Memories of the Royal Corps of Signals

Albert William Willis 1922 - 2006

Albert was the eldest child of Will and Kitty Willis. He had a younger sister and they grew up in Drayton Parslow, Buckinghamshire. He attended the village school and at 14 went to Wolverton Technical College where he gained City and Guilds qualifications in shorthand, typing and bookkeeping. At the age of 16 he joined Bletchley Post Office as a Sorting Clerk and Telegraphist, thus becoming the first male member of his family line not to work in agriculture.

At the age of 18 he registered for National Service and in May 1941 decided to "volunteer" for the Royal Corps of Signals for which he had to obtain permission from the Head Postmaster at Bletchley. He went by train to Northampton to enlist and was posted to No2 Coy, 2nd AA Div. Signals, Woodborough, Nottingham. His uniform (1 new and 1 second hand) battledress was issued after 1 week. One day the 2nd Lt. said he knew his head postmaster and would Albert like a posting nearer home so Albert was then posted to the General Ops room, Newtown Linford near Leicester. He had a private billet and a 36 hour pass once a fortnight to go home. Pleasant times were had in the winter of 1941 with dances and pictures in Anstey in between shift work. There were some air raid warnings occasionally when they had to"call up" the guns.

In March 1942 the signallers were replaced by the ATS so Albert was posted to Coy. HQ in Langley Mill near Nottingham which was cold, uncomfortable and wet. In April 1942 he was sent to Operations Training Batt. in Huddersfield where he was billeted over a fruit shop. Training included practical switchboard operation at Huddersfield exchange. After training he was posted to a holding battalion at Kirkburton where he was billeted in a disused woollen mill. There were parades, fatigues, route marches etc. At the end Albert received 14 days Embarkation Leave but it took a long time to get home. Bus to Huddersfield station, then took a train to York and so on to Kings Cross, across London to Euston and then to Bletchley and then bus home. Whilst at home there was much speculation as to where he would be posted and the feeling was it would be east, either near or far. His parents were very apprehensive. On return to Kirburton Albert was posted to an"outpost" not far away. There were 22 soldiers who had to go on so-called"route marches". They marched out of the billet yard, smart and brisk, until round the corner, then waited at the bus stop for a bus to Darley Dale. They spent the day there relaxing then caught the bus back, alighted round the corner and marched smartly back to barracks in time for dinner.

In July 1942 Albert was posted abroad. After a very early start and a long train journey they arrived at Glasgow Docks and embarked the troop ship"Awatea" from New Zealand. There were about 5,000 troops on board and the food was very good. The sergeant, a regular army soldier,"volunteered" Albert and some others for"canteen fatigues" which meant carrying stores up from the hold. However, it did mean they got out of the otherwise obligatory PT and lectures. At this stage Albert had no idea where he was bound for. The ships departed in a convoy of about 80 with escort destroyers. The ship called at Freetown in Sierra Leone and once departed collided with another ship due to not carrying out the"zig zag" manoeuvre. The convoy sailed on without them but after an inspection the ship continued and caught up with the rest of the vessels. Once they arrived in Durban the ship left for repairs and Albert was in a tented camp before joining a Polish ship on which the conditions were dreadful. Meals were taken in the mess deck where he slept and food had to be brought from the galley. There were weevils in the bread. They were no longer in convoy but had a barrage balloon overhead to ward off dive bombers. The ship called in at Aden for coaling which took three days as it was loaded by local men in small boats with baskets. When closing the hatch at the side of the ship it fell off and sank to the bottom of the sea so they had to set sail with a gaping hole in the side, and hoped for calm seas.

They sailed into the Red Sea and arrived at Port Tewfik. At this stage it appeared they were destined for Egypt rather than the Far East so their topees were jettisoned, the harbour was full of them and the officers were not pleased. They then went by train to Fayum near Ismailia. It was very hot and the men were now sorry they lost the topees. After being in camp for a while they went by train to Cairo and then to Maadi Garrison on the outskirts. Albert worked shifts in the signals office/telephone exchange in GHQ Cairo and took the opportunity to go back into the city on days off.

Following the heavy bombardment at El Alamein and the retreat of the Germans, Albert and his colleagues sailed from Alexandria to Tripoli on an American Liberty ship which was very basic. After several days wait under heavy bombardment they boarded a transport plane for a long slow flight over the desert, landing temporarily at an oasis called Biskra. From there it was another slow flight followed by a cold and hungry night in the desert before a tiring land journey to Constantine in Algeria. They were not there long before they were transported to a camp in the countryside. This was on a hill and they were in danger of rolling out of their tents during the night. The Signals operation was run from a trailer and was very cold, a contrast to Egypt. They had to wear balaclavas at night. The camp was quite insanitary and there was a typhus scare so the men were taken to the Roman baths some distance away in the town of Ain Beida. The food at camp was very poor and on one occasion Albert returned from nightshift to find that the rice pudding had been made with paraffin oil (they got the cans with water and oil mixed up). There was trouble then and they fetched the Orderly officer to quell the riot. At this time the 1st Army was pushing eastwards and the 8th Army group (with Albert) was pushing westwards to trap the Germans. Soon the two army units met up somewhere near Tunis in April 1943 and the Germans surrendered.

Thoughts turned to hopes of an early return home. The 8th Army units particularly felt they had done their bit but it was not to be. The job (of beating Hitler) was nowhere finished and rumours about the next move circulated daily. Most of the 8th Army went back to England (ready for D Day). Albert's section was disbanded and after some re-forming made their way eastwards again. They eventually arrived at the coastal town of Hammamet from where they embarked on a ship which took them to Malta.
Albert's war was far from over and he spent the remainder in Italy in places such as Santo Spirito (near Bari), Caserta (near Naples), Frascati (near Rome), Siena, Florence and Verona. Eventually, some time after the end of the war, Albert returned home and resumed his career in the Post Office. It was here he met Elsie Holding. They married in 1955 and had one daughter. Albert lived his whole life in Drayton Parslow and died in 2006 following a heart attack.

Sometime before he died, Albert began writing a memoir which his daughter found when clearing her parents' house. Although unfinished, it provides a detailed and often amusing account of his time in the army and has formed the basis of this article. He addressed it to his daughter and finished with the words: "You know, when I was 24, a quarter almost, of my whole life was spent in the Army and nearly all of it abroad! It was a long time ago - it just seems like a dream now"