November 2015
Leonie,
In response to your interest, this is a brief history of part of my life during my service in the 1939-45 war.
I volunteered for the Royal Marines in September 1943 when I was 17½ which was the lowest official age for volunteering. Had I waited, I would have been conscripted in 1944 when I became 18 but may not have had a choice in which of the services I served. I could even have been conscripted as a ‘Bevin Boy’ to work in coal mines.
The early times were spent training and being part of uninteresting units. You may wonder what could be uninteresting in a war: being a Corporal postman in an out of the way place in Scotland or Wales might be classified as such. I wasn’t so lucky!
The pictures should help more than just words to give you an idea of where I went. In addition I have included excerpts from official war histories that may explain broadly why I was where I was.
It is worth noting that you are asking me about my life 70 years ago. At almost 90 years of age there are incidents forgotten forever and others where it is difficult to remember names. As an example, Cyril Jones was Cyril, but I really cannot recall after all these years if it was Jones or Smith. It was one or the other. I can remember that he was a Chatham rating with a number that began CH/X 11????
I have left out the pictures of dead bodies, ours and theirs; and you can find all the devastation and carnage that we experienced on the internet. War for many of us was nothing like “Band of Brothers” except in small doses. That doesn’t mean to say it wasn’t for some, worse for others and for the families of those who died.
After the war I went back for my job in the Westminster Bank. “Do you really want to come back? We have 3,000 returning troops for 1,000 vacancies”. Obliged by law to offer me a job, I was offered a post in Berkhamstead which I could not take because I could neither afford the travel nor lodgings to stay. Google ‘Tommy’ by Rudyard Kipling and find out how the world for returning soldiers hasn’t changed since 1892.
My abiding memory of those few years was the comradeship and fun we had together wherever we were and the pride of being a Royal Marine. I was one of the lucky ones.
Grandad
This is 644 Squad, Royal Marines in October 1943 at Lympstone in Devon when we had completed our initial 6 weeks training. I am last but one on the right in the second row up. I was PO/X 121612 Marine P.W.Goodwin. PO stood for Portsmouth and X denoted I was in the Royal Marines for hostilities only and not a ‘regular’. The next picture is of members of our hut. I am on the left of the two at the top. The marine just below me on the end of the row was Tom, our oldest member at 35. We called him ‘Pop’!
In late 1944 the army had need of beach battalions to go to the Far East, but there came a more pressing need for additional infantry to serve in Belgium, Holland and Germany.
Extract from the Royal Marines Museum Unit History Summaries:
116 Infantry Brigade RM
Originally intended to command beach battalions in the Far East, the Brigade was formed during January 1945 on an army war establishment under command of Brig C. F. Phillips, with three battalions — 27th RM, 28th RM and 30th RM — a brigade defence platoon, signals section and provost section of RM personnel and an army unarmoured Light Aid Detachment Type ‘A’. Within eight weeks the Brigade was in Belgium and its battalions in action in North West Europe during the last three months of World War II.
Extract from the Naval Review August 1945
The 116th R.M.Brigade arrived in time to play a part in the holding action on the lower Maas that was the hinge upon which turned the swift envelopment of the Dutch and North German ports by the 1st Canadian and 2nd British Armies. The 27th Battalion from this Brigade fought with the 4th Canadian Armoured Division in their advance through Oldenburg towards Wilhelmshaven. When the collapse came the 117th Brigade was brought forward hastily, its 33rd Battalion being flown forward from Belgium to take part in the occupation of Kiel. These R.M. formations were rushed into the German naval ports, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven, Emden, Brunsbuttel and later Cuxhaven, to deal with the crews of U-boats and destroyers coming in to surrender, often in a recalcitrant frame of mind, and also with the thousands of troops who poured in by ship. The lower Maas referred to above was a section of the River Maas in Holland.
We were stationed in s'Hertogenbosch, Bergen op Zoom and Haarsteeg on the RIver Maas facing the Germans on the far bank, our platoon being based in one room in a small farmhouse in the village: the farmer and his family slept in the back where the animals were also kept in shelter. The recent map below shows you the village of Haarsteeg, which was smaller in 1945.
