The hell of Chatham Barracks, a camp killick and Cookham Camp
After completing training, I left HMS Royal Arthur in late October 1943. Prior to leaving we had to choose a barracks from a list containing Chatham, Plymouth or Portsmouth. I choose Chatham (HMS Pembroke) – a choice I often wished I hadn’t! After 12 days leave (two spent with Florence) I reported to Chatham. What a bloody place it was with 17,000 plus ratings.
After spending 48 hours here it is customary to go to the signal camp at Cookham near Rochester. Here life was tough with constant, very fast signalling practice day after day until you were drafted to a ship or another base. The draft was very much a case of potluck. An order is received from a ship or establishment for a signaller, coder or telegraphist. There is a corresponding list of those available and blokes are matched up to them. Once a match is made a call goes out over the Tannoy for that person to report to the Regulations Office and one has to turn up within 24 hours. Exceptions to this were large drafts that required more organising. The big angle was to get drafted to Asbury Park in New York, where groups of up to 200 were drafted, but I had no luck.
Chatham is literally seared into my memory. I understand that approximately 20,000 sailors were based there at it peak, and in 1943 when I was there must have been at when the barracks had their highest number of sailors present. When I arrived there, sailors were sleeping in the stairwells leading to the main floors – their hammocks tethered between the banisters. I wondered what the tonnage of the pigswill was as very few could eat the food.
There were three double blocks – Anson, Duncan and Nelson – designed to take 5000 men each but increased to accommodate double that in an emergency, as long as they did not breathe altogether. Another three ancillary blocks – Grenville, Hawke and Blake – took the surplus. These six blocks (named after admirals) were situated on central avenue (now Admirals Walk) on the embankment above the parade ground.
Chatham Barracks is worth a mention for its strict discipline. It’s appreciated that this is necessary when 17,000 plus men are entombed together, but it was based on chronic brutality by what I witnessed and heard. The morons who ran the place were as thick as the barrack block walls.
Once through the gates there was a large reception drill shed for sorting out the interns. As communications ratings were forwarded to Cookham Camp at Rochester, this could take up to a week to come through. We whiled our time away up in what was called “The Attic” where we were safe from Gestapo and morons. This was in the roof space of the reception drill shed. It consisted of two or three rooms each fugged with thick blue cigarette smoke. The main occupations to while away the time were crosswords, reading books, newspapers and magazines, cards, chess etc.
Outside was a huge rectangular parade ground with numerous Petty Officers and Gunnery Instructors in gaiters attempting to out shout each other whilst marching squads of sailors back and forth. I had the misfortune to attempt to cross this blessed piece of concrete to get to the accommodation blocks on one occasion.
Struggling with hammock, kit and steaming bags I walked onto this hallowed slab and every Petty Officer within 100 yards started blowing whistles and screaming and shouting at me.
“You there! You there! Double march, double up there!” they’d yell.
Then I was told to halt and received a dressing down in front of 300 men and I attempted to double march to the staircases on the other side of the parade ground. Both they and their squads appeared to enjoy the situation immensely. That was the moment I realized why they are called “petty” officers…
At the top of the staircase two Gestapo had been attracted by all the whistles and decided to join the fun. “You are not supposed to cross the square while the squads are there. Let me see your pay book! Where are you going?” Plus a dozen other questions.
The accommodation blocks are huge affairs each originally taking about 800 ratings, all in hammocks, but even then greatly over burdened. The kitchens and feeding areas were huge and the food was almost inedible – the only palatable item they seemed to be able to “cook” was bread pudding. I understand the present RN has a choice of seven courses; we had a simple choice in 1943 – “Take it, or leave it”, and mostly the latter. At night, with the hammocks all slung it was a nightmare for a first timer because in normal RN parlance nobody informed you how to do anything.
The few times I was in Chatham I took the opportunity to swat up on the KRs and AIs (King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions). There were hundreds of them and a fair number were sign written on white boards in two inch high letters and numerals, approximately 30 foot high and fixed to the sides of the accommodation blocks, about 350 yards long (quite a good contract for the sign writer I thought).
