The Last of the Cockleshell Heroes

Bill Sparks, Michael Munn

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Select
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780850524659
• eBook ISBN: 9781473815889
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War I
• Index: History

This is not just the story of what was perhaps the most daring raid undertaken by the commandos during the war, but it is also the true and remarkable account of a desperate escape by Marine Sparks and Major 'Blondie' Hasler across German-occupied France. For nearly three months, while they desperately sought assistance from the suspicious French Resistance and dodged German soldiers at every turn, Sparks and Hasler found themselves avoiding capture and certain death.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

INDEX

1

‘THERE’S NO DOUBT ABOUT IT,’ said the doctor, ‘The bronchitis you suffer each winter is due to your war service.’

This was not something that came as a bolt out of the blue to me really. Ever since the day I fell into the sea while stationed in Iceland during the war and caught bronchial pneumonia, I had gradually begun to suffer. But I wasn’t bitter at all. I had played my part in the war. I was one of the so-called Cockleshell Heroes and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for my part in Operation Frankton. My medal had become my most treasured possession, presented to me personally by King George VI.

‘What do I do now?’ I asked the doctor.

‘Well, you can apply for a war disability pension, and you may have to consider early retirement.’

I made my claim and underwent investigation to ascertain that my disability was due to war service. I was suitably graded and then informed that, whilst responsibility by the Military was accepted, my grade did not qualify me for a pension.

In due course, I retired. My wife, Rene, and I dreamed of buying a house in the country, and we set our hearts on a bungalow in Sussex. We placed a deposit, having decided we could afford it if we handled our affairs carefully, and moved in. I had a reasonable pension from my employers, London Transport, for whom I’d been a bus driver, a bus inspector and finally a garage inspector, and I had my state pension. We could just manage.

Then came a terrible blow. The Government decided to reduce my state pension by £1,000 a year. My wife and I were thunderstruck at the thought that we could lose our home. We racked our brains trying to see how we could cope on £1,000 less a year. Finally we realized that we would have to sell something to make up the difference.

With great reluctance, I put a call through to Sotheby’s and asked them if they would auction my most prized possession — my medal.

Before long, newspapers were carrying the story that the last of the Cockleshell Heroes was compelled to sell his medal. After that, hundreds of letters of support poured in. Most said how outraged they were that my pension should have been cut. One young man telephoned me in tears, saying how disgusted he was with the way I was being treated, and he offered to give me £10 a week out of his own wages. Close to tears myself, I declined his kind offer.

I had another offer by telephone from a gentleman living abroad who offered to send me £12,000 providing that I did not sell the medal. It was generous of him, but I could not accept charity.

The day of the auction arrived and Rene and I boarded the train for London. And as we sped along I recalled that years earlier I had taken another train ride to London, at a time when the world was at war.

The train rumbled on through the night. Looking out into the darkness of the countryside, I could not see so much as a single twinkling light as England was plunged into total blackout. If Hitler’s Luftwaffe were in the skies tonight, I saw no sign of them, nor heard them above the clatter of the train. Except for the inky blackness it was almost as though, for a brief while, England was at peace, banishing all thoughts of war for myself and two of my shipmates from the Renown — one a Marine and the other a stoker and, like myself, a Cockney.

We had been cooped up on the train since the previous day when we’d boarded at Edinburgh; the Renown and the long search for the Bismarck were left far behind. Ahead lay fourteen wonderful days’ leave in London. It was a long time since I’d been home; a long time since I’d seen Dad.

Dear old Dad. I thought he was going to kill me the day I joined the Royal Marines. I had originally decided, at the outbreak of war, to follow Dad’s footsteps; he’d been a stoker in the Royal Navy at the time I was born on 5 September, 1922 — the country was then still reeling from the General Strike. In 1939, when the storm clouds were gathering over Europe, I took myself off to the local recruitment office to join the Royal Navy. However, a sergeant there convinced me I was too intelligent a lad for the Royal Navy. He produced brochures featuring exciting photographs of smart young Marines wearing their ‘lion tamer’ tunics and gleaming white helmets, standing beneath palm trees on some exotic island, surrounded by beautiful girls in grass skirts. He convinced me; this was the life for me.

I was led into another room for a medical examination. Passed fit in every respect, I was handed a Bible, sworn in and given half a crown.

‘You are now a Royal Marine recruit, lad,’ beamed the sergeant. ‘Now you go on home and wait for your call up.’

Proud as a peacock, I marched smartly home; but my steps faltered as I was suddenly struck by the thought of confessing to Dad that I had joined the Marines without consulting him.

I waited with apprehension for Dad to return home from work that evening. He came in through the door and, summoning up all my courage, rather haltingly, I told him what I had done.

‘What?’ he exploded. ‘You stupid little so-and-so, I ought to knock you from here to next year …’ And he continued in that vein for a while until a thought occurred to him. He quietened down and, still furious, said, ‘You’re still only seventeen. When the papers come through I’ll refuse to sign them. That’ll put a stop to all this nonsense.’