We went from the village to the River Maas in shifts, which you can just see above the hamlet of Hedikhuizen where we were based in a small cottage immediately behind a large dyke that faced across the River Maas to German held positions on the far bank. Our daily and night duty periods inside the dyke allowed us, with some care, to keep watch on the far bank and on German patrols which, like our own, made forays rowing across the river at night in small canvas/rubber boats attempting to capture individuals to take back for interrogation as to the strength of each others units. Firing took place across the river, which was fairly wide at this point, usually by machine guns or by snipers, two of which were based in the roof space of our cottage which just looked over the top of the dyke. Each side knew where their opponents were because by the very nature of the dykes concealment was almost impossible.
Since the war the Dutch have made vast improvements to their dykes, but I have been able to produce a picture of what the old earth dykes were like from a current picture of a dyke near to Haarsteeg. The first picture shows the general view north we had across the river.
The second picture shows the dyke, as it was in 1945 with the cottage in the rear and the entrance to our observation post shown by the dark incline in the middle of the picture. At that time there was a wider strip of land dropping down into the river.
My next picture is to give you some idea of what we looked like as a platoon. These are members of a Royal Marine Commando Patrol in Haarsteeg. We were not commandos and would have been dressed more like the infantry seen in the following picture.
At some stage we went to Hengelo(O) which is a municipality and a city in the eastern part of the Netherlands, in the province of Overijssel, hence the (O) after the town name.
Here we were billeted in private houses: I was with Cyril. The members of the family were Poppa, Momma, Herta and her brother. Here is their street, Spreeuwenstraat:
here is their house, number 27:
And here is the family Griesel in 1953; Poppa with his dog Mentor who was there in 1945, Momma, Herta, her husband Wim and their two daughters. Herta’s brother had died in the meantime.
We arrived in Hengelo to find the residents had liitle or no food, nor lighting, nor heating. The members of my company returned to our mobile kitchen and 'claimed' any tins of food M&V (Meat & Veg), white bread which no-one in Hengelo had seen for years, and anything else that was available. The two of us in our billet sat down with mother, father, daughter and son by the light of gas cape 'wicks' stuck in petrol filled cigarette tins and enjoyed their great delight at what for them was a truly memorable meal.
Your grandma and I went back in 1986 and found Herta and Wim who came to England many years later to stay with us for a weekend. Poppa and Momma had died, but Herta always kept the letters I had written to her after we left Hengelo. The two girls in the picture sent them back to me after Herta and Wim’s death. I give details of their letter to me, if only to demonstrate that in war there are always bonds to be forged.
I also attach a letter I wrote to Herta in 1945.
Haarzuilens
09-01.2013
Dear Mr. Goodwin,
Thank you for your kind words on the death of our dear father.
He passed away quietly, just as he always hoped he would go.
As we had to clear up his house we found these letters you wrote to our mother about 65 years ago.
Our mother always kept them, as it appeared, she could never throw them away, not even when they moved to other houses.
We were very touched by the warmth and sympathy of your letters.
This made us think that the best thing we could do is to send them back to you.
We hope that these letters will bring you fond memories of those days, long ago when you came to our grandparents house as a young soldier.
Finally we would like to thank you for your long lasting friendship to our mother and her family ….
With warmest regards,
Edith Grijseels-Ruyvekamp
And family
After Hengelo we moved further into Holland and then Germany, on the way losing one or two friends.
On the 2nd May 1945, six days before the war ended, we were dug in in slit trenches in open countryside awaiting to advance. Slit trenches were like this.
My platoon commander Lt R S Hepburn and his batman, were killed when leaving a village from which, they were told by the inhabitants, the German soldiers had left but who in fact were lying in ambush waiting for them to come out. He is buried in Becklingen War Cemetery. My billet-mate, Cyril Jones, was with them but made his escape by crawling along ditch and back to us.
We went on to Wilhelmshaven at the end of the war in Europe, where we were stationed on the docks disarming German forces who had surrendered. Here is a picture of a few of us: I am in the middle.
We came back home in June, to be prepared for war in the Far East. Fortunately that became unnecessary after the Americans dropped atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki causing the Japanese to surrender.
Some of us were lucky to be detailed to spend our time dismantling scaffold-like defences on Exmouth beach. Here are the :“some of us”. I am front row on the right. Back row left is Fred Evans who played centre forward for Portsmouth in 1946 in the First Division.
I went on to become a Corporal Small Arms Instructor at Eastney Barracks in Portsmouth.
I met you grandmother: here we are on the right on South Parade, Southsea.
The rest is history!
