My Dad's War

These are some of the things my Dad, Thomas Hayden Jones, told me about the Second World War. He was born in 1919. He was a corporal in the Royal Air Force. I want these memories preserved, as he told me first hand about his expereiences, and as far as I know, for some reason he only confided some of them in me.
His training, well he was pretty vague, but I do remember that he trained at Cardington, and mentioned the huge hangers that used to house the airships there.
He trained to be a dispatch rider, a messenger, and had a very poor opinion of the motorcycle he was issued with.
However, things were to change.
Somehow, and I have no idea how, he was attached to an American division, and issued a Harley Davidson motorcycle. He was commanded by no other than General George Patton
He told me many stories about "The Yanks" Some good, some bad. But he had a lot of respect for the Americans. He rode his Harley ashore at Oostend, a while after D-Day.
He was involved with something called OBOE. That is something that used to guide bomber pilots to their target. It usually involved setting up a radio transmitter on top of a mountain. Today we would call it forward air support.

The things he told me about.

Seeing a Hampden bomber crash and burn at an airfield. As he was on fire duty at the time, he rushed to the site on a fire engine. He sprayed the bomber crew with water, and great clouds of steam came off them. He said the bodies looked like roast pork. There were no survivors.

Drawing his.38 when a French civillian had turned his hand cart into his motorcycle when passing, taking him off his machine. Remember, he was carying codes for that nights bombing raid on Germany. No, he did not shoot.

Getting straffed by a German fighter when billeted in Belguim, which was guided onto his billet by someone with a torch in the street nearby shining it onto his building at night. The canon fire passed harmlesly through the roof of the building.

He got mixed up in the Battle of the Bulge. He told me that the Americans were retreating through the lines, and he said, "The Yanks were in a awful state, we saw them coming back, awful."

When in Belgium, he went to dispose of his breakfast, or the remains of it in a bin outside the messhall. A small child grabbed his hand before he could do this, and took the food away. That affected him deeply.

He was escorting a German POW who ran away, and hid in a kind of garden shed, made of wood. The POW was warned that if he did not come out he would be shot. He did not. He was shot through the walls of the shed with .303 rounds, from Lee Enfield rifles. The soldiers would not go in there to get him because they did not know what tools were in there with which he could arm himself. His body was covered with a blanket, and was left for three or four days on the lawn of somebodys house. My dad told me how one of the rounds had gone through this mans wrist, and his arm was outside the blanket, and his hand was attatched by only skin.

When in the Ardennes, shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, in a small farmhouse, Dad was playing cards with his mates. The door opened, and there stood a fully armed SS officer.
First, there was stunned silence. Then there was a mad grab for weapons.
The German was "liberated" of his weapon first, then his watch, etc......
He wanted to surrender to the British because the Americans had vowed never to take the SS alive, for very good reason. Unfortunately for him, the British were under American command in that sector.
To my question,
"So what happened to him?"
Dad said,
"A couple of Yanks came over, threw him into the back of a lorry, and drove off into the forest."

He also saw Buchenwald concentration camp. He was not allowed in, because of the risk of lice and disease. He was escorted around the perimeter by an American officer, who told him that,
"This is the reason we fought this war."
He told me that people were wearing what he called "pajamas." He rarely spoke about this. I know this affected him for the rest of his life.

My dad is no longer with us.

Thanks Dad, for what you and so many others did for us all.

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