Beneath the Beret of Jack Waterfield
- Andy Barker
- Nov 14
- 6 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
The shadow of war, call-up, and the billet shuffle (1938–1941). A History Blog.
Lined up waiting to march past the Cenotaph, golden leaves falling around us in the unusually mild November sun, around 20 veterans from World War Two took their place at the head of our column. We are watching military history.
In 1938, some 92 years previously, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain flew into Hendon in a Lockheed Electra and held aloft the slip of paper promising “peace in our time.” Jack Waterfield remembers the feeling: peace was already fraying. By 1939, the “real war” arrived in ordinary homes. Gas masks were issued to every household. Anderson shelters were dug into gardens. Air Raid Precautions became a way of life.
We're sat in the library of a modern care home looking out across what was once fields as far as the eye can see but is now one of the many new housing estates cropping up across the UK's green fields. 104 years old, but looking no more than 80, Jack’s voice cuts through with sharp, unvarnished clarity. "The RAF dropped leaflets over Germany", he jokes. They probably told people how “naughty they were to cheer Hitler.”
Wellington bombers (“Wimpeys”) flew daylight raids against the German coast and were torn apart by Messerschmitt Bf 109s. Early Wimpeys carried Vickers K guns and poor turrets; the better Fraser-Nash turrets would come later. Losses mounted. The Air Ministry seemed to wonder why.
Jack doesn’t dress it up.
The “Phoney War” settled over Europe until May 1940, when Germany smashed through France, Belgium, and Holland. Dunkirk followed.
Winston Churchill replaced Neville Chamberlin and steeled the nation. Jack joined the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV), the forerunner of the Home Guard. “Dad’s Army,” he calls it, with affection and wry humour. Everyone was expected to do their bit.
He did.
The call-up arrives
On 10 April 1941, Jack’s call-up lands. RAF Form 3150 confirms his enlistment into the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve for the duration of the emergency. His identity solidifies into a number: 1525999 “the last of that series.” He remembers 1526000 belonged to Eric Worthington from Birmingham. The paper instructs him not to leave his civilian job until told. There will be no pay until he’s on permanent service. Ten days’ notice, they say.
That number 1525999 becomes part of him.
Years later, under interrogation in Palestine, he still recites it instinctively, alongside his ID card number, 1934650. In uniform, numbers are memory anchors as much as identifiers.
Padgate: first shock of service
The journey begins with a train to Padgate, near Warrington, alongside two men from home: Bert Eads and Ron Howells. The camp, built on a rubbish tip, hits Jack like a wall. Hundreds assemble on the parade ground to shouting NCOs. Money is issued. Service numbers are given. He thinks he’ll never remember his own, then does.
The chaos is immediate. Half the men are told to stand aside and remain; the other half, including Jack, are sent to collect travel warrants and go home. Relief washes in. “What a ghastly place,” he writes. “Gloomy huts and Warrington a dirty place to match.” Padgate will one day be an industrial estate. In 1941, it is a grim overture to war.
Blackpool and Morecambe: marching through a holiday town
On 19 May 1941, Jack reports to Blackpool. The station under the Tower churns with uniform and confusion. Shouting NCOs bark “Get fell in,” herding recruits through streets thick with holidaymakers to billets in commandeered B&Bs, 31 Melbourne Street among them.
The Winter Gardens becomes a machine for processing airmen. Recruits line up at the “India Lounge” and “Leopold Grove” entrances. Inoculations and vaccinations “same needle” leave them ill enough that a day’s recovery is granted. Ill-fitting uniforms dig into shoulders. New boots grate at heels. Jack absorbs orders: “Left, Right, Left,” “Salute on the march.” On the promenade, they drill amid crowds, weaving past civilians who came for sea air, not army cadence.
Small economies matter. A local civilian cobbler shines buttons for sixpence, time saved is sanity saved. The tailor will refit uniforms later. At first, it looks like this is where they’ll train. It isn’t.
Billets are shuffled like cards: General Street, Albert Road, then uprooted entirely. Wwe shouldn’t be in Blackpool at all, but in Morecambe.” Jack and his mates are placed at 2 Sandilands Promenade under Mrs. Snape. Mr. Snape “lived under the stairs,” an image Jack remembers because it was odd, true, and human.
They finally drill with Lee–Enfield rifles stamped “Drill purpose only.” Commands flicker through muscle memory: “Slope arms,” “Present arms,” “Order arms,” “Port arms.” He calls it “a war-winning exercise,” not because rifle drill wins wars, but because discipline and unity do.
Nights offer respite. Blackpool Tower opens for dancing, free for servicemen. A church hall in Morecambe becomes the social centre: Ron Howells takes to the piano; local girls come and go; the nearby ATS camp draws its own gravity. Jack’s humour sits beside sincerity. He knows people were finding company wherever they could, under indistinct timelines.
People you can see
Names anchor Jack’s world:
Eric Worthington of Birmingham, service number 1526000 appears again and again, steady and competent.
Ron Howells of Northampton. Pianist, friend, constant companion during billets and early training.
Bert Parsons of Lancaster—sly enough to dodge Service Police on the main road to slip home without getting caught.
Sgt. Corless, a Liverpudlian NCO, firm, fair, memorable.
Clarke, the quiet man in the hut who kneels to pray aloud at lights-out. Laughter fades to silence, then “Amen.” Jack calls it “one of the bravest acts I ever saw.”
A Black recruit from Liverpool “the only one I came across in the RAF until after the war.” Jack notices him keenly, remembers him warmly, and never forgets him.
There’s the older ex-WWI soldier over 40, “old” to younger men, who excels at drill and shoots straight at the range. During bayonet drill, he moves with the reflexes of combat and, by accident, stabs an NCO in the arm. The bayonets aren’t sharp, but the movement is real. For Jack, it’s a glimpse of how experience sits inside bodies. Persistent and sometimes dangerous.
There’s the NAAFI manager conscripted despite expectations. Not everyone thought they’d be called. War upended private assumptions as easily as it did public certainties.
Pass out: dignity won the hard way
Inspection day comes by the old jetty, the same place once used as a departure point to Ireland. A Group Captain leads a formal pass-out parade. Jack and Eric Worthington are detailed by their NCO to stand at pillars and present arms to the inspecting party as it approaches.
Jack is missing a dress belt. It’s a small thing that becomes a big thing precisely because inspection makes small things big. A recruit who “didn’t know how to march or drill” has been kept out of sight. Jack borrows his belt. Temporary dignity clipped into place. The two stand their posts, crisp and ready. Present arms. The Group Captain congratulates them on their smartness.
Jack remembers the belt going back to its owner. He remembers the moment of praise more. It’s not that ceremony defines a man, but that dignity under pressure reveals him.
The instruction to move on
The billet shuffling ends with a farewell to the local NCOs, Corporal and Sergeant Corless from Liverpool. The next chapter is Creden Hill, Herefordshire. The route will take Jack to a bell tent with straw bedding, a centre pole, and sleeping “feet to the pole” before it takes him to Hut 9 and nine weeks of learning every gun, turret, and piece of ammunition he’ll service until demobilisation.
He doesn’t know yet that his hands will align cannon mounts on Spitfires, set turrets on bombers, and haul bronze cleaning rods longer than a man; that he’ll be asked to solve problems seniors can’t; that he’ll haul signal pistols out of celebrations; that he’ll be marched into and out of interrogation rooms for producing the wrong miracle at the wrong time.
He only knows he’s moving, and he’s ready.
Jack's story continues in Beneath the Beret. A history blog from Fieldcrafting UK.
This is incredible. Thank you so much! Scott L Pileckas.