Questions raised by the diaries

When I read the diaries of the veterans it was obvious that the writers were not told, and had not discovered, the wider drama in which they were players. I have tried my best to verify the many stories that were hinted at in the diaries.

The historical issues opened by these diaries were substantial:

• Could they really have been the first unit to go to France in 1939?
• Were some still in France after the Armistice in June 1940?
• Could this small unit have played a significant role in the battle of El Alamein even though they were struggling to survive as POWs by the time the battle took place?
• Were they present at the birth of the legend that has become the Special Air Service?
  

The answer to all these questions is,I believe, ‘Yes’.

• Did Allied POWs take over and try to look after the inmates of a death camp when the war ended as they waited for liberation?

Certainly as Alan Jones returned with photos to prove it.

The modest rail workers and miners who formed this Territorial Army Unit made none of these claims. They just did the jobs that were asked of them. Afterwards, they went back to their families and their work. They left for France a week after war was declared and some did not return until a month after the end of the war.

Digging in the archives

There were many memorable moments in the researching Ordinary Heroes.

There were documents with Winston Churchill’s handwritten footnotes reluctantly agreeing to bury the investigations about the events of June 1940.

The release of German records held by the former Soviet Union allowed the situation surrounding the last days of the BEF to be plotted.

A year later I was reading high-level complaints about the maverick activities of the company’s neighbours at Kabrit in Egypt while I investigated why these skilled engineers were undertaking commando training. The maverick was Capt David Stirling who was preparing his warriors to found the SAS. Their RAF host complained that accommodation had been prepared but Stirling insisted on sleeping in the desert.

But the most remarkable document I discovered was on a little scap of paper torn from a book. It was the last entry in possibly the last operational British headquarters left in France in June 1940. It said the the Company were still scattere around the countryside. I imagined the anguish of the officer who wrote this as he was ordered to evacuate and head for England.

Some of the Company would soon discover that they had been abandoned and successfully made their way home, after the fall of France.

A silent generation starts to speak

A series of accidents made me write my book.

My father, like so many of his generation, said nothing of his war time experiences. One day on a family holiday he got out of the car and pointed to some extensive bald patches on the side of an Austrian hillside. ‘That’s where the bombs landed that were supposed to blow up our camp’. He answered a few questions and I learned that the camp was full of Serbian and Russians and was built around road and rail bridges in this Alpine pass. My dad reckoned the US Air Force was trying to block this escape route through the Alps.

It would be another 40 years before I learned the whole story of how my dad had taken over this camp when the war ended while they awaited liberation. The incident in 'The Band of Brothers' might be a dramatisation of the camps eventual liberation. It was certainly 101 Airborn Division troops that liberated my dad.

On one visit to my dad, I picked up some papers and started to read. The story I was reading fitted the very few facts that I had about what my father had done during WWII. To confuse matters, the writer used my father's nick name.

I asked how he had come by the story. He reported a mysterious phone call a few day before. The caller was the company clerk and had seen a photo of my dad in the local paper. With his memory for detail, the clerk was able to find the correct Mr Jones in the phone book and asked if he was Staff Jones from 106 Company Royal Engineers and then hung up. I was now reading what my dad had done in the war for the first time.

Now it was my turn to use the phone book. I found Bill Harvey, the writer of the diary, with my first call. A visit was quickly arranged and a few weeks later, the comrades who had marched away into captivity 50 years earlier were re-united. The bond between these old men was obvious. I spent a day listening. Bill told me that there were some other diaries which he sent me.

I rashly promised to help to edit the diaries together for publication. This was a very rash promise but I don't regret making it.

An intoduction to the Ordinary Heroes

This is about an extraordinary group of men from World War II. They were railway engineers and miners from around Doncaster who built such famous steam engines as 'The Flying Scotsman'.

Their special skill put them into some extraordinary situations throughout the war. They were the very first unit to be sent overseas with the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) in September 1939. They would be among the lsat home in Europe in 1945.

I have spent 6 years uncovering their remarkable story. It has led me to reassess the story that we have been told. By going back to the army records on the trail of stories told me by some veterans, I discovered a different story.

My guess is that there are millions of stories out there that need telling. Sadly, the story tellers are fading fast and we need to get a move on! The stories are not about hollywood heroics. Heroism comes in many format, most of which have yet to be recognised.

The stories I heard have allowed me:

1. To suggest that the dates given for 'The Fall of France' were a convenient, political fiction
2. The Germans had a well placed spy in Cairo in 1941/42
3. The construction of the El Alamein defences was a bit of an accident
4. Reconstruct the original foundation of the SAS
5. Discover that the 'officer-oriented' view of prisoners of war was far from the truth for ordinary soldiers.

I hope this might inspire others to make a record of the unsung heroes.

I plan to tell some of the stories about the research and would be happy to share any research or info I have uncovered.

I put it all together in a book www.ordinaryheroes.info