Brechin - World War II
1939 - 1946
(by Eric Wm. Walker)
With the threat of war from Nazi Germany, Brechin, like other cities and towns in the British Isles, had to take precautions against air attacks and invasion.
Brick built air raid shelters were built in various parts of the town - in school playgrounds, outside the factories of D. & R. Duke, Smart's Valley Works, Summerbank Lane, and Montrose Street (where the old peoples Sheltered Housing now stands). The remains of some can still be seen.
At each end of the closes leading from the street to the rear of the dwelling houses, piles of sandbags were erected about eight feet high by eight feet wide so that people could enter the close and be protected from bomb blasts in the event of an air raid.
House, shop and factory windows were criss-crossed with sticky brown paper, similar to masking tape, to prevent injuries from flying glass. Frames covered by black felt were fixed over windows at night so that no lights would be visible to enemy aeroplanes. Air raid wardens were appointed to check the security of the blackout and they also carried whistles, handbells to warn of gas attacks, and wooden rattles to warn of mustard gas attacks.
In the event of mustard gas being dropped there were buildings allocated where people affected could go to be washed down with water. One such building was the small stone building on the end of the Doctor's Dam at the bottom of Market Street. Until a few years ago the sign showing it was a Decontamination Centre, a black circle with a yellow stripe crossing it, was still visible.
The entire population was issued with gas masks, even babies had respirators into which they could be placed in the event of a gas attack.
At strategic places in larger buildings, etc., stirrup pumps were placed. These were small hand pumps with a length of hose attached which were placed in a bucket of water to enable small fires to be extinguished and also to quench the fires from incendiary bombs. There were also buckets of sand with scoop-shaped shovels to be used to extinguish the incendiary bombs.
The issue of gas masks, stirrup pumps, etc., was done by the officials of the A.R.P (Air Raid Precautions). The main headquarters were at the old Fire Department Buildings in Southesk Street and at the school which stood in Union Street, where the modern dwelling houses now stand (across from the small provisions shop).
Workers in the factories had to take turns at staying in their factories overnight and would be up on the rooftops in the case of an incendiary bomb attack. The younger factory workers were up on the roofs before darkness fell to fix the blackout frames over the roof lights and up in the morning to remove them. For this, a weekly sum of 2/6d (12.5p)was added to their weekly wage.
The local Defence Volunteers, later to be renamed the Home Guard, was formed to help defend the country during the expected German invasion, codename Operation Sealion. In the event of this the church and school bells were to be rung to call out troops, Home Guard, etc. and so warn the population.
The men of the Home Guard were made up of those who were in reserved occupations vital to the war effort and men who were too old for military service. The Home Guard was no "Dad's Army" as portrayed on the television programme of that name. Some of the men had served in South Africa during the Boer War and many had seen action in the 1914-18 war in the great battles of Ypres, the Somme, Beaumont Hamel, Passchendale, Gallipoli, etc. One of my relations who had served in the Black Watch in World War I was covered over the upper part of his body by bullet and shrapnel wounds. He was a sergeant in the Home Guard during World War II. So there were many men who had experienced battle and indeed had more experience of fighting than the regular armies and would have given a good account of themselves. In the days after the evacuation of Dunkirk arms and ammunition were scarce and in some cases the Home Guard had only wooden rifles to practice with. Once the war effort got going and there were more arms and armaments the wooden rifles were passed on the the Army Cadet Force.
The practice firing range and the bayonet practice targets were beside the Southesk River at Stannochy, a place that has been used for practice since the time of the Forfarshire Volunteer Regiment which was formed during the threat to Britain by Napolean.
The Royal Observer Corps manned a position where they looked and listened for enemy aircraft. This was at the site of the white stone trig height point on the right-of-way one hundred yards to the north of the direction indicator which stands in the grounds north of Brechin High School. It was opposite the now disused metal atomic bomb shelter in the field there. I remember two Miles Majester planes crashing in the air, one falling near Little Brechin and the other smashed into the field beside the observer post.
There were, of course, the air raid sirens placed on top of the various buildings throughout the city which would give out a long wailing noise with a varied pitch to alert people that an air attack was imminent and would give out a steady pitched wailing noise when the danger was over.
