The Day the British Army "Hummed"

In my story called "Forgotten Wars" I have referred very briefly to the return of the small contingent of the Friends Ambulance Unit from Norway where the Germans were invading the country. This story is an enlargement of those events.

We had sailed from the shattered port of Namsos having been driven out by German Infantry and dive-bombers. We were aboard (just about!) the French troopship "Alcazar". It was grossly overcrowded with no food or water on board. We became aware of the lack of water by the smell from a distance of about fifty yards. So far as nourishment was concerned there seemed to be only a quantity of very rough red wine, which was strong enough to create a peaceful atmosphere throughout the ship. I spent most of the two or three days on board catching up on several weeks of almost sleepless existence.

I was in a small and smelly hold where I shared a tiny corner with a group of non-commissioned officers of the "Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry". I gathered that this regiment had been sent to Norway very much as a stop-gap at the last minute, and the NCOs were drafted in to provide "stiffening" for them. Their comments on the state of the detachment were anything but complimentary and their job had proved impossible. I listened to tales of ammunition that did not fit the guns, equipment that had been cannibalised, wheels that fell off through lack of holding nuts, and men who fled when the enemy made contact. As for the officers who should have corrected all this incompetence, the man in his sleeping bag (using my boots as his pillow) said he would have shot the lot if he thought the bullets supplied would fit his gun! The idea that when we reached Britain they would be given the usual speech about leaving with honour intact and in their own time was unacceptable. I was to find out later how these angry men were going to make their point but make it they certainly did.

It is unusual for a rather scruffy, very tired ambulance driver to meet the General commanding the unit to which he is to be attached, but that is what had happened to me a few days earlier. We had just come down through the foothills of the mountains to the east, which separated Sweden and Norway. We were on our way from war in Finland, via Sweden to join British and French contingents that were trying unsuccessfully to stop the Germans advancing northward up the coast road. We had managed to get all our vehicles over the snow-covered passes.

 As the photograph above shows we had reason to suppose that our main difficulty was over, having got down to fairly flat country. However the sound of gunfire caused us to think again.

I was driving the leading vehicle and we were approaching a crossroads. Clearly we had got to the North-South road but so had the Germans. Shells were landing around the crossing and the ground was pockmarked with shell holes. Closer inspection showed that many were foxholes inhabited by members of the British army looking like sacks of potatoes in their winter gear. They were taking cover from the shelling and, it seemed, waiting for a German attack. Bayonets were much in evidence and we did not need urging to find a good deep hole ourselves and get into it. The shelling was fairly continuous but from small calibre guns although the British had guns they were not using them, the reason for which we learned later.

It was at this point that the General appeared. There were various Army vehicles about but he was walking down the middle of the road in a very easy-going way, waving to groups of his men as he passed. His appearance was striking despite not being a big man. His uniform was immaculate which made him eye-catching, he wore a British tin hat at a very rakish angle, a General's jacket with all the red tabs, shoulder stars and medal ribbons that go with high rank He had beautifully cut breeches and riding boots polished to a degree I would not have thought possible, certainly not in that situation. Overall he looked completely comfortable and he treated the occasional shell as one would an intrusive mosquito. As he got closer we could see that he wore an eyepatch and one sleeve was tucked into his battledress jacket. He had a word or a wave to each group of his men as he passed, but nobody came out of their hole to join him. When he was level with our shell hole he stopped to survey our vehicles and peered around at us. He then jumped down into my hole and sat down beside me and said "Who the hell are you lot?" I explained all about us, where we had been and where we hoped to go. When I said we were members of the "Friends Ambulance Unit" he pointed to his missing arm and said "Your predecessors in that earlier trouble with the Hun carted me back to hospital so I know a bit about you" He then went on to say that he was very glad to have us in spite of the fact that probably we would all have to withdraw fairly soon. Later he heard that the Germans had been heavily reinforced, and retreat to Namsos was inevitable.

I have described the next week or so in my story called "The Forgotten Wars". In that story I have more or less ended the tale with the words "Sure enough we docked at Glasgow a few hours later. I am now enlarging the events of those "few hours".

We received orders to gather with the K.O.Y.L.I.S. on the Glasgow dockside. The British soldiers were drawn up in three long lines by the ship and we formed a small incongruous group where the few officers were gathered, just below the stand from which it was intended the General should make his address. It was rather dark, drizzling with rain and very dirty. A group of more senior officers arrived escorting the General. (General Carton-de-Wiart V.C. K.B.E. C.B. C.M.G. D.S.0.) "It is a great honour, after leading you in an organised retreat to re-assure you that you have not been defeated". Had this not been an army occasion the boos and cries of derision would have finished the speech there and then. However discipline held things together until we became aware of an alien underlying noise building up to compete with the General's voice. A strange humming sound was creating a background to his words and was getting louder and louder The senior "Koylie" officer conferred with the NCOs but they were all shaking their heads trying to explain that you cannot stop a man humming if you cannot identify the person doing it.

The General made several attempts to continue his speech but was eventually escorted away amidst considerable embarrassment. I never heard what happened after that as we also were an embarrassment being non-service people who had heard and witnessed the whole episode. The army thanked us but I wondered what for!! We were handed railway tickets for our homes and I felt they were glad to get us out of the way before they started on the hard task of instilling pride and efficiency into a badly broken unit.

by Dennis Woodcock