I used to stand reading these for hours. In those days there were 42 reasons why they could hang you. The beauty about this self-induced torture was the Gestapo would come along and anybody standing still was deemed to be a troublemaker. A big discussion was held as they were foxed by my behaviour and they let you get on with it. Same thing an hour later, but on the second visit they marched me off to the gatehouse. After a few telephone calls they were told the practice should be encouraged as not to read a notice board is an offence and can be punished.
Similar incidents with different pairs of Gestapo happened on a number of occasions. The pity was that quite a number of the boards required further explanation and there was nobody around to aid me. It took about a week to read the boards, taking them in at four to five hours a day.
The best solution for foxing the Gestapo was to have a type written sheet of paper on you – this showed that you were on your way somewhere and you could simply wave it in the air and get past them – you could just have had a blank piece of paper but if you got caught the outcome would have been dire. We discovered this when on our revolver course as everybody got it in writing; I even used it three months later when I returned to Chatham. As I always say, any one can play silly buggers.
A run “ashore” from Chatham Barracks was a simple case of a trip to the cinema in Chatham or a couple of pints of cider in one of the local pubs beside my digs, as it was customary to stay out all night and hire a place to lay your head, all for the price of a shilling.
In my particular case if I got to the private digs first, it was a chaise lounge, otherwise an armchair or failing that, the floor with a blanket and pillow provided. The terraced house opened directly onto the street, and the room catered for seven blokes. The landlady was quite nice, past middle age with a husband in the merchant navy. I personally had a cup of tea and cake when first calling, and tea in the morning.
The only trouble I experienced there was with a leading seaman (known as a killick) who I worked with in Chatham Barracks library, where I was doing a stint, took a fancy to me. He turned up out of the blue and started his touchy antics when we had bedded down for the night. After a couple of warnings I gave him a bunch of fives and we ended up scrapping, treading over other matelots on the floor, which caused a great commotion.
The fight ended when he fell against the front door and was hung up on one of the bolts projecting out about one-and-a-half inches from the letterbox. The wound he received was in the lower neck area and he bled like a stuck pig. The landlady bandaged him up and sent him packing as he was a stranger and I was a regular. Four days later I lost my cushy job in the library, but had preserved my virginity…
Situated just outside Rochester in Kent, and close to Chatham Barracks, Cookham Camp formed an annex camp for the communication ratings. Close to it was a borstal institution (in the village of Borstal that was the first borstal, from which all others were named) and we used a number of its facilities. We visited about twice a week and the boys (aged up to around 18) were always scrounging fags and anything else. The boys were clad in a greenish shirt and shorts and every now and then they made a run for it, breaking out generally at night, which caused a flap in our camp and the attached Wrennery.
Close to the borstal was a large house (known as the Wrennery) that housed Wrens attached to our camp. Three sides of the place were wooded and if you were on duty watch, one of the main tasks was guarding these lovelies. They issued us with 2 foot six inch clubs of three-quarter inch conduit, with a 2 or 3 inch nut screwed or welded at the top. One was supposed to walk around through the surrounding wood, which was fairly eerie as it was infested with owls that gave you some hellish frights. Of course you carried the thumper with you, but if you hit anybody with it you were liable to kill them. In the event of a breakout from the borstal, the guard was doubled as the Wrennery was the first port of call for the borstal inmates, mostly to steal cash and valuables to finance a train journey, rather than for attempting to sexually molest the Wrens that is (though sex offenders were amongst the borstal internees).
Part of the borstal was also used as a detention centre for the navy. I visited this part on two occasions and there were some real tough types in there. Just watching them exercise was bad enough and the language from both the prisoners and guards was deplorable.
The borstal boys used to come into our camp to collect the surplus gash (leftovers from meals) for their pigs. As a fair amount of their punishment appeared to revolve around agricultural farm work. On this particular trip, they decided to visit our accommodation Nissan huts and thieve all our tobacco and whatever else they could lift. They were spotted and stopped at the gate and it was stashed in the cart, sunk into the pigswill. The handcart was quite large but there were six of them and some quite big fellows to boot.
