OLD AZURIANS
ASSOCIATION
AMAZING STORIES
There must be many as yet unpublished stories about the experiences of Old Azurians during World War 2, but there are a few examples that have come to light and give an insight into the varied and often harrowing times they went through. I humbly and respectfully present them here.
Clifford George Monk RAFVR
Monk, of 53 Downlands Avenue Worthing, received his DFC at the age of 23 in October 1945. He had completed two tours of operations during which he took part in many attacks on enemy road and rail transport and shipping. In May 1945 he led his flight in an attack on shipping in Kiel Bay. Despite intensive anti-aircraft fire he pressed home his attack at very low level and one enemy ship was destroyed and three others damaged. He had also completed numerous sorties against targets in the Middle East. He had always led his flight with great skill and determination and a fine fighting spirit which had been reflected in the high standard of operational efficiency maintained by his flight. (see more)
Lionel (Bill) Blake and Richard Peat were friends who played for the OAs in the season before the start of WW2 in 1939. Their paths separated after they joined up for service, Bill in the army and Richard in the RAF.
Blake, of 21 Beeches Avenue, became a sergeant in a searchlight unit of the Royal Artillery. At the time of the Dunkirk evacuation in May 1940 his unit was trying to reach the coast when it was overrun by the advancing Nazis and he was captured in May 1940 after taking part in the epic seige of Calais. He eventually ended up in Poland as a PoW in Stalag 8b. In civilian life he had worked in the Estate Agent business owned by his father.
School years 1924-
Peat, of 3 Offington Drive, became a sergeant pilot. His plane failed to return from a raid over Germany in September 1941. His parents were informed by telegram that he had been reported as missing, but he too turned up at Stalag 8b.
There was an extraordinary, and happy, ending to this story. Blake wrote to his wife telling her that his pal Richard had turned up in Stalag 8b and had updated him on local gossip and news of old boys from a visit to Worthing while he was on leave there six weeks previously. The pals were re-united!
​
Even more extraordinary was the fact that there was a third Old Azurian player in the same camp - Bombardier Geoffery Lloyd-Smith who was reported missing in July 1940. There seemed little hope of his survival given by other troops who had seen the lorry he was in destroyed by enemy gunfire. In fact he had been wounded and taken to a German prison hospital but this news, from the American Embassy in Berlin, did not reach his family until November that year. School years 1929-
The Telling brothers (With special thanks to Ted's son John who provided most of this material)
In 1940, during an air raid, Lance Bombardier John Telling was driving an army lorry through the town where he was stationed when a bomb exploded nearby and he was injured by a bomb splinter. Fortunately the injury was a minor one and he soon recovered from it after a short time in hospital. That episode was to pale into insignificance in comparison with what his younger brother Edward (Ted) was to undergo later.
Gunner Edward Telling, 113th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery related his experiences during the evacuation of Crete in his contribution to the sound archive of the Imperial War Museum. A compilation from this archive, including Ted’s contribution, was subsequently published in “Forgotten Voices of the Second World War” by Max Arthur:-
My CO called me up to his office and handed me over to an Australian officer and said ‘You are now seconded to the Australian Army, and you take your lorry.’ I drove back down to a small village called Kalivis, which is just near Suda, and the Aussies started to load my lorry with tents, guns, ammunition and food. When it got dark, the officer came and said to me, follow the lorry in front of you – no lights – no nothing. You just follow him and make sure you don’t lose sight of him.’ We went up this terrible road – it wasn’t a road as one knows it in England. It was gravel and pit-tar. We were winding up towards the White Mountains. The driver in front had told me ‘We are going to a place called Sphakia, but if you are taken prisoner or the Germans get to you, you forget this name and you never mention it, because this is where the evacuation is to take place.’
Early in the morning we came to a V in the mountains – and there was the blue Mediterranean. The convoy stopped and the officer said, ‘This is as far as we go. This is where the boats come in.’
The Aussies unloaded my lorry – and I fell asleep. The officer came and woke me up and said, ‘Your orders are to take your lorry back and run it over the edge – and make sure it’s destroyed – but if you wish to, go back and rejoin your unit.’ This meant a journey of about forty miles over this winding thing, with Germans buzzing overhead.
On my return to Suda Bay, my officer said you have done too much – you’re tired. Go up and have a rest.’ Of course, when I woke up, my lorry had gone, so I had to walk 45 miles back across the White Mountains. The journey on foot was absolutely appalling. We were all absolutely dead beat. I did a lot of cross-country running at school which enabled me to do this, but it was terror in itself, because as soon as we got onto a straight road, immediately we had Messerschmitts or dive bombers on our tail.
