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Sydney Partridge, born in 1922 in London, recollects some of his memories of the War.
'The Second World War began for Britain on 3rd September 1939 on expiry of the Anglo-French ultimatum to Germany, after the latter invaded Poland two days earlier. Poland was defeated within a few days, having been invaded from the west and east almost simultaneously by Germany and Russia, following the insincere 'Non-Aggression Pact' between those two countries. Germany also occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia without much difficulty. The Munich Agreement of autumn 1938 between Britain, France, Germany and Italy had not lasted for as long as 12 months.
As a side issue, Russia invaded Finland at about the same time (apparently to give greater protection to the Russian port of Leningrad, in the event of a later conflict between Russia and Germany). However, the terrible winter weather and the tough terrain made Finland a 'tough nut to crack' and it took many months for Russia to defeat Finland.
The war in the West started quietly. Britain sent an expeditionary force (the B.E.F.) to France, but there was no immediate warfare. The French army sat behind the 'Maginot Line' of forts, anti-tank defences subterranean tunnels, etc which stretched along the French border from Switzerland to Belgium, but it did not extend along the Belgian border to the Channel coast, and so it could be easily passed. The 'Phoney War' continued until May 1940. At sea the Germans sank the passenger liner 'Athenia' which had some child evacuees on board en route to USA, and this created much resentment, of course.
Germany had begun the war with three heavily armed 'pocket battleships' called 'Graf Spee', 'Admiral Sheer' and 'Prinz Eugen'. Although smaller than conventional battleships, they had more powerful guns than a 'normal' warship of their size, so were called 'pocket battleships'.
As 'raiders' they had the power to threaten our Atlantic conveys, as well as our Royal Navy ships of similar size. So it was with great relief that the 'Graf Spee' was tracked by three RN vessels ('Exeter, 'Ajax' and 'Achilles') in the South Atlantic and after some gunfire in the estuary of the River Plate, the 'Graf Spee' sought refuge in the neutral port of Monte Video (Uruguay). A few days later, while the three British ships waited for her to come out, the Germans scuttled her.
This was a great boost to British morale and when the three ships arrived back in the U.K. a few months later; they were given the honour of marching through the City of London to a reception at the Guildhall. The latter was not far from my office and I happened to walk there and saw Winston Churchill (the Minister responsible for the Navy) in his official car turn into the Guildhall's courtyard. I was within four to five feet of Churchill himself (who, a few months later, became Prime Minister for the rest of the war).'
I wouldn't have thought many people could claim to have seen Churchill in the flesh.
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