At this camp there were a couple of incidents. We used to parade close to the entrance each morning, with quite a number of men, probably around 300 or more. The officer in charge was a Lt Commander, an old timer brought back from retirement and quite deaf.
Another officer suddenly appeared in front of this officer and shouted “Red Warning, Sir!” The old timer gave a pleasant smile and said, “Thank you, good morning”. Everyone was waiting for the quick dismissal as a red warning referred to an air raid. It’s generally presented with a siren but not in this particular case. About four or five minutes later two Jerry fighters came over just above the trees and they were as surprised as us and let loose with their guns too late. It was most unusual as we had virtual total command of our sky in 1943.
Finally, the officer in charge had got the message and called dismissal but he was too late, the lads had gone – only the slow coaches remained behind. Actually, being shrouded by the wood saved us, as the only two clear spaces were the assembly point and a square that had four Lewis guns as anti-aircraft defence. The latter had not been manned but were the cleanest guns I ever saw, being stripped down at least twice a week as a means of keeping the duty watch busy.
As Cookham was for communication ratings, serious signalling exercises took place and high standards were expected. The training took place all day with visual, flag and WT exercised. If you were not up to the mark you were back again in the evening. The biggest distraction was the hundreds of flying fortresses that flew overhead heading for Germany – they flew from 0800 till 1600.
The most difficult task was semaphore. The sender was a signal bosun (a new animal in my life at that time) but he was precise and a whirl of arms. He was very much like Basil Rathbone, a film star of the day, but was very strict in every sense of the word. He caught a few of us out, as he was extremely fast until we found a method of fiddling. It was damned inconvenient to have your shore leave curtailed at a moments notice and there was a market established where somebody stood in for you if one could afford to pay, but I never had enough dosh and no rum ration either. The penalty if caught was pretty severe and really not worth the chance.
Shore leave was generally a trip to the cinema, or either ice or roller-skating, with the latter favoured. Money did not stretch to boozing. Once a week I went roller-skating with a Wren who came from my hometown and was engaged to a soldier in the Tyneside Scottish. It was a strictly platonic friendship, but it made a change and we shared expenses.
When I had the first watch at the Wrennery I was well supplied with tea and eats and company for an hour. When I was skint it was possible to have a knock on the tennis courts but she was far better than I.
Duties in this camp sometimes involved patrols to keep order in Rochester. A Chief Yeoman and six ratings visited the various pubs and entertainment establishments and the bloke in charge generally knew where we would be welcome and receive a half pint of beer or cider. Surprising really how peaceful it was, when the obstreperous merchants saw that they were dealing with their own branch members instead of the Gestapo they were much more amenable.
One unusual event took place in Cookham. The rum issue was held in one of the Nissan huts, usually the mess hut. After the rum ration has been doled out, the residue is tipped down the drain under strict supervision. However, the cooks had jury-rigged the waste pipe so it was directed into a suitable container instead. They were discovered and the inquiry took all afternoon – all the cooks were in on it and they were led away into the woods – tough shit fellows! They went into the Lt. Commander’s report and probably got 28 days in the cooler. Needless to say, we all suffered as there were no cooks to prepare dinner and we ended up with bread, cheese and beetroot.
Church parade was also a thing you had to think about carefully because Church of England and Catholics went to a pucker church that was outside the camp. Church of Scotland, Baptists and other nonconformists held their services in various mess huts. The dodge was to change your religion to the denomination that was in the canteen. This way you were right on the spot for “Stand easy”, instead of being marched all over the bloody place.
One pretty childish event carried out at the camp that caused severe embarrassment for the Wrens was that as the group were called to attention they’d make a sucking sound. As mentioned, the Commanding Officer was deaf and could not hear what was going on. It got to be such an embarrassment that the Wrens decided to inform their superiors. Eventually someone told him and he took action by really bollocking us and giving us hell. We stood at attention for 45 minutes as well.
