Yeovil at war
Yeovil at war
The wartime Yeovil recollections of Peter J Allen
"I was a schoolboy, living in Stoford and going to school at the Barwick Primary School and latterly at Yeovil Grammar School. My Father was a signalman at Yeovil Junction and was also a Captain in the Home Guard supporting gun emplacements around the Junction station. I think that there was also another gun site across the fields. I recall troops returning after Dunkirk being march down the road from Yeovil Junction station then collapsing in the hedges to await transportation. We kids dashed home to get what food and drink our parents would give us so that we could return to give them to the soldiers. I also recall standing at the window and watching a low flying JU88 strafing the Junction station. I could see the black crosses on it's fuselage.
The Americans arrived and were installed in nearby Barwick Park where Nissen huts were erected. I recall a conversation with white Americans who stated that if a black American soldier was threatened by a German, they would go to the assistance of the German. Guess that they were from the South.
We had
Land
Girls
billeted
on us
and they
worked
with
German
POW's on
nearby
farms.
I recall
the
raids on
Westlands
and
being
able to
hear the
bombs
and the
anti-aircraft
fire
from
Stoford.
My final memory is of an German ex-POW (Karl Finkin, I think) who worked as a porter at Yeovil Town station. We would chat with him on our way to school as we travelled from Yeovil Junction to Yeovil Town each day."
Memories of
Peter J
Allen,
Henley-on-Thames
Reproduced from
the BBC's "WW2
People's War"
under the 'fair
dealing' terms.
