War Years

A Memory of Modbury.

Born in 1938 in Modbury, I can remember the latter years of World War II.

I remember vividly the nights during the months of the heavy blitz on Plymouth, with the beams from searchlights that were based just outside the town criss-crossing the sky as German bomber formations droned overhead.

The American forces had an army camp in a field across from Modbury School and as a youngster I used to wander through the camp and GIs would give us sweets or chewing gum. The roads were lined with trucks and tanks preparing for the build-up to the Normandy invasion and the villagers used to volunteer for rehearsals by lying in the streets as casualties to be carried off to first aid stations.

In the evenings, some of the GIs would sneak into town and come to our home. My sister Peggy would sometimes play the piano for them and they would bring canvas bags of goodies for me and my sister. At Christmas time the children in the village were scooped into US army trucks and taken off to a camp for a Christmas party. We all had to bring our own mugs!

My mother would occasionally take me to Bigbury-on-Sea and I remember clearly one day the lines of American GIs wading out to landing craft with their rifles held above the heads as they practised embarkation. I remember the soldiers marching out of Modbury in single file on each side of the road towards the coast and the tanks traversing the sharp bend into New Road. One of the tanks hit and damaged the wall of the Red Devon Inn.

I remember seeing open army trucks carrying prisoners of war with a jeep escort front and back covering the prisoners who were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind their backs. Toward the end of the war some prisoners would walk into the town and sell toys they had made.

On VE Day there was a big bonfire on the Green opposite the school with people singing and dancing in front of it.

I think it was once a week when we would have a cinema show in the upstairs function room of the Red Devon Inn. We all sat on wooden benches and waited expectantly as reels were changed for the next part of the film.

I will never forget those early years in Modbury.

Roger Stevens (son of Sydney and Ethel Stevens).

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