What beats me is how do they think these things up? But, the devilment in the average bloke to continue this is probably started with one foul-mouthed waster and because it was not nipped in the bud, it got out of hand. Why didn’t the officers have enough respect and inform the CO about the affair sooner? God only knows.
After spending 48 hours here it is customary to go to the signal camp at Cookham near Rochester. Here life was tough with constant, very fast signalling practice day after day until you were drafted to a ship or another base. The draft was very much a case of potluck. An order is received from a ship or establishment for a signaller, coder or telegraphist. There is a corresponding list of those available and blokes are matched up to them. Once a match is made a call goes out over the Tannoy for that person to report to the Regulations Office and one has to turn up within 24 hours. Exceptions to this were large drafts that required more organising. The big angle was to get drafted to Asbury Park in New York, where groups of up to 200 were drafted, but I had no luck.
Chatham is literally seared into my memory. I understand that approximately 20,000 sailors were based there at it peak, and in 1943 when I was there must have been at when the barracks had their highest number of sailors present. When I arrived there, sailors were sleeping in the stairwells leading to the main floors – their hammocks tethered between the banisters. I wondered what the tonnage of the pigswill was as very few could eat the food.
There were three double blocks – Anson, Duncan and Nelson – designed to take 5000 men each but increased to accommodate double that in an emergency, as long as they did not breathe altogether. Another three ancillary blocks – Grenville, Hawke and Blake – took the surplus. These six blocks (named after admirals) were situated on central avenue (now Admirals Walk) on the embankment above the parade ground.
Chatham Barracks is worth a mention for its strict discipline. It’s appreciated that this is necessary when 17,000 plus men are entombed together, but it was based on chronic brutality by what I witnessed and heard. The morons who ran the place were as thick as the barrack block walls.
Once through the gates there was a large reception drill shed for sorting out the interns. As communications ratings were forwarded to Cookham Camp at Rochester, this could take up to a week to come through. We whiled our time away up in what was called “The Attic” where we were safe from Gestapo and morons. This was in the roof space of the reception drill shed. It consisted of two or three rooms each fugged with thick blue cigarette smoke. The main occupations to while away the time were crosswords, reading books, newspapers and magazines, cards, chess etc.
Outside was a huge rectangular parade ground with numerous Petty Officers and Gunnery Instructors in gaiters attempting to out shout each other whilst marching squads of sailors back and forth. I had the misfortune to attempt to cross this blessed piece of concrete to get to the accommodation blocks on one occasion.
Struggling with hammock, kit and steaming bags I walked onto this hallowed slab and every Petty Officer within 100 yards started blowing whistles and screaming and shouting at me.
“You there! You there! Double march, double up there!” they’d yell.
Then I was told to halt and received a dressing down in front of 300 men and I attempted to double march to the staircases on the other side of the parade ground. Both they and their squads appeared to enjoy the situation immensely. That was the moment I realized why they are called “petty” officers…
At the top of the staircase two Gestapo had been attracted by all the whistles and decided to join the fun. “You are not supposed to cross the square while the squads are there. Let me see your pay book! Where are you going?” Plus a dozen other questions.
The accommodation blocks are huge affairs each originally taking about 800 ratings, all in hammocks, but even then greatly over burdened. The kitchens and feeding areas were huge and the food was almost inedible – the only palatable item they seemed to be able to “cook” was bread pudding. I understand the present RN has a choice of seven courses; we had a simple choice in 1943 – “Take it, or leave it”, and mostly the latter. At night, with the hammocks all slung it was a nightmare for a first timer because in normal RN parlance nobody informed you how to do anything.
The few times I was in Chatham I took the opportunity to swat up on the KRs and AIs (King’s Regulations and Admiralty Instructions). There were hundreds of them and a fair number were sign written on white boards in two inch high letters and numerals, approximately 30 foot high and fixed to the sides of the accommodation blocks, about 350 yards long (quite a good contract for the sign writer I thought).
