting was over quickly, and the German forces moved out of their positions to check for wounded and to take prisoners. My dad saw them moving towards his position and thought it might be best if he played dead. However, he saw one of the advancing soldiers use his bayonet to check that the body lying in front of him really was dead. My dad got out his crucifix from around his neck and held it out in front of him. The soldier that came up to him he described as being young, about his age, and seemed to be more scared than he was.

The young German called for a medic and my dad was taken to a medical field station. There he was seen by two doctors. A young doctor wanted to try and save his leg and the older doctor wanted to amputate. My dad lay on the table listening to these two doctors arguing over what to do and thought he might just bleed out in the process. The older doctor seemed to walk off in disgust and left the younger one to perform the surgery alone. This action by his ‘enemy’ saved my father’s leg and on his return to the UK it was determined that he had lost 80% of its function. It still allowed him to walk and he did not need to rely on crutches or even a walking stick to get around. His gait however was noticeably different from other men his age having to almost kick his leg forward to get his foot in the right position. He always spoke fondly of this Doctor who saved his leg, and his life.

Shortly after that he was transferred to the Stalag 13 in Germany where life was not so comfortable. The prisoners were not treated well by the camp guards but as my dad was quite seriously wounded he was left alone. A visit by the International Red Cross brought about my dad’s release into their custody as it was determined that he was no longer fit enough for combat. He was taken by train through Germany and up into Denmark. From there a boat to neutral Sweden and then safe passage through the minefields of the North Sea and around the top of Scotland. He disembarked at Liverpool sometime in early 1945. My mum kept a newspaper clipping of the report of him returning and if I can find it I will post it on this blog.

On my 19^th birthday I caught my father weeping. Something he never did. He spent his 19^th birthday in a prisoner of war camp in Germany, his left leg shattered, fingers blown off his left hand and his best friend dead. How different my 19^th birthday was compared to his. My dad died in 1984 at just 59 and I still miss him and think about him.

I have lived every day of my life in peace, but that peace came at an awful cost.

 

I first started walking in the Largs hills when I was 15 with 396 Squadron Air Training Corps.  We were taken to this area for a map reading exercise, navigating between aircraft wreck sites that were to be found there.  I subsequently visited these wrecks sites on another four occasions with different sets friends before I moved away from the area.  I also tramped these hills with the TA where a Sergeant expressed his view that the going under foot in this area was the worst in Scotland. I wouldn’t disagree with him. Since moving away it has been over 40 years since my last visit.  Despite my Sergeant’s wise words, I had forgotten just how horrible the Largs hills are to navigate after a sustained period of rain.  The going under foot was very bad. I sank in the bog up to my knees on several occasions, testing the weather proofing of my boots and gaiters beyond their design limits.  The weather forecast was for a fairly dry day up until 16:00 when some heavy showers could be expected.  It turned out showery all-day with cold and heavy driving rain coming on at 14:30.

I set off from the A760 and headed straight for Irish Law, a 484m high hill, where a Vickers Viking G-AIVE lay.

Owned and operated by British European Airways, it crashed here on the night of the 21st of April 1948, in poor weather en route from Northholt to Renfrew. All 16 passengers and 4 crew survived with few injuries.

The photo above was taken around 1972 with David Quigley, where are you David?, seen here reading some of the graffiti etched on to the Port wing by some earlier wayfarers. From the top photo you can see that these two parts of the plane have been separated over the intervening years.

This is part of the tail cone and it lies some 20 metres ahead of the main debris field.

Comparing it now to the photo above you can see that a lot of material has been removed.

What’s left of one of the wings.

And what there used to be back in the 70’s.

Pete Meade and myself recently visited the Brooklands Museum where this aircraft was manufactured and they have this example of the Viking on display.

Heading north to Box Law, 474m, I could see my next objective a De Havilland Devon VP969 just over 2 Km away. Operated by the Royal Navy this aircraft crashed here on the 3rd of June 1958. There were no passengers and both the Pilot and Co-pilot survived.

This it aircraft was en route between the Isle of Man and the Naval Air Station, HMS Sanderling that would later become Glasgow Airport.  However, the wreckage was lying in a direction that would indicate it was flying away from its intended destination.  This was not my memory of my previous visits to the site.  On checking my earlier photos and some other web sites on this matter it is clear to me that the wings have been flipped over and the tail plane moved.

In this photo, you can see David standing against the tail that was still attached at that time.

This is a civilian version of the Devon, call the Dove, photographed at the Newark Air Museum.

Leaving my backpack at the Devon I headed west to try and find the remains of an RAF Wellington Bomber that crashed here on the 25th of January 1941. I came across quite by accident on one of my previous trips. The first time I visited this wreck one of the propellers was still on site. Sadly now that is missing and most of the remaining small parts of wreckage has been brought together.

 

A memorial plaque and wreath have been laid there for the pilot, Flying Officer John Millar, who died in the crash. The aircraft was being ferried from RAF Kirkbride in Cumbria to RAF Lossiemouth in Morayshire. The plaque states that he is buried in Grange Cemetary, Edinburgh.

 

Another Wellington was recovered from Loch Ness some years ago and is under going restoration at the Brooklands Museum.

I returned to the Devon and retrived my rucksac and headed for Greenside Hill, 447m, to try and find the remains of a C47 that crashed there on the 28th of March 1956. This was a wreck site that I had never visited before and I did not have the exact grid reference of its location. By this time the weather was getting quite bad and I didn’t spend too much time looking for the remains. There is some personal family history connected to this aircraft. It was flying into Renfrew and had been chartered to fly pligrims to Lourdes in France the next day. My Mum and Dad were due to fly on that flight.