Some chaps walked as if they were on parade, and others collapsed at the side of the road and said, ‘Sod it.’ It was too much. You can’t fight and be bombed out of your mind for ten days, and then try to walk 45 miles without food, without water.
I made it to the boat. Throughout the journey back across the Med we were dive-bombed almost continuously. Once we got on the Glengyle, we were put down in the hold. A sailor sat at the top of the steps with a Tommy gun. He said, ‘Anyone that tries to get out, gets the lot.’ They were frightened of us being dive-bombed, and panicking and all trying to get out together.
We were bombed the next day and we all dived under a trestle table. We were all trying to get under a wooden table with a top about an inch thick – all trying to save ourselves from the dive-bombers.
Most men on Crete were so absolutely worn out, their minds had gone. There was no reason for what you did, really. When you’re dive-bombed, again and again, you see men blown apart, and you bury blokes – it’s so awful that you are no longer in control of the things you can do or think.
There is a sequel to this story:- Lance Bombardier John Telling had been sent to the Middle East in August 1942. One day, while he was having breakfast in a tent, his brother Ted burst in unannounced. He had asked for, and been granted, special leave to travel so that he could meet up with John. John was to subsequently see action at Salerno. Both brothers survived the war.
Able Seaman Martin "Nuts" Hazell
Is a good example of the fortunes of war sometimes acting in one's favour. He was one of two Worthing men who were members of the crew of HMS Hood who were taken off that ship a very short time before it was disastrously blown up when engaging the German battleship Bismarck. A few days before HMS Hood sailed on her final mission Martin Hazell had been working in one of Hood's magazines. He had been due to appear before an officer selection board the following month, but he was interviewed early, and was successful so he was sent home on leave a few days before the fatal encounter with Bismarck. At school Martin had been a prefect, vice captain of the rugby XV, and held colours for cricket, swimming, and athletics. Unsurprisingly he had been made Victor Ludorum.
Martin Downing Hazell born 21 January 1920. School years 1933-38.
Gunner Gordon Henry Kirby
Gunner Gordon Henry Kirby of 40 Cissbury Road Worthing had joined a RA Territorial unit before the war and was on active service from the start. He was a member of an anti-aircraft gun crew which shot down three Dornier 17 bombers within a minute during a raid on the south coast in 1940.
The crew had been in action most of the night and were resting when they were recalled to action stations. A German bomber formation came through cloud at 15,000 feet. The very first shell fired scored a direct hit on the leading plane and blew it to pieces. Another seven shells were fired and these brought two more planes down in flames. The German crews of the remaining planes must have thought that the reception they were getting was too hot for their liking for they turned tail and disappeared.
​
Kirby's parents lived at 40 Cissbury Road Worthing. In civilian life Gordon was in a builder's merchant business with his brother in Coulsdon. His younger brother Oliver held a commission in the Indian Army and, like Gordon, was an Old Boy of the school.
Flying Officer Clifford George Monk
He left school, after his father died, when he was only fifteen and a half, and joined the RAF soon afterwards. He did his initial training in England then completed his more advanced training in Canada, returning to England in March 1942 as a Flying Officer pilot. In March 1945 when flying a Typhoon fighter-bomber over the front line in which heavy fighting was taking place, he encountered flak and was forced to make a crash landing. He happened to land on an enemy machine-gun nest from which, much to his surprise, two German soldiers emerged and begged him to accept their surrender. In no time at all the two prisoners were calling out to their comrades urging them to surrender too, which, one by one, they did, until he had 32 prisoners on his hands. After marching his charges back towards the British lines he joined up with a British sergeant who accompanied him to headquarters. Monk said he then hitch-hiked back to base.
Born 10 October 1923 School years 1933-1939 Widowed mother lived at 53 Valencia Road West Worthing
Captain R P Simmons
Ronald Phillip Simmons was born in Worthing, and attended Worthing High School for Boys. He became a prominent player for the Old Azurians after he left school and eventually became a travelling representative for Huntley & Palmer the biscuit manufacturer.
While in India he received copies of the Worthing Herald which reached him by a remarkable route via the GPO, ship passage via the Mediterranean or round the Cape of Good Hope, a long train journey across India and finally on horseback (nicknamed the Pony Express) through the hill country. He was so impressed at being able to receive news from home in this fashion that he wrote to the Herald to tell them about it.
He married Edith Cramp in November 1939.
The Choate Brothers
The oldest brother Private Theodore Pearson Choate (Dave) of the RAOC, who had been captured in May 1940, was posted as missing and it was not known that he was a PoW in enemy hands until he wrote home from Stalag VIIIB in Germany on June 5 1940. He was an OA rugby player, an electrician by trade, who went to France with a mobile workshop unit at the outbreak of war.
Born 5/8/1918. School years 1931-1934. His son Andrew David joined the school in 1968
Trooper Frank Lawrence Choate of the Royal Armoured Corps. was reported missing on 19 July 1943. His CO wrote to his mother who lived at 10 Pavilion Road as follows:
"I am writing to offer my sincerest sympathies with you in the very sad news you will have received by now that your son is missing from action in Sicily. As you will know, he joined this unit at the end of hostilities in North Africa, and underwent a period of intensive training with us, at the end of which we set sail for Sicily.
​
For some days we chased the enemy across the island, and your son was acting as gunner in the troop-sergeant’s tank. Early one morning in July we all set out to continue the advance and quickly encountered the enemy. For some time his troop were shooting successfully at enemy positions, and when they seemed clear they moved slowly forward. Unfortunately, they were surprised by anti-tank guns to a flank and his tank was quickly hit. It was subsequently seen to burst into flames and the ammunition in the tank blew up.
​
Visibility was not good and it is not possible to say if the crew were successful in evacuating the tank before it blew up.
There were a number of enemy infantry in the vicinity at the time and there is a slender hope that the crew were able to leave the tank, and were subsequently taken prisoner. None of the crew returned to our lines."
​
He went on to explain that they were not able to examine the tank for some days, and when they did there was no sign of remains and that all John’s kit had been burned and there was nothing to return. However, very shortly after Mrs Choate received that letter, another letter dated 28 July 1943 directly from her son Frank arrived from a PoW camp in Italy showing that he was in fine spirits and was being well-treated.
He was in the school rugby 1st XV. As a civilian he was employed in the Town Clerk’s Dept at the town hall until 1942 when he joined up.
Born 23 Jan 1923 School years 1934-39
But that was not the end of the harrowing times for Mrs Choate:
Her youngest son John Derek Choate, after enlisting in REME in February 1941, transferred to the 6th Airborne Division in December 1943. He was in the leading group of paratroops over Normandy on D-Day and, being the first out of his plane, was the first Worthing man to go into action on that historic day. He was home on leave in March 1945 before going into action again in the advance over the Rhine bridgeheads. He was killed in that fighting on March 24 1945.
Lieutenant J. W. W. Williams RN (Air)
He was only 23 years old when he died, but the story of his short life in the Royal Navy deserves to be told here.
​
John Walter William Williams joined the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1938 after leaving school. He was the son of Mrs D V Jackson and step-son of Captain A F Jackson of the Royal Merchant Navy School Wokingham and of Worthing. Whilst training in HMS Worcester he went missing for eight days because he had attempted to join volunteers fighting in the Russo-Finnish War.
In 1940 he joined HMS Nelson as a midshipman, but a year later, now a sub-Lieutenant RNR, he volunteered for flying training in the Naval Air Arm. He then flew Hurricanes with 779 Squadron based at Gibraltar. On 11 August 1942 he had just landed on the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle when she was hit by three torpedoes fired by U-73 and she sank in only eight minutes, south of Majorca. Fortunately about 90% of her crew, including Lt. Williams, were saved.
He then joined 807 Squadron and saw front-line service aboard the aircraft carriers Furious, Indomitable, and Hunter in home waters and the Mediterranean, taking part in operations against the Bismarck, at Salerno, and at the invasion of the South of France. During the latter he had to make a forced landing in enemy territory but evaded capture, joined up with the Maquis, and fought with them during their advance through Cannes and Nice. By November Williams had been promoted to Lieutenant RN.
After the war had ended he had a short spell as a test pilot at Henstridge, near Yeovil, then, following a rest period, he passed through the School of Naval Air Warfare, being granted an extended commission in the Royal Navy Air branch.
His last appointment was as a flying instructor at the Naval Operational Training Unit, Eglinton, Northern Ireland. It was here, on 2 March 1946, at the age of 23, that he met his untimely and ironic end (considering everything that he had experienced in the preceding years). He was in collision with an aircraft flown by his friend sub-Lieutenant Hannam RNVR. Both pilots were killed. They were buried in St. Clanice churchyard, Fauchanvale, Northern Ireland.
​
J W W Williams born 18 January 1923. School years 1934-1937.