Farming, Fighting and Family

by Miranda McCormick

  As they neared their destination, David could not help becoming increasingly impressed by the neatness and efficiency of Mussolini’s colonisation scheme: ‘The road was excellent and along the sides were well-cultivated little farms with modern pink villas with the words of the Duce scrawled across their sides.’

  At midday they reached a village with a small square building in the centre, into which they were shepherded whilst all but one of their guards left – as David presumed – for lunch. There they soon received a visit from a German officer who spoke good English, and enquired whether they needed anything. David replied that he and his men had eaten nothing since breakfast the previous day save a small piece of dry biscuit; his request for food fell on stony ground, for after the German left they never saw him again. They were visited next by an Italian officer, who had heard that there was a British officer amongst the prisoners. Once David had identified himself, the Italian apologised profusely for having shut David up with his men, and offered to take him to better accommodation. Suspecting that this was a ruse to pump him for information, David replied that he was not interested in any other accommodation, but that he and his fellow prisoners would very much appreciate something to eat. He was eventually persuaded by the others to go with the Italian officer and take whatever he could get, and he ended up in a small office, being treated courteously by two Italian officers who gave him a tiny cup of coffee, a small glass of very good brandy and a Turkish cigarette. They appeared keen to demonstrate how well Italians treated their prisoners, and when David told them about how he and his men had been parted from their possessions, vowed to investigate and track down the culprits. At this point, however, a soldier entered the office to announce that the lorry was waiting, and David was ushered out. As he got into the lorry, one of the officers slipped a small package into his hand, which he found to contain a roll of bread, which he divided with the others – barely a mouthful each.

  The day’s journey ended after dark at Derna, where David was once again separated from his men and led to a tent, where for the first time since his capture he met up with three fellow officers: a British doctor, and two Hurricane pilots, one British and one South African. There was a fourth occupant of the tent whom the others suspected of being a ‘stooge’, so their conversation was guarded; it seems their instincts were correct, for he disappeared the next morning never to be seen again. It was pitch dark in the tent, so David had no idea what his new companions looked like until the next day. By the time he joined them, they had already been given something to eat, so David pestered their guard for some time, eventually being given a can of stew. Though ravenously hungry, he found that after only a few mouthfuls he felt sick and could eat no more; instead he found a corner of sand in which to lie down and soon went to sleep.

  The following morning David and the other three officers rejoined his men in the open lorry, David giving up his place in the front to the South African pilot, who had been shot down in only shirt, shorts and flying boots. The day was cold and wet, and to make matters worse there was a large hole in the floor of the truck, through which a continuous cloud of dust poured upwards. Eventually the group of prisoners completed the final leg of their uncomfortable journey to Benghazi. David describes their highly insalubrious destination as follows:

  … a large walled-in white building, which looked like some warehouse or jam factory. Two huge gates were thrown open as we arrived and in we drove …

  This transit camp at Benghazi* was a horrible place. It was just a small sandy yard surrounded by a high wall. Inside were crowded hundreds of prisoners at times with nowhere to sleep but the very filthy ground. The place was full of lice and fleas and dysentery was rampant. The sanitary arrangements consisted in two long ditches dug along the far wall, with logs slung above them for people to sit on. The British had marked one ditch for people with dysentery, the other for people without. The whole camp stank of sewage and was crawling with flies …

  The newcomers were met by a small but efficient group of British officers who recorded details of their names and addresses, produced a meagre meal for them, and issued them with Red Cross postcards for their signature which stated that they were prisoners of the Italians and being well treated. David duly filled in his postcard to his parents, but in his memoir added wryly, ‘Needless to say, it was never received.’ Fortunately for David, he was only obliged to spend one night in what he described as ‘this Benghazi hell-hole’. The following day he and the British pilot officer, Keg Downing, were issued with rations for a three-day crossing to Italy, consisting of three small loaves of brown bread and a tin of bully beef. David later recorded his stupidity at not accepting the proffered tin, on the grounds that he had disliked the contents when previously sampling them: ‘I was a very inexperienced prisoner at this period, and had not yet learnt the most important lesson, to take every scrap of food that came one’s way.’

  David next endured a mortifying drive to the docks, along with three other officers and some 200 non-commissioned troops, being jeered at and spat upon by local crowds. On arrival, he and Keg were singled out and put on a tiny tug, along with a dozen Indian troops, and steered round a jetty to where a small, dirty submarine lay moored. Surely, he thought, they were not going to be transported to Italy in such a vessel? Next, however, he and Keg were made to walk across a plank and down some metal steps in the conning tower, then crawl through some little watertight doors until they found themselves in the front compartment of the submarine, the Indians having been taken to a larger compartment in the rear.

  David discovered that his and Keg’s accommodation for the forthcoming voyage was in the non-commissioned officers’ quarters, down the centre of which ran a row of bunks that folded upwards when not in use. Where the row of bunks ended stood a small mess table flanked by wooden benches, and forward of these lay the submarine’s torpedo tubes. Initially the two British officers were told to make themselves comfortable on the floor on either side of the table, but since this was covered with grease and dirt David protested, eventually reaching a compromise with his captors that allowed him and Keg to share between them one bunk and one camp stool in three-hour shifts.

