From Doodlebugs to Devon - by Sarah Shaw

From Doodlebugs to Devon cover (author's photo)

Sarah Shaw's latest book "From Doodlebugs to Devon" is subtitled "one war...one woman...one year..." and is very much a personal journey for the author, for the "one woman" mentioned in the title happens to be Sarah's mother, Yvonne Shaw, whose letters to her husband form the basis of this book.

I have to declare an interest in this book now because during the various Covid lockdowns and the periods in between, I assisted Sarah in a very small way by checking and verifying the various BC4 Bomb Census reports for some of the V-1 and V-2 incidents that are referred to in this book, both in Yvonne's letters and in the narrative that the author skilfully weaves around them, which help provide context to the letters and help the reader get a real idea of what was happening in the wider world of the British "Home Front" at this later stage of the Second World War.

Yvonne Shaw and her four-year-old son, Oliver begin the period covered in this book living in Foxley Lodge, a Victorian detached house in the outer London suburb of Purley, to the south of Croydon and at that time, still in the county of Surrey. Yvonne is almost 33 and her husband Clem, is an army officer stationed in Scotland. His work is something of a mystery to Yvonne but we soon learn in the author's narrative that he is actually working with the Home Guard in Scotland.

The first letter to him we read is dated 1st April 1944 and apart from mention of an air raid late in the preceding month (one of the last such raids by manned Luftwaffe aircraft), most of these early letters cover the relatively mundane life of a young wife with a husband serving in the armed forces, somewhat struggling to make ends meet and finding life in wartime London fairly boring.

It is when the Doodlebugs mentioned in the book title start falling that the tone of the letters suddenly change. As most people know, "Doodlebug" was one of the nicknames given by the British people to the V-1, the first of Hitler's so-called "Vengeance Weapons", a pilotless aircraft as they were somewhat quaintly called initially by the British Civil Defence service, before they were given the name of "FLY" for "Flying Bomb", which is essentially what these weapons were - an early form of cruise missile.

Croydon was to become the most "Doodlebugged" borough in London. This was not due to any particular singling out of the citizens of the south London suburbs but more due to subterfuge on the part of the British, who had double agents on the ground whom the Germans were convinced were providing them with accurate information regarding the fall of shot of the V-1s. Whereas in fact most of them were initially falling as intended on the central area of the capital, false information fed to them by one agent in particular, Juan Pujol Garcia, better known as Agent Garbo, persuaded the Germans to adjust the targeting of these devices downwards, so that they would fall on what in 1944, were the much more lightly populated areas of outer suburban London, rather than the densely packed inner London.

It was a terrible decision by the authorities to have to take, for whichever option ensured that people would die. In the end, it was just about numbers and sadly, Croydon became the recipient of 141 these weapons. 

Yvonne's growing anxiety is reflected in her letters to Clem and she reports some very close calls nearby which although they do not directly impact the family home, happen to be far too close for comfort and it is clear from the tone of her writing that the mental strain is growing, as well as concern for the well-being of young Oliver.

As a result of this and a phone call from her uncle in Exmouth, Yvonne and Oliver decamp to Devon, at first staying with her Uncle Dudley and family but later moving to Budleigh Salterton and enduring something of an odyssey of moves and re-locations to various parts of that delightful seaside town, although doubtless in 1944, it was somewhat different to the Budleigh Salterton that I am quite familiar with today.

The letters home, which sometimes cover seemingly quite mundane matters, actually provide an interesting window of this important period of British history and the author's accompanying commentary and explanations, provide a fascinating context.

The book ends with a chapter which tells us about the family from 1945-1973, which sadly doesn't provide us with a particularly happy ending to the story - but there will be no further spoilers from this reviewer!

Sarah Shaw has produced a delightful social history of wartime Britain which I would thoroughly recommend to you.

Available from www.amazon.co.uk

RRP: £11.99

softback, pp 227 (also available as an e-book)

Book Review - "Unbroken Glory" The Great War Story of Anson Battalion, The Royal Naval Division by Dr Robert Wynn Jones

 

This is Dr Jones’ second foray into the world of military history and as with his first book, “Soldiers and Sportsmen All”, the subject matter has a definite family connection for the author, as his paternal grandfather, Able Seaman Francis Wynn Jones served in both the Nelson and Anson Battalions of the Royal Naval Division, spending the final eight months of the war in captivity, having been captured on 23 March 1918, during the German Spring Offensive.

The author begins by explaining the raison d’etre of the Royal Naval Division and telling us something of his paternal grandfather, who in normal life was a Post Office clerk in London, although he hailed from Llandrillo in North Wales.

The book charts the formation of the Royal Naval Division, which immediately became known to some as “Churchill’s Private Army” or perhaps worse as the “Tuppeny untrained rabble” and explains the makeup of the various battalions, all named after Royal Navy heroes of the past and how, perhaps confusingly to those on the outside, the men all retained their naval ranks, ensuring that Able Seaman, Leading Stokers and Chief Petty Officers could be found far away from their usual maritime locations!

We hear about the training process for war, something that is vividly illustrated by letters written by Rupert Brooke, himself a member of Anson and later Hood Battalions and includes a hilarious description of the latter Battalion’s Christmas celebrations in 1914 at Blandford Camp.

A wider description of the war on the Western Front follows, with interesting comparisons of the arms, equipment and organisation of the combatant nations involved, as well as a good description of how life on the Western Front would have been for the typical British soldier in the dugouts and trenches along the front line – “either frightened to death or bored to tears” – as one contemporary account succinctly put it.

The bulk of the remainder of the book is taken up with descriptions of the various actions that the Division were involved with starting with the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to defend Antwerp, followed by the Gallipoli and Salonika Campaigns, before we return to the various campaigns on the Western Front that occupied the Division for the remainder of the war, culminating in the German Spring Offensive of 1918 and the Allied “Hundred Days” Offensive that resulted in the ultimate German collapse. The author vividly describes not only the Anson Battalion’s involvement but also the battles in the wider context of the war and has drawn not only from War Diaries but also from contemporary publications and letters from those involved.

The author has visited many of the battlefields himself and as any of us who have trodden the ground can testify, has found it often to be a profoundly moving experience.

The book concludes with an extensive and comprehensive series of maps, photographs and biographical sketches of men from the Anson Battalion, as well as a chapter covering the life of the author’s paternal grandfather (or “Taid) Francis Wynn Jones. Without wishing to give away too many “spoilers”, we last heard of Wynn, as he was universally known, ending the war in captivity but before this was confirmed, he had in fact been posted as “missing” on the Flesquieres-Havrincourt Salient on 23 March 1918 and it was not until over a month later on 25 April, that word was received that he was still alive and was being held in captivity.

The author’s description of his grandfather as an elderly man, whom he regularly met during his childhood in the late 1960s, is heart-warming and ends this book on a suitably optimistic note.

As with this author's previous military history volume, this is a well-research and fascinating read which I have no hesitation in recommending to you.

 

Available from www.amazon.co.uk 

RRP £9.99

softback, pp 314