I didn’t have the courage to tell him that his signature would not be required.

And so in 1939, as a young Marine recruit, I had caught the train from Charing Cross to attend training camp in Deal. Now I was returning three years later as a full Marine who had seen action in the Mediterranean. But I still hadn’t seen a single girl in a grass skirt.

Morning came as we hit the outskirts of London. Our excitement rose and we talked of the days ahead, of the families we’d not seen for so long, of the reprieve from battle, and the simple thought of how lucky we were to be home. Then we hit North London and our joy was diminished by the view from our carriage of a city that had endured nightly punishment. Everywhere were piles of rubble that had been houses, shops, factories, theatres, even churches. Slowly pulling into King’s Cross station, we passed railmen filling in bomb craters and repairing buckled track.

The train came to a juddering halt. We cheered up, eager to get home, and climbed out onto the platform. At the ticket barrier, reunited sweethearts kissed and hugged and returning sons embraced their parents. For others, about to board the train, it was a moment of heartbreak and farewell.

Outside the station we found ourselves in the middle of a war-torn city. Many buildings were pockmarked or blackened by fire, and the roads were peppered with craters. Facing the enemy’s bombs and bullets was an everyday occurrence for me and my shipmates, but at least we had the comfort of being able to fire back. All our civilians could do was take shelter and hope for the best. Yet even amid this destruction, people were going about their daily business; shops were open, the buses and tubes were running — an abnormal existence had been turned into normality. Clearing the rubble and filling in the craters had just become part of the way of life. To servicemen like ourselves returning from combat zones, this was a revelation. These were non-combatants standing up to combat, and their spirit was unbroken. We felt very proud of them at that moment.

‘Well, I’m off to Finsbury Park,’ I told my two shipmates. ‘We’ll meet in two weeks.’

‘If we’re still sober and standing,’ they joked.

I knew I’d still be standing, for although I enjoyed a drop of beer I never drank heavily. I had known too much misery in my childhood when Mum and Dad got regularly drunk every Saturday. Not that I blamed them because in those days if you were lucky enough to have a job — and both my parents did eventually find jobs — it was the way of things to join the throng of Saturday night drinkers. But after the drinking came the arguments and the fights. As they drunkenly rolled home the insults flew, followed by the fists. Each gave as good as they got. I was only about two or three, but I can remember screaming and begging them to stop.

One of their drunken brawls very nearly resulted in our house burning down. That night the paraffin lamp — our only form of lighting, apart from candles — was knocked over in the foray, and the spilled paraffin burst into flames. Before the fire got out of control, Mum and Dad ceased hostilities and joined forces to put out the fire. But this didn’t deter them from future Saturday night drink-and-fight sessions.

So, no, I didn’t expect to be too legless to meet up with my shipmates again in a fortnight. We said our goodbyes and I found the appropriate bus stop. Dad had been bombed out of our previous home and now lived in Finsbury Park. Fortunately I was familiar with that area. He’d also remarried and I had yet to meet my step-mum.

The bus arrived and I climbed aboard, astonished to find that the conductor was a female. I had forgotten that women had taken on many jobs usually done by men.

‘Come on, luv, hold very tightly,’ she said cheerfully. She rang the bell and the bus shunted forwards. I fell into a seat.

‘Finsbury Park, please,’ I said holding out my fare money. ‘Home on leave?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘You keep your money, luv,’ she said with a warm smile.

‘But we all have to pay our way,’ I insisted.

‘I wouldn’t hear of it, a man like you fighting to keep this country free,’ she said. ‘You’ve done more than enough to pay for a single bus fare.’ No matter how much I tried to pay, she insisted my money was ‘no good here’.

With more warm smiles, she set me off at my stop and I went off in search of Fonthill Road. I had written instructions on how to find Dad’s address so it wasn’t long before I was in the right street. But I was apprehensive in case I’d got the address wrong. I came to the house — or what I hoped was the house. I rapped on the door and waited. After a few anxious moments, the door was opened by a woman. I didn’t know her from Eve.

‘Does Mr Sparks live here?’ I asked nervously. ‘I’m his son, Bill.’

She looked at me quizzically. ‘Sparks?’ she mused. ‘No, there’s no Mr Sparks here.’

My heart sank. ‘Well, I’m sorry to bother you,’ I said.

‘Like I said, he’s not here.’ A mischievous smile spread over her face as she added, ‘Because he’s still at work.’

‘You mean, this is the right address?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Welcome home, Bill!’ She threw her arms around me then led me inside. ‘I’m sorry to have teased you,’ she said. ‘Your Dad says I’ve got a wicked sense of humour. And you looked so worried, I couldn’t resist playing a little joke.’

I was glad he had married a woman with a sense of humour. How m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Dedication
• Copyright Page
• Contents