Stanley Clegg

I am Stanley Clegg, ex-sergeant Royal Air Force, No 1750485. After taking a course in codes and ciphers, at the Government Code and Cypher school in Oxford, I found myself posted to RAF Church Green in Bletchley, which is now universally known as Bletchley Park.

I arrived at Bletchley Park in 1943 with three other RAF sergeants. It was lunchtime and we were taken to the dining hall, which was in what we called the ‘Big House’. I was nineteen years old, born in Oldham, a working-class cotton town. People in Oldham didn’t have gardens in which to grow vegetables and flowers so my knowledge of vegetables was a bit sparse. A buffet lunch was served. My colleague and I searched around the array of different foods and we spied these six-inch long stems with funny tips. My friend, a Sheffield man, enquired “what is that?” I replied “search me”. The mystery was solved when a young Wren with an upper-class accent said, “That’s an asparagus”. Whenever I see asparagus or have grown it in my garden, my thoughts go back to that first experience of it in wartime.

At Bletchley Park I was initiated into the knowledge of Enigma and became one of the small cogs in the Ultra story. It is true to say that as I became more involved in the work I knew more about the Germany Army than I did of the British Army. Although I was in the Royal Air Force, I spent most of my service life in various Headquarters, British and American, in North Africa, Italy, Corsica and various other places on the near continent.

My story, however, is about an act of kindness carried out by an Englishman from Batley who I met in Vittel, a small spa town in the Vosges area of France, situated between Dijon and Nancy. Most people will never have heard of Vittel; to others it will be the name on a bottle of mineral water. To me it is an experience I will never forget, a meeting with a stranger and an act of kindness.

In early October 1944 I was part of a signal intelligence unit (Special Liaison Unit) attached to the American 6th Army Group (US 3rd, 7th Armies, and the French 1st Army) under the command of General Devers. We had landed at Frejus on the southern French coast on 15th August 1944, undertaking Operation Dragon (Anvil). We had moved up the Rhone Valley through Avignon, Valence, and Dijon in the wake of the 7th Army and we were making our way to Vittel. I was in the forward vehicle as we approached Vittel and I had been told to make our way to the Hotel de l’Ermitage, where we were to make our forward headquarters.

About half mile form Vittel I had stopped to check the map when I saw a man approaching us. He was small and wearing riding breeches. Coming from a very working class background in Lancashire it was the first time I had seen anybody wearing riding breeches. As he approached, and assuming he was French, I put my head through the machine-gun turret on the vehicle and prepared to speak to him. ‘Bonjour Monsieur, Hotel de l’Ermitage s’il vous plait”. Imagine my surprise when in broad Yorkshire he replied: “Aye lad. Straight up this road under t’bridge and take first on t’reet and th’all see t’hotel on the reet”. For those not familiar with the Yorkshire accent of the time: “Follow the road, under the bridge, turn right and the Hermitage is on the right”.

At this point I had to enquire “who are you?” His reply was “I was a jockey and in 1940 I was racing in Paris when the German Army broke through and unfortunately I couldn’t get back to England. I had to report to the German Authorities and they sent me to Vittel where I have been during the past several years. Vittel is an alien’s camp. You’ll have a surprise when you get there, lots of people, different nationalities, and lots of barbed wire enclosures”. He was correct; we were all surprised.

Two or three days later I met our jockey again. He said, “I’m off back to England tomorrow. Give me your parents’ address and I’ll do my best to visit them” He came from Batley in Yorkshire and I was a Lancastrian from Oldham.

Having been abroad for some time: Africa, Italy and the near continent, I was one of the first BLA troops to come back to Blighty on leave, in January 1945. I had been at home for several days when my mother said: “Oh! I meant to tell you. A little chap from Batley came to see us. He said