  As night fell, the submarine left its mooring and prepared to submerge, a process which David and Keg, neither of whom had previously been in a submarine, found quite alarming, but with which – as the voyage progressed – they would become familiar:

  Once out of the harbour a sort of air-raid system went off … and the submarine proceeded to submerge. It was a very exciting affair for us as we had no idea what was happening or why we were going under. There was a speaking tube in our room. A bell would ring, the nearest person would pick up the tube and answer ‘Pruro’ (prow), then down would come an excited jabbering in Italian. People would quickly pull levers and turn knobs and wheels, the front of the submarine would point down, all sorts of gurgling and splashing noises would come from the sides of the ship, and down we would go … We became quite used to it after the first few times, but this first time took us by surprise. I managed to discover that it was a routine practice which they always did at the beginning of every trip …

  Once the initial practice was over, David and Keg had the dubious pleasure of watching their Italian room-mates tucking into a very good meal, while they themselves were forced to make do with a small portion of stale bread. Later the next day, following David’s protestations, their Italian captors gave in, and David recorded that for the remainder of the voyage he and Keg shared with the Italian NCOs two extremely good meals daily, consisting of ‘soup, a meat or egg and spaghetti course, fruit, cheese and biscuits, supplemented by a good Chianti wine and vitamin pills’. As the journey continued, the two British officers became on increasingly friendly terms with their captors, learning more about the submarine, which – despite having been in service for some fourteen years – had yet to fire a torpedo in wrath. One of the NCOs even took David once a day to the engine room to smoke a clandestine cig
arette.

  All went smoothly until the third day out, when the ship suddenly received radioed instructions from Rome to go to a certain position in the Mediterranean, where they surfaced gingerly for observations to be made through the periscope. David described in his memoir the ensuing confusing events:

  Then followed a stream of orders, including the word ‘attacco’, which was mentioned several times. We didn’t know whether we were going to attack or be attacked, and we didn’t know which we would prefer … We proceeded down to our maximum depth, shut off the engines, and waited. One of the crew came along and said we mustn’t talk. Then suddenly we heard some muffled explosions in the distance. There followed a silence of about twenty minutes’ duration and then came some more explosions, this time much nearer. These explosions continued for several hours

  Most frustratingly, at this point, David’s war memoir suddenly breaks off mid sentence. The only other family record of what happened next is the following (somewhat badly) typed copy of an extract from a letter he wrote to his parents from Oflag VA in Germany on 27 October 1943:

  I don’t think anyone will now object to me telling you that I was taken from

  Benghazi to Taranto in Dec ’41 in a small 1941* submarine with one other officer. We got an awful message from Rome on the second evening telling us to go somewhere in the Med. When we were there we were depthcharged, and spent all day as far down as possible in complete silence, with the engines turned off.

  It was quite an interesting experience, and one which I would rather have missed.

  After the war, David discovered the reason he had been singled out for transport to prison camp in Italy via submarine. Following the Pearl Harbor debacle when the United States formally entered the fray, his surname would have been picked up by Axis intelligence, since the influential McCormick family in America had diplomatic connections. Edward McCormick’s first cousin, Leander McCormick-Goodhart, was David’s godfather, owner of Langley Park and private assistant in Washington to the British Ambassador, Lord Lothian, until the latter’s untimely death in December 1940. Thereafter throughout the war Leander continued his work at the British Embassy, concentrating on aid to the United Kingdom, in particular the development of the Lend-Lease programme. Consequently David would have been classified as a ‘prominente’ (a person of particular importance), a potentially useful bargaining tool. For such prisoners, transport by air or submarine was considered safer than by ordinary surface troopship.

  * * *

  It goes without saying that once ‘Operation Crusader’ was under way, David had no time for writing home, and any letters received from him between then and the new year would have been written before the fighting began. It was a desperately anxious time for Pamela and his parents, who had to make do with news bulletins and newspaper reports. At least, for the sake of public morale, these were for the most part upbeat.

  Having quit nursing for good, Pamela was now back at Ditchampton Farm regaining her strength and already considering her next wartime occupation. Her diary entry for 8 December shows how closely she was following the course of the war: ‘America is now at war with Japan! The Japs went & bombed the Pacific Islands to smithereens without warning & it is all U.P. The whole world is fighting now but as Churchill says, 4/5ths of the world are with us.’

  Since their meeting in Weston-super-Mare prior to David’s embarkation, Pamela and David’s mother had kept in close touch, both women immediately informing the other if either received any news from him. Although their personalities were very different, Phyllis McCormick liked and approved of Pamela as a prospective daughter-in-law, and now issued an open-ended invitation for her to come and stay with her and her husband Edward at their home on St George’s Hill, Weybridge: ‘December 9th Mrs McCormick wrote me an awfully nice letter and has asked me to spend a night with her anywhen [sic] and go to a movie or something. She evidently thinks I’d be bored to sit!’

