War and Remembrance

It really IS like Haworth's gone back to 1940-something as we make our way up the busy main street - all decked out in bunting and surrounded by military vehicles, Allied soldiers and even the occasional Nazi for good (bad?) measure. We ask a 'senior sergeant' why he's made the journey down from Sunderland to spend his weekend in Haworth. Peter Morgan and his two friends are members of the Military Vehicles Trust (MVT). He and his companions are in no doubt: "We are just here to enjoy ourselves!"

Weekend 'warriors' from Sunderland...

Like most of the vehicles on show, and later on parade along Haworth's Main Street, Peter's vehicle has a history: "It's a 1942 Ford. It's served in the Pacific, Korea and Greece and I purchased it from a chap in Antwerp who bought a group of them. They are commonly known through the MVT as the Greek jeeps. A hundred of them turned up in Greece and they sort of worked their way around a lot of people. I've done a complete rebuild and this is the third time it's been to Haworth. They were only meant to last 60 days in the combat zone and then be thrown away but, I mean, 60 odd years down the road we enjoy playing about with them." His friend Denis' big truck was used in the Pacific, Europe and America.

Andrew Fleming and his son Richard are from Huddersfield. They've come to Haworth with their 1942 weapons carrier which was used to transport men and equipment but Andrew says very little is known about the history of this particular vehicle. For Andrew, though, there's very much more to events like this than just coming to enjoy themselves: "We are part of a re-enactment group based in the Manchester area and we attend lots of shows and try and educate people about why we are dressed as we are. We are interested in the period's history and its music and the dancing."

They are used to talking to people at such re-enactments about the action seen by the men who wore these uniforms for real: "The markings on the vehicle and our uniforms represent the 101st Airborne 506 Parachute Infantry regiment. The 101st were the US airborne paratroopers who jumped into St Marie L'Eglise [the first French village to be liberated] on the night of D-Day. Subsequently a lot of them then came back to the UK and were part of Operation Market Garden and jumped into Holland. They were involved in the Battle of the Bulge and were part of the 'battered b*****ds of Bastogne' who were surrounded by the Germans and ultimately rebuffed their advances. So they saw a lot of action and they were portrayed in the TV series Band of Brothers. We loosely portray them. We have combat uniforms and dress uniforms and within the group we have all sorts of equipment, some original and some reproduction because of availability and cost. Like every hobby it can be fairly expensive."

Airborne - Andrew and Richard from Huddersfield

Some of the equipment carried by Andrew and Richard reminds us what war is really about. Both of them carry fighting knives, "important for when the bullets ran out." In their medical boxes they have morphine along with the dressings. Andrew explains why soldiers wore not one, but two, dog tags: "The officer would take one of them off a dead person so he could report them dead, and then the grave people would come along and say that's so and so. The dog has your name, your number, your religion and you blood group so if you are wounded then you can get the right sort of blood."

Andrew points out that wearing the uniform in hot weather can be very uncomfortable and that paratroopers carried an awful lot of equipment. We can only wonder what it must have been like for troops in combat.

Well, you can't get much further from the sea than Haworth but the Royal Navy - in the form of members of the Historical Maritime Society - have come along for the event. The commander of the RN vehicle, who lives in Todmorden, explains: "We re-enact a navy group from the Second World War called 30 Assault Unit who interestingly were led by Ian Fleming, the novelist, and he's supposed to have modelled James Bond on some of the men in 30 Assault Unit."

Emergency medical supplies for paratroopers!

Todmorden's very own Commander Bond adds: "The task of 30 Assault Unit was to keep up with the main assault, the main advance of the army, but they were looking for naval secrets so they were trained in safe-cracking and things like that. Whenever they came to a German naval headquarters they would pinch all the documents and send them to Britain and they were particularly interested in how much the Germans knew about nuclear power and also radar. They were actually not dressed in naval uniform but in army battle dress but they wore naval insignia as you can see."

He tells us more about his vehicle: "It's a 1944 Ford GPV, or Jeep, as everybody knows them. Most people think they were only made by Willis but this is a Ford, and it's taken quite a long time to restore it, but as you see it's got black, white and green camouflage on it. This is known as Mickey Mouse camouflage because the distinctive round bits look like Mickey Mouse's ears, but it was a very British thing. Only British vehicles had those although you can see it's got a white star on it which everyone seems to think is American. It's actually an air-recognition device so you would be recognised as an allied vehicle." A few years ago, both man and vehicle missed the Haworth 1940s Weekend to take part in an actual beach landing to commemorate the liberation of Jersey by the Allies.

'Commander Bond?'

Also from Todmorden is a 'jenny wren' or so shouts a passerby. She says: "I'm part of this group as well. 30 Assault Group had WRENs to back them up, to be their drivers and do their admin."

Not all the vehicles are military. The proud owner of a shiny blue 1939 Wolseley 1460 model saloon car is very busy changing a 78rpm record on a turntable playing in his car boot. We ask him if the car was actually on the road when petrol became difficult to get and many non-essential vehicles were mothballed. This doesn't seem to be the case with this particular car: "No. I've got all the documentation and we are the third owners of it. I don't know who it belonged to but it must have been someone fairly high up because I've got a record of all that was spent on it during the war years. It ran all through the war."

We meet some re-enacters from Colne - it may be in Lancashire but it's just up the road from Haworth. Today one of them is 'fighting' for the Free French but on another day he could be Croatian, Russian or even German! His comrade in arms, though, tells us he ONLY does the 2nd battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment. He says: "One of the reasons we picked the East Yorks regiment is because it was everywhere, even in places like Afghanistan. You forget we were there during the Second World War but they were in Italy, and obviously they were in Europe for the D-Day landings. They were at Dunkirk in 1940 as well and they are a reasonably local regiment. I live in Leeds but their base was obviously in the Hull-Beverley area. Sadly they were disbanded shortly after the war but they were a very active regiment."

Dancing through the dark years!

For this 'weekend' soldier there is certainly more to Haworth's 1940s Weekend than just having a good time: "We do it for them really because if it wasn't for those guys we wouldn't be here...Somebody's got to keep telling people what happened. The dressing-up bit is in order to inform people because if you are dressed up people will come and talk to you. That allows you to say a bit more about what happened. It was a very trying time for people but they just went out there and did what they had to do. We need to remember the efforts that were put in."

His vehicle, a 1944 Ford-built Jeep, was with the British Army from 1944 to 1952. Now it is often used to take East Yorks 'troops' around war memorials in France: "We are standing up in front of people who were there, and in honour to them, and in respect to them, we try and do it as accurately as we can."

Click on the links below to take a look at a typical Haworth 1940s weekend and listen to the flyover by both a Spitfire and a Hurricane from the RAF's Battle of Britain Memorial Flight: