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London 1940 and 1944
Crowborough and Tonbridge 1944-5
England and Elsewhere 1940 1945
image: Tom Pond as a Colonel
ENGLAND ETC. 1940-1945
This anecdote travels over five years and through four countries. On returning from Germany, I had been appointed technical director of a small plastics factory at Tonbridge recently bought by my mother company and, after about three months, when I had learned the first rudiments of plastics, I was hauled out to go to carry out talks with the Italian Government. This was during the phoney war. On the way back I got stuck in Rome for four days, for trains back up the Rhine from Basel were infrequent. Being bored, I visited the Patent Office in Rome and picked up the current number of a German scientific journal called "Die Kunstoffe" - Plastics. I came across an article which I at once knew might be of interest in my new field, so when nobody was looking, I tore it out. Back in England, I showed it to a contact in the Ministry of Supply, who was immersed in armaments and before I knew where we were, we had signed a development contract with the Ministry for ?10,000 to copy all that was in those sheets. I was in charge of the development and it went like a dream and in three months we had built the equipment and delivered the foil to the one millimetre thickness that the Ministry required. Peace reigned for three years as far as the foil was concerned. Then the Ministry demanded the same foil half a millimetre thick. When I pointed out that the sheets I had brought over never mentioned half a millimetre, they countered by producing samples of material of that thickness from captured enemy equipment. For six months we worked night and day to make that foil and failed. It was only two months before V-day when they informed us that there was no slackening in our efforts, as it was required for the war against the Japanese and, if we had not solved it by then, I should have to go to Germany to find out the answer as soon as the armistice was signed. We did not solve it and a few days after V-day I went to London, had my medical, and was gazetted second lieutenant at 10.30 a.m. and full colonel at 10.45. I was issued with a uniform etc. and a revolver and spent the weekend with my friend, the local constable of my village, learning with ammunition supplied by him how to use the blooming thing. I damaged every tree in my seventeen acre wood. On Monday morning, in uniform, I had a last look round the factory, when one of the workmen who was reputed to be very simple, looked up from the shoveling job that he had been doing all through the war and informed me, "Gaud, Sir, this is a nice time to join the bloody army." I could not do other than agree with him. I reported to Hendon and landed at Bad Oyenhausen in the afternoon. I think it was an Anson aircraft and I know I was the only passenger. The next morning a naval officer reported to me in a large car as my driver and we set out for Nordenham on the Danish frontier. The name and address of the factory had obligingly been printed in the article that I had filched. The Americans had moved out of the sector and the British had not yet moved in, but we got through all right in spite of broken bridges and blacked out signposts. We had to chastise some Hitler youths, who wanted to baptise us with spit, but we got there in good time. The factory was being held by the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment awaiting the "Colonel's" arrival. Let it be admitted that I walked into the factory and from fifteen yards saw the trick for making the foil of half a millimetre thickness. We slept there the night and my naval friend dropped me in Hamburg, where I had been told it was "easy to make your way back to England."
In the officers' mess of that Transit Camp, the evening meal was atrocious. I spent the evening enquiring about transport and getting more and more depressed. I approached a quartermaster sergeant whom I had distinctly heard to turn down three similar requests for help. The fellow looked pretty villanous but the conversation did not start badly and he eventually asked me if I would like a Guinness. Although I hate the stuff, I accepted and flashily brought out a wad of notes when I offered to pay for them. He succumbed - as I thought. Yes, it might be possible to find a truck going to Antwerp, but very early next morning. Ten pounds changed hands. There the story might have ended had it not been for the smell of eggs and bacon from the quartermaster's office, as I left the Senior Officers' Mess, where I had breakfasted off tinned bangers.
We left a few minutes later, the five ton truck, the black American driver and I on that long run over bad roads to Antwerp, and I had plenty of time to cogitate about things, especially those tinned bangers. There were innumberable road checks on the way and I noticed that, whereas all the other trucks were thoroughly searched at the check points, one glance at my crown and stars was always sufficient to get us waived through without delay and then the penny dropped - or rather the ten rounds did. While my driver was fetching some jerricans of petrol, I had a good snoop inside the tightly strapped up truck and I knew!
I had paid that quartermaster ten pounds for the doubtful role of being his cover man in a gang that was selling army rations back in Antwerp, from whence they had already been transported to Hamburg. No wonder I had had tinned bangers for breakfast, while he had bacon and eggs. It was all too risky for me. I got back to Harwich and when I reached Liverpool Street Station, I took a taxi to Scotland Yard. They arrested the whole gang.
I was not drawn into it, but I heard six of them got up to four months for stealing government property - British, and only because I had stolen government property - Italian - five years before. I say "only", well perhaps the whiff of that egg and bacon had something to do with it.