All shop signs and other signs bearing the word Brechin, eg. Brechin United Cooperative Society, Brechin Library, etc. had the word Brechin removed. All the milestones on the roads from Brechin to Montrose, Brechin to Arbroath, etc. had the names of the towns and the distances chiselled out. These can still be seen by the roadsides. All signs at road junctions were also removed. The reason for this was to prevent any enemy agent or troops from finding their way about the country easily. The strange thing was that the old street light standards, which were replaced in the 1950s and were never lit during the war, had "City of Brechin" cast into their crossbars and these were never covered up.
At the start of the war there was a great need for scrap metal for war materials and the iron railings round St. Ninians Square, the Public Park, private dwellings (especially along Latch Road), around schools (look at the walls in front of Maisondieu School) were cut off with acetylene torches and taken away. The bottoms of the railings are still embedded in the walls. The large bronze cannon in Brechin Cemetery which was captured at Sebastopol in the Crimean War was also taken.
There were many fortifications and strategic positions around Brechin to repel any impending attack both from air or land. The flat fields around Kinnaird, Kincraig and Dun Farms had wooden posts about ten feet high embedded in the ground to help destroy any enemy gliders, carrying troops, which may have tried to land. All the bridges crossing the river Southesk, the Stannochy and Brechin Bridge had huge concrete blocks placed at each end of the bridge to narrow the road. Holes were also made in the roads for the insertion of large iron beams. The beams lay at the sides of the road and the holes in the road had blocks of wood inserted to keep the road level. The concrete blocks and iron beams were to be used to prevent or delay military vehicles and tanks from crossing the bridges. In the embankments at each end of the road were barrels of inflammable oil which could be set alight by gunfire or hand grenades and so further impede the Germans. At each entrance to the city, Trinity Road railway bridge, the East Toll Bridge beside Queens Park, the West Toll, the Banks of Brechin, the brick built railway bridge at the end of Park Road, similar precautions were taken. There were also camouflaged machine gun and mortar positions dug into the earth at firing distance from the bridges and road junctions, some of which can still be seen.
There were many restrictions in the area during World War II. When you travelled to Montrose by the bus it would be stopped at a fortified "pill box" by armed soldiers. One of them would come onto the bus and check each person's identity card which contained the person's name, address and other particulars along with their identity number. My number was SRNG.89.5. The same happened at the other entrances to the town and at the railway station.
Montrose beach was mainly restricted to the public as much of it had land mines buried in the sand to repel invading troops. There were also artillery gun emplacements pointing out to sea which can still be identified.
Lunan Bay was heavily fortified and protected by "pill boxes", tanks, mines, barbed wire, etc. due to it being ideally suited for an enemy seaborne landing. The longships of the Norsemen landed here in 1012 and burned and looted Montrose and Brechin.
Montrose with its aerodrome and docks would have been an ideal area to capture and hold to establish a secure base for invasion troops. Brechin with its two munition factories - the Coventry Gauge & Tool Company and the Tecalemit Works - Stracathro Hospital, Edzell Aerodrome, would all have been vital targets.
The Cairn O'Mount road from Fettercairn to the north of Scotland via Banchory and on to the Moray Firth was heavily defended as it was feared that an invasion on the Moray Firth and the area to the south could lead to a link up of the German armies which could have divided Scotland and its armies in two.
There were lots of propaganda posters telling people to be careful not to talk of matters concerning the war effort. One poster was "Careless talk costs lives" which showed a soldier and a civilian talking and one of our ships or aircraft being destroyed by the enemy as a result of what had been said. Another poster displayed in a bar or barber shops stated "NEVER in a bar or barber shop talk of ships or ships' crews. The enemy may be listening". On this one a serviceman and civilian were seen talking and around the corner of a nearby building was the head of Adolf Hitler, the Fuhrer (leader) of Germany, with one of his ears shaped like that of a donkey and listening carefully to what was being said. These posters are now prized items amongst collectors of wartime memorabilia.
Troops came and went in Brechin. The Polish Infantry were billeted in the North Port Distillery and in Glencairn House in Infirmary Street where they had their radio station. Some of the officers had horses and wore beautiful uniforms with square topped and peaked caps. The tops of the caps were red, green or otherwise, depending on what division they belonged to. As we were boys at this time (1940) we used to go along to the billets mentioned above and do messages for them, sweep out their quarters and around four o'clock in the afternoon would sit at the long wooden mess tables with the Poles. We would stand up and , after the Polish National Anthem was sung, we would have a meal along with the troops.
