My year as a child soldier
Yes, I did carry a rifle before I was eighteen years of age — for a year. Along with my fellow members of the Air Training Corps (ATC) I also learned how to assemble a Bren gun and recognize enemy aircraft from their silhouettes (Second World War Focke-Wulfs and Messerschmitts from our new allies the Germans, because those were the only flash cards available).
I looked forward to a day at the range in Whitsand Bay, firing the 1910 vintage, bolt-action, Lee-Enfield rifle when my turn came, or lurking under the butts to change the target and score others’ efforts. But mostly I lay on the grass watching the butterflies and discussing with my friends when America and Russia would go to war. The squadron leader would sit on a rock beside the firing point handing out .303 cartridges one at a time for us to load into the breech, saying ‘Once more into the breech, dear friends, once more’, although we all knew the potential enemy to be far removed from the French forces opposing Henry V.
Then there was the .22 range out in Devonport, near the parade ground where a friend passed out standing at attention on a particularly hot day. Target practice there wasn’t nearly as much fun as a day at the seaside, and we were bright enough as grammar school boys to know how useless our weapons would be against an enemy about to drop hydrogen bombs on Plymouth, but the ranges gave us a chance to vent our rage at this inadequacy.
I hated parades and the sergeants who shouted at us. There was always some fault to be found with my thick woolen uniform, the beret stuck two finger-widths above my eyebrow or the army-surplus hob-nailed boots, bought from Gould’s at the old Cinedrome in Ebrington Street and polished to a ludicrous shine on the toe-caps, while the rest of the uppers dripped with dubbin in my attempt to get them to bend. The same itchy high-collar tunic, felt beret and inch-thick-soled boots were, however, very warm on the night marches across Dartmoor.
I loved visiting RAF St Mawgan in Cornwall: the food was great, and we sometimes got to fly in the aircraft, or listen to officers tell us what a great life the services offered a bright lad. Some even believed it.
Towards the end of my first year I spent a few days at RAF Uxbridge, where I won a medal for the high jump and placed in two other events at the national ATC athletic championships. This was why I had joined the ATC 12 months earlier, so, having fulfilled my obligation to win something for our corps, I quit and went back to civilian life with the thanks of the commanding officer, who was also our physics master.
Being a cadet in England is nothing like being a child soldier in other countries, even though both may carry rifles when on parade. I joined the ATC because I wanted to help our corps win a medal or two at the nationals, but I found that I actually enjoyed my time as an air cadet. And when I quit, with my psyche intact (I think), I felt I had matured more in that year than most of my teenage friends who were not cadets.
Of course, WWII had finished only 15 years earlier, so the mores of the age were different. We lived under the threat of a nuclear attack and were glad of the chance to prepare in some way to defend our country. Our loyal aspirations, and the hopelessly inadequate training we received, gave us entry into the world of our fathers and grandfathers, who fought on beaches in Normandy and Sicily, and in Belgian trenches. We fired our grandfathers’ rifles and tore down our fathers’ light machine guns, and thought we would save the future from war by being ready to wage it, albeit with old-fashioned weapons, spit and polish, and parade-ground discipline.
Not much different, I suppose, from the cadets of today, but a world away from the child soldiers the Plymouth ruling thinks ill-informed people might confuse them with.
