Preparing for D Day - supply

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Brigadier Jim Denniston, former Seaforth Highlander and Director of Ordnance Services for the 21st Army Group, addressed officers of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps as they made final preparations for D Day. They were approaching the culmination of four hard years of preparation, or perhaps forty years since many of them had served through the Great War. Some had been at the sharp end in the British Expeditionary Force which withdrew to Dunkirk.  

The first years of the Second World War were for these men a time for learning from mistakes, some painful but all aimed at D Day. Until VE Day, activity continued at a high level and, even in the latter part of 1945 and into 1946, there was the army of occupation to supply. Although I refer here to men, the work of women was equally crucial, not least the members of the ATS who served in all the depots. I might also add my mother, Betty Perks, who was then my father’s PA.

Among the speakers, addressing the group of some forty men gathered in the Debating Hall of the Royal Empire Society, was my father Major General Bill Williams Controller of Ordnance Services and Director of Warlike Stores. The buck would stop with him should the supply services fail. Alongside him was another Major General, his friend and rival Dickie Richards, whose memory of France in 1940 would have been vivid. He had commanded the ordnance depot in Le Havre. He had gone on to command Ordnance Services in the Middle East before returning to the War Office to take charge of the supply of Clothing and Stores. 

Bill and Dickie in more relaxed circumstances

In the audience were three other BEF veterans, Brigadiers de Wolff, Palmer and Cansdale. de Wolff had crossed to France in September 1939, but had been recalled in November to manage the project he had conceived to relocate the massive arsenal from Woolwich to deepest Shropshire away from the danger of enemy bombers. Palmer had commanded the ordnance depot at Nantes and may have been amongst the survivors of the Lancastria which sank whilst evacuating troops after Dunkirk; Palmer would go on to command the depot at Bicester specifically built with D Day in mind. Cansdale was Bill William’s deputy with particular responsibility for field activity. All three had been with Bill and Dickie on the first Ordnance Officers course (the Class of ’22) held after the Great War through which all five had served. 

Bill, (Rivers McPherson), Wolffy and Cansdale in the 1920s

Another veteran of the Great War and Class of ’22 was Alfred Goldstein who, at the time of Dunkirk, was commanding the ordnance contingent in the Malta garrison and then throughout the siege; at the time of D Day he commanded the armaments depot at Greenford which was first port of call for equipment en route to Normandy. Alfred had passed out top of the ordnance officers course, with Bill Williams a close second.

Aside from these regular soldiers were men from industry who held temporary commissions. Listening to Denniston was Colonel Bob Hiam, a Dunlop director, who had commanded the armaments depot at Old Dalby in Leicestershire and who would command the Advance Ordnance Depots to be set up outside Caen and at Antwerp. Another Dunlop man, Colonel Robbie Robinson, was not present having been appointed Ordnance Inspector Overseas; he had set up the Motor Transport Depot in Sincil Lane, Derby and had then recommissioned the depot at Feltham with more than an eye on the coming war in the Far East. Feltham was, at the time of D Day, commanded by former Tecalemit director Arthur Sewell. The Army Centre for Mechanisation was at Chilwell near Nottingham and its chief ordnance officer, English Steel director Reddy Readman, was in the audience. He had overseen the massive packing operation for D Day which had seen some three hundred million items packed and labelled in depots and by volunteers: Women’s Institutes, off-duty fireman and school children. 

 

School children packing for D Day

The late forties, for some, meant a return to the civilian world of work, an economy desperate for exports; for others it was a well-earned retirement. Many died before their time, exhausted by the task that had fallen to them. My book Dunkirk to D Day, which tells their story, begins in the world of the pony and trap and ends with a Britain that ‘never had it so good’. In between there are adventures overseas, inventive and far seeing management initiatives at home, many recorded in albums and diaries by Betty Perks to whom I owe a huge debt of thanks.

 

The top ten places where War on Wheels is truly 'local' history

Chilwell families remember the village before Viscount Chetwynd built his WW1 shell filling factory. They remember the munitionettes with their yellow faces, discoloured by TNT poisoning. They remember the derelict site in the late twenties and early thirties, how it blossomed into life in 1935 with the beginning of the army centre for mechanisation and how it grew and grew during WW2.

Old Dalby residents will remember their peaceful village nestling in the south of the Vale of Belvoir and the harsh awakening as builders moved in to create the massive RAOC armaments depot. They would see tanks and Bailey Bridges, they would hear talk of secret wireless equipment.

Derby folk were justly proud of the Rolls-Royce factory in Sinfin Lane and so may not have noticed the huge vehicle depot that sprung up close to it in the early years of WW2. They would have seen the traffic and may have heard from neighbours who worked there what a good place it was to work, how well they were taken care of.

Donnington people must have hated it when the builders moved in in 1939 to begin to erect the massive sheds that would house Central Ordnance Depot Donnington. They may have heard stories about its eccentric deaf commandant. They would have seen row after row of tanks and, each morning in the dark with a lamp to the fore and a lamp to the rear, the marching column of ATS on their way to work.

Corsham mums and dads must have been anxious for the safety of their children when they went out to play, knowing as they did that 100 feet below the surface there were vast caverns storing the ammunition to feed guns and aircraft.

Greenford streets in the mid summer of 1944 would have been buzzing with activity as ATS riding motor cycles would arrive with endless requests for more equipment for the armies advancing across northern France. The bikes would be followed by lorry after lorry on their way to the docks.

Twickenham school children that same summer of 1944 would have felt a quiet satisfaction at the work they did in the previous Easter holidays packing thousands of items ready for D Day. In all 375 million items were packed, many by volunteers like those school children.

Branston residents may have missed the smell of cooking pickles, but they would have seen the hive of activity in the old factory which was then the place that handled most of the army's clothing.

Didcot is now better known for its former power stations. In 1915 the villagers would have seen the building of a huge general stores depot to supply the western front, served by re-routed railways. In 1944 the site was even bigger as all the non-armament stores were assembled for the invasion.

Bicester was a quiet village and is now an out of town shopping centre soon to become a new town. In 1944 it was the most carefully planned all purpose depot geared to supply the troops crossing into France. It had then the biggest tank repair facility anywhere.