I used to stand reading these for hours. In those days there were 42 reasons why they could hang you. The beauty about this self-induced torture was the Gestapo would come along and anybody standing still was deemed to be a troublemaker. A big discussion was held as they were foxed by my behaviour and they let you get on with it. Same thing an hour later, but on the second visit they marched me off to the gatehouse. After a few telephone calls they were told the practice should be encouraged as not to read a notice board is an offence and can be punished.
Similar incidents with different pairs of Gestapo happened on a number of occasions. The pity was that quite a number of the boards required further explanation and there was nobody around to aid me. It took about a week to read the boards, taking them in at four to five hours a day.
The best solution for foxing the Gestapo was to have a type written sheet of paper on you – this showed that you were on your way somewhere and you could simply wave it in the air and get past them – you could just have had a blank piece of paper but if you got caught the outcome would have been dire. We discovered this when on our revolver course as everybody got it in writing; I even used it three months later when I returned to Chatham. As I always say, any one can play silly buggers.
A run “ashore” from Chatham Barracks was a simple case of a trip to the cinema in Chatham or a couple of pints of cider in one of the local pubs beside my digs, as it was customary to stay out all night and hire a place to lay your head, all for the price of a shilling.
In my particular case if I got to the private digs first, it was a chaise lounge, otherwise an armchair or failing that, the floor with a blanket and pillow provided. The terraced house opened directly onto the street, and the room catered for seven blokes. The landlady was quite nice, past middle age with a husband in the merchant navy. I personally had a cup of tea and cake when first calling, and tea in the morning.
The only trouble I experienced there was with a leading seaman (known as a killick) who I worked with in Chatham Barracks library, where I was doing a stint, took a fancy to me. He turned up out of the blue and started his touchy antics when we had bedded down for the night. After a couple of warnings I gave him a bunch of fives and we ended up scrapping, treading over other matelots on the floor, which caused a great commotion.
The fight ended when he fell against the front door and was hung up on one of the bolts projecting out about one-and-a-half inches from the letterbox. The wound he received was in the lower neck area and he bled like a stuck pig. The landlady bandaged him up and sent him packing as he was a stranger and I was a regular. Four days later I lost my cushy job in the library, but had preserved my virginity…
Situated just outside Rochester in Kent, and close to Chatham Barracks, Cookham Camp formed an annex camp for the communication ratings. Close to it was a borstal institution (in the village of Borstal that was the first borstal, from which all others were named) and we used a number of its facilities. We visited about twice a week and the boys (aged up to around 18) were always scrounging fags and anything else. The boys were clad in a greenish shirt and shorts and every now and then they made a run for it, breaking out generally at night, which caused a flap in our camp and the attached Wrennery.
Close to the borstal was a large house (known as the Wrennery) that housed Wrens attached to our camp. Three sides of the place were wooded and if you were on duty watch, one of the main tasks was guarding these lovelies. They issued us with 2 foot six inch clubs of three-quarter inch conduit, with a 2 or 3 inch nut screwed or welded at the top. One was supposed to walk around through the surrounding wood, which was fairly eerie as it was infested with owls that gave you some hellish frights. Of course you carried the thumper with you, but if you hit anybody with it you were liable to kill them. In the event of a breakout from the borstal, the guard was doubled as the Wrennery was the first port of call for the borstal inmates, mostly to steal cash and valuables to finance a train journey, rather than for attempting to sexually molest the Wrens that is (though sex offenders were amongst the borstal internees).
Part of the borstal was also used as a detention centre for the navy. I visited this part on two occasions and there were some real tough types in there. Just watching them exercise was bad enough and the language from both the prisoners and guards was deplorable.
The borstal boys used to come into our camp to collect the surplus gash (leftovers from meals) for their pigs. As a fair amount of their punishment appeared to revolve around agricultural farm work. On this particular trip, they decided to visit our accommodation Nissan huts and thieve all our tobacco and whatever else they could lift. They were spotted and stopped at the gate and it was stashed in the cart, sunk into the pigswill. The handcart was quite large but there were six of them and some quite big fellows to boot.
At this camp there were a couple of incidents. We used to parade close to the entrance each morning, with quite a number of men, probably around 300 or more. The officer in charge was a Lt Commander, an old timer brought back from retirement and quite deaf.
Another officer suddenly appeared in front of this officer and shouted “Red Warning, Sir!” The old timer gave a pleasant smile and said, “Thank you, good morning”. Everyone was waiting for the quick dismissal as a red warning referred to an air raid. It’s generally presented with a siren but not in this particular case. About four or five minutes later two Jerry fighters came over just above the trees and they were as surprised as us and let loose with their guns too late. It was most unusual as we had virtual total command of our sky in 1943.
Finally, the officer in charge had got the message and called dismissal but he was too late, the lads had gone – only the slow coaches remained behind. Actually, being shrouded by the wood saved us, as the only two clear spaces were the assembly point and a square that had four Lewis guns as anti-aircraft defence. The latter had not been manned but were the cleanest guns I ever saw, being stripped down at least twice a week as a means of keeping the duty watch busy.
As Cookham was for communication ratings, serious signalling exercises took place and high standards were expected. The training took place all day with visual, flag and WT exercised. If you were not up to the mark you were back again in the evening. The biggest distraction was the hundreds of flying fortresses that flew overhead heading for Germany – they flew from 0800 till 1600.
The most difficult task was semaphore. The sender was a signal bosun (a new animal in my life at that time) but he was precise and a whirl of arms. He was very much like Basil Rathbone, a film star of the day, but was very strict in every sense of the word. He caught a few of us out, as he was extremely fast until we found a method of fiddling. It was damned inconvenient to have your shore leave curtailed at a moments notice and there was a market established where somebody stood in for you if one could afford to pay, but I never had enough dosh and no rum ration either. The penalty if caught was pretty severe and really not worth the chance.
Shore leave was generally a trip to the cinema, or either ice or roller-skating, with the latter favoured. Money did not stretch to boozing. Once a week I went roller-skating with a Wren who came from my hometown and was engaged to a soldier in the Tyneside Scottish. It was a strictly platonic friendship, but it made a change and we shared expenses.
When I had the first watch at the Wrennery I was well supplied with tea and eats and company for an hour. When I was skint it was possible to have a knock on the tennis courts but she was far better than I.
Duties in this camp sometimes involved patrols to keep order in Rochester. A Chief Yeoman and six ratings visited the various pubs and entertainment establishments and the bloke in charge generally knew where we would be welcome and receive a half pint of beer or cider. Surprising really how peaceful it was, when the obstreperous merchants saw that they were dealing with their own branch members instead of the Gestapo they were much more amenable.
One unusual event took place in Cookham. The rum issue was held in one of the Nissan huts, usually the mess hut. After the rum ration has been doled out, the residue is tipped down the drain under strict supervision. However, the cooks had jury-rigged the waste pipe so it was directed into a suitable container instead. They were discovered and the inquiry took all afternoon – all the cooks were in on it and they were led away into the woods – tough shit fellows! They went into the Lt. Commander’s report and probably got 28 days in the cooler. Needless to say, we all suffered as there were no cooks to prepare dinner and we ended up with bread, cheese and beetroot.
Church parade was also a thing you had to think about carefully because Church of England and Catholics went to a pucker church that was outside the camp. Church of Scotland, Baptists and other nonconformists held their services in various mess huts. The dodge was to change your religion to the denomination that was in the canteen. This way you were right on the spot for “Stand easy”, instead of being marched all over the bloody place.
One pretty childish event carried out at the camp that caused severe embarrassment for the Wrens was that as the group were called to attention they’d make a sucking sound. As mentioned, the Commanding Officer was deaf and could not hear what was going on. It got to be such an embarrassment that the Wrens decided to inform their superiors. Eventually someone told him and he took action by really bollocking us and giving us hell. We stood at attention for 45 minutes as well.
What beats me is how do they think these things up? But, the devilment in the average bloke to continue this is probably started with one foul-mouthed waster and because it was not nipped in the bud, it got out of hand. Why didn’t the officers have enough respect and inform the CO about the affair sooner? God only knows.