Some of the Polish troops who were in Brechin went on to take the great monastery of Monte Casino in Italy from the Nazi S.S. (Schutz Staffein). The hill on which the monastery was built was heavily defended and was holding up the whole allied advance. After troops from most of the allied armies had tried and failed to dislodge the S.S. the Poles finally took over the position. It is said that this was in revenge for what the Germans had done to Poland and Warsaw, their capital city.
There were other regiments who stayed in Brechin, sometimes for months at a time. The Black Watch, the Manchester Regiment with their mountain equipment - skis, and sledges with machine guns mounted on them - the Commando regiments who were billeted in the church halls of Maisondieu, St. Columbas, the Episcopalian church, and also with families in the town.
The old High School gymnasium hall was a commando billet with fifty, and up to eighty, men sleeping on one inch thick mattresses lined around the walls and up the middle of the floor. Their weapons - rifles, bayonets, Bren guns - were by their bedsides along with their other items of kit. We followed the commandos on their marches and manoeuvres around Brechin except to the rifle range. We helped to sweep the billets, went for any messages and at times ate along with them out of army dixies (metal folding plates). In the evenings they would clean their kit and weapons and the gymnasium hall reeked of the smell of gun oil and khaki kit blanco. They laughed and sang the favourite songs of the time - White Cliffs of Dover, Yours, She'll be comin' round the mountain - to the accompaniment of one commando called Rocky who played the banjo. There was Joe Carver, Big McGhee, Buddy, Hugh Wallace, Sergeant McAdam, an officer called the "mountain goat" as a joke by his men because of his fondness for training them on the hills and mountains. Many of them never survived the war, some being killed on the raids at Dieppe, some on the attack on General Rommel's headquarters during the African Campaign, some on the beaches of Normandy. All young men from the age of eighteen to thirty-five and all fit happy-go-lucky and fearless. When I walk past the old gymnasium in Maisondieu Lane I think of my pals and I sharing a lot of happy times with the commandos and of the songs they sang during the six months there and how, being commandos, they must have known that many of them of would only have a short time left. It is a part of my life I will always wish to remember.
On the Arbroath road about four miles from Brechin there are woods on either side at a small cottage named Red Den. There in the woods during World War II was the "Canadian Camp" which was a Canadian army barracks complex housing the soldiers of the Canadian Forestry Corps. The huts which they built with wooden boards cut at the sawmill were fitted out with wooden bunks and self-made furniture. The large officers' hut was a log cabin with a huge stone fireplace. The men themselves were mostly Canadian lumberjacks recruited into the army - white Canadians, black Canadians, and even four Canadian Red Indians, two of whom were brothers and both huge men. There was a camp cookhouse, the concrete base for the large iron wood-fuelled stoves and the officers' air raid shelter now the only trace of the camp left. Large pancakes made in the cookhouse and spread with maple syrup were really good to eat. Unfortunately a tragedy occurred at the camp. A young black Canadian was killed and his body found in the woods. He had some months before showed us a picture of his girlfriend whom he intended to marry after the war ended. He was a really nice person and his death was very saddening.
Nearby the Canadian Camp was a radio station manned by the Royal Signal Corps and three miles further on was the wartime Royal Air Force station at Kinnell. Italian and German prisoners of war were later kept in camps near Kinnell and taken out by lorries guarded by British soldiers to work in the fields of the farms around Brechin. The prisoners were dressed in dark brown British Army type tunics and trousers with round patches of different colours sewn on to their clothing. The colours depicted the category of each prisoner. Eventually they were allowed to work and live on the farms and the Germans were here until 1949. Some of them eventually married local girls and became part of the local community. Some of the prisoners were skilled and would engrave, using self-made hand tools, initials, maps, and pictures onto cigarette lighters or cigarette cases, and others would make shopping bags and straw slippers which they would sell to make extra money for themselves. Eventually by 1948 some would come to the Saturday evening dances at the Temperance Hall and, with the war being over for three years, became friendly with us - even some who had served in the S.S. They would show us the tattooed A, B, or O on the underside of their left arms. This was to denote their blood group as the S.S. were considered the elite of the German army and would enable them to give blood to wounded comrades during a battle.