  As the year drew to a close, Pamela’s diary reveals that her conscience was once again troubling her, and she was becoming increasingly impatient to start new war work:

  December 10th Feel I must get into the A.T.S. soon or I shall bust …

  December 22nd Talked over the A.T.S. with Pa and shall see about it tomorrow. Do hope I can go and see Mrs. McCormick before …

  December 23rd Pop & me Salisbury. He went in & saw the recruiting girl who was nicer than yesterday & I went in & put my name down to apply. Well that’s that. Have to go for medical on January 1st.

  On 12 December when, unknown to Pamela, David became a prisoner of war, her diary entry records further encouraging war news: ‘The war goes well in Libya … The Russians also are doing fine …’

  On 15 December Pamela received the last two letters that David wrote to her from the desert. The contents of one did not altogether please her:

  Two lovely letters from David. The last written Nov 14th. He’s thinking of migrating to S. Africa after the war to grow grapes – well what does one say to that. Wrote a long & very definite letter back saying I don’t think I could say goodbye 5 times & what about it! Oh lor I hope it’s all right.

  Whatever Pamela may have written in reply obviously never reached David; this remained an issue to be resolved once the war had ended.

  Meanwhile in south-west Wiltshire life went on as normally as possible given the strictures of the time. Local dances for the festive season continued to be organised, though for obvious reasons, male partners were becoming increasingly difficult to find for young women in Pamela’s position. Her heart was in any case elsewhere, and she took little pleasure from such events: ‘December 13th … Dinah and I went on to Mrs. Siveright’s dance which was awful …’

  At least Christmas day itself in the Street household seems to have been a happy affair: ‘December 25th Lovely Christmas Day … Mummy & I went to Holy Communion early which was very impressive as all candlelight. Mummy gave me gloves, & Pop money – it was all very nice. I wonder where we’ll all be next Christmas. Wrote Mrs M & David.’

  Pamela’s contemporary writings make it clear that the Streets were ardent admirers of the prime minister and listened avidly to his broadcasts. One such, delivered on 28 December, caused them considerable surprise: ‘Churchill has been in America all the Christmas!’ A couple of days later Pamela was in for another pleasurable surprise: ‘December 30th Mr McCormick rang up & it is all right for me to go next Sunday with Pop!! Wonderful. Dreading my medical Thursday! Listened to Churchill again.’

  Pamela had been having the usual problems in finding a suitable escort for a New Year’s Eve dance to be held at the White Hart Hotel in Salisbury. Tom Jago, a family friend in the military and former billetee at Ditchampton Farm, had been approached, initially unsuccessfully, but at the last minute he made himself available. Consequently Pamela’s last diary entry for 1941 ends on a happier, cautiously optimistic note:

  December 31st Major Jago came to take me to the New Year’s Dance at the W.H. He was awfully nice … Here’s another year over and tomorrow is my medical for the A.T.S. Well, well, well. Perhaps the war won’t last all that time & we shall be able to live again.

  Notes

  * Known locally as ‘The Palms’.

  * Obviously a typing error, since in his later memoir he wrote that the crew had told him it was 14 years old.

  Ten

  Unaccustomed Activity

  and ATS Training

  (Late 1941–February 1942)

  Once the Blitz began, as already noted, Edward and Phyllis McCormick had sought temporary refuge in the latter’s family home, Breckenbrough Hall near Thirsk in Yorkshire. The Breckenbrough estate included some tenanted farms and a home farm that supplied the main house with meat and dairy produce. Presumably, as in the case of Ditchampton Farm, many of the farm hands had been called up for military service, for David’s parents’ letters to their son while he was in North Africa in the autumn of 1941 reveal that they were both involved in unaccustomed agricultural
work to help with the war effort. It is probable that – again as was the case at Ditchampton Farm – much of the pasture was ploughed up in the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign. An enthusiast for all things mechanical, Edward seems to have relished mastering the art of ploughing; in a letter to David dated 29 September 1941 he wrote:

  I have been doing some of the ploughing with the new Fordson & a two-share plough. I have done as much as 6 hours of it in a day, pretty strenuous! It is really quite exciting when you get to the end of the furrows as you have to lock over on full lock with one hand, to avoid running into a ditch or fence, and with the other hand you have to reach far back and pull a cord attached to a lever which raises the plough out of the ground or puts it back again … I enjoy doing it …

  Not all farm tasks proved equally congenial, however, to such a novice labourer; a month later Edward wrote to his son:

  I have done much ploughing & harrowing now … I have assisted in leading the harvest and aftermath for the silo, threshing and finally lifting mangolds. This latter I found the toughest job of the lot as it has to be done in a bent position and I have always had a weak back. It is quite a hazardous job as having pulled your mangold which weighs from a few ounces to something over a stone, you have to flip it sideways and cut its leaves off without, if possible, cutting the root itself, your tool is very sharp and it is by no means difficult to take a bit of your hand off …

  By late October 1941 the female members of the family were also called upon to ‘do their bit’, David’s mother included. On 1 November Phyllis wrote to David: