Ash Patrol

Robert Chandler; "We used to meet at the Prince of Wales pub along Drainless Road. I remember Captain McNicholl wore a kilt.

At the Garth you sometimes saw people you recognised, but you never asked questions. The Lovat Scouts taught us field craft. I really enjoyed the training, especially shooting from the hip at targets in the woods and fields. We kept training until Stand Down in 1944.

The training at Coleshill was very interesting. I remember a Russian who taught us how to use a knife. There was also a model OB with a log trap door that was opened by a piece of string. We blew up loads of trees.

During training we would often attack the railway guns at Poulton. We were a bloody nuisance. We’d go under the barbed wire on our backs and ease our way through the defences. It stopped the Regulars going down the pub. We used to attack Regular Army units and chalk the vehicles where explosives could have been placed.

Although we were told not cross the River Stour we did conduct joint training operations with another group, under John and Robert Montgomery, from Thorne Farm, Thanet, at Smith’s Chalk Pit, Gore Street.

Cecil Lines, from the Denton Patrol, gave us scrap cars to blow up; flying wheels everywhere. We never knew where they would land.

I would get a call at night, either a knock or via the telephone, to say there was a Patrol on. I would then make my way across country to the OB. This way you learnt to move at night and the lie of the land. One night Arthur Benbow and I were in someone’s front garden in Wingham when this old dear opens the window, sees us and shouts out what the bloody hell is going on down there? Benbow tells the old girl to bugger off and get back to bed. Family and friends thought we were just in the Home Guard."