After the D-Day landings in France, June 1944, long railway trains of carriages with red crosses painted on top arrived at Brechin railway station with wounded men brought back across the Channel and up from the south of England. they were bound for treatment in Stracathro Hospital which was built as a wartime hospital. The men were helped or carried by stretcher into the waiting dark green army ambulances which were lined right up Southesk Street and ran a shuttle service to the hospital and back to the station with wounded men - British, American, French, German and other nationalities. Later on, at the weekends, the streets of Brechin were crowded with men in army, air force, and navy uniforms and also the royal blue uniforms of the war wounded.
Many times during the war there were various fund raising events. There were special weeks, eg. Warship Week, Wings of Victory week, War Weapons Week, Salute to the Soldier Week. Displays of military equipment were shown in various halls and fund raising events were held in Brechin Castle grounds where many articles were sold or raffled for the war effort. Troops also gave displays and there were various backgreen concerts given by people in the town, especially by the very talented and humorous Vetesse brothers, with Abby playing the "Sheik of Arabe" and other roles. The singing and dancing was enjoyed by the local people of Montrose Street, Queens Park, and other areas and lots of money was collected to help the war effort. At one time, a German Messerschmitt fighter plane was on show at "the Cross" in the High Street and money was collected from the crowds viewing it.
As the war went on the news that some members of our families and of young men, only a few years older than ourselves and who had gone to the same school as ourselves, had lost their lives serving in the forces and was very sad. Some wives who had lost their husbands in the First World War also received the letter that their sons had died in this war - some in Europe, some in Africa, and others far away in the jungles and prison camps in Burma.
There was of course no television in those days (the first television programmes were seen in Brechin in early 1952). There was however the newspapers and the latest news coming across the airwaves by radio, or wireless as it was more commonly known then.
At times it was announced that our Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, would be speaking on the wireless after the late evening news and this was a great attraction. Whole families and friends would gather in the sitting room and listen to our war leader giving his morale boosting talks. Probably the greatest orator ever, he gave the people of Britain inspiration to work together for the war effort.
Another master of the spoken word was Quentin Reynolds, an American war correspondent who stayed in Britain all during the war. With Britain alone against the Germans after the fall of Dunkirk, he assured the world that Britain would carry on the fight and, during the bombing of London, he spoke of the women there putting the great women of Sparta, the ancient civilisation, to shame by their heroism.
Another great orator was the British traitor William Joyce, known by all the British people as "Lord Haw Haw", who broadcast propaganda programmes frequently over the wireless. People would listen during the evening for his opening announcement "Germany calling. Germany calling. This is Germany calling on the forty-one metre band". He would then go on to try and break the spirit of the British people (his own nation) by telling them lies about ships that had been sunk, men that had been killed, great numbers of British and American planes which had been shot down, and what would happen if we continued the war against Germany. He tried to break the spirit of the British people but was, in fact, regarded as a comic figure. He paid for his treachery by being hanged after the war ended.
Music was a great morale booster during World War II. The songs of Vera Lynn and Anne Shelton, and the big band sounds, especially of the American bands such as Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman due to the American forces joining in the war, were listened and danced to all over the country.
In Brechin there were dances in the all the halls every week at the Coventry Gauge and Tool Co. Hall (now the Matrix), the Tecalemit Hall, Temperance and Masonic Temple Halls, and many other venues including the large canteen hut at the Canadian Camp.
There were many voluntary organisations which gave valuable service during the war eg. the V.A.D. (Voluntary Aid Detachments), the Red Cross, the W.R.I. (Womens Royal Institute), and Y.W.C.A. Canteens were run where troops could go in the evening for tea and sandwiches. Lots of Brechin women were in the services, the A.T.S., the W.R.N.S., the W.A.A.F.S., the Womens Land Army, and Womens Timber Corps. Many women worked in the Coventry Gauge and Tool Co. and the Tecalemit works on gear cutting machines and turning lathes making engineering parts for military equipment and weapons, in the weaving factories making canvas for tents and army vehicles. Finding employment was not a problem, indeed some people had more than one job. It was an offence not to have a job in some cases.
Food, clothing, and sweets were all rationed. Alcoholic drinks were scarce as all distilleries and breweries were closed. There was no fresh fruit from abroad and occasionally a tin of fruit could be obtained by using some of the precious "points" coupons from your ration books. Foods such as Spam and powdered dried eggs were also available on "points". Eggs could be obtained by cycling around the country farms at weekends. Some farmers would sell you half a dozen or a dozen eggs. It was an offence to buy or sell them as an egg was only meant to be obtained by using your ration book. I well remember going to Duns Dish on two occasions for gull's eggs which had a darker yolk but tasted all right.
The fish van from Gourdon would come up to Brechin on Saturdays and we would cycle two miles to the end of Kincraig Farm road at 8 o'clock on Saturday mornings. A group of people would wait for the man there to make sure they got fresh fish which was off the ration. If he came he would only stop at Kincraig and at the East Toll near Queens Park before the fish were sold out. Fish was not rationed and there were usually dried fish in the shops which could be bought and from which "hairy tatties" could be made. The hard salty fish was boiled, cut up and mixed with potatoes. A rabbit purchased from one of the local poachers in Montrose Street was a welcome addition to the menu. Most gardens were turned over to a vegetable patch and some small gardens where I lived in montrose street even kept hens to give a supply of eggs. People were encouraged to turn their plots into vegetable gardens by the slogan "Dig for Victory" which appeared on billboards and in newspapers.
Jam making was popular due to jam being rationed and trips to the Edzell area to pick "blaeberries" and also to the country areas around the town to pick brambles. many people with apple, pear, or plum trees sold their fruit to local people for jam or preserving.
The fish and chip shops always managed fairly well to supply the population. Because there was a shortage of paper you either took a dish to carry your fish supper in, or it was wrapped in newspaper with no white paper separating it from the print. There were areas for collecting newspaper and all waste paper. This was mainly done by Boy Scouts and a 'salvage campaign' badge was added to your uniform after collecting a certain quota. Maps were all meant to be handed in for security reasons during the war and I remember, while a pupil at bank Street School, receiving the strap six times, along with two of my friends, for being in possession of two old maps we had found amongst the school's collection of waste paper.
Cigarettes were very scarce during the war. Smoking then was not considered to be the very dangerous habit which it is now. The only people who had plentiful supply of cigarettes were the soldiers at the Canadian Camp who got theirs from Canada. In Brechin, people considered themselves lucky to be able to purchase ten cigarettes. One lady who had a small grocery and tobacconists shop would sometimes give you five Woodbine and five "pasha" which were Eastern cigarettes with a strong flavour. Anyone smoking these in the King's or Regal cinemas would bring shouts of complaint from some members of the audience. The same lady, when cigarettes were not so plentiful, and you asked of her "Any fags?" would shout "Get yer fags whar ye get yer messages!" (groceries).
Soldiers coming home on leave would have a special ration card and the butcher from whom our family purchased our meat would only make it appear he was stamping the meat coupons - thus enabling our family member in the forces to procure a second allowance during his leave period. He did this for any serviceman whose family was rationed with him.
Coal was rationed but at times an extra bag could be procured from the coalman. The use of cars was drastically reduced during the war. Few working people owned one, the main vehicles being convoys of military vehicles - lorries, tanks, bren gun carriers - usually heading through Brechin to the east coast areas. torch batteries were in very short supply and it was really very difficult on a pitch black night with no lights showing at all showing due to the blackout. One shopkeeper would only sell you new batteries if you purchased a torch.
Ladies stockings were very scarce and some girls, when dressed for dancing, would have their legs dyed with a light brown dye (some say cocoa) and a fine line drawn down the back of the leg with an eyebrow pencil to look like a seam of the stocking.
Brechin Railway Station was always busy with local men and women in the forces coming home on leave and going back to their units. For some of these young people the last sight they ever had of Brechin would have been Queens Park and the berry fields of Leuchland where they had worked on peaceful summer days only a year or two before. The train sped on towards Montrose and for some of its passengers the eventual destination was the battlefields of Europe, Burma, the High Seas, or the conflict in the skies.
This article is only a brief history of what happened in and around Brechin during World War II. There is much, much more to be told and it should be recorded having been a very interesting, sometimes happy, and at times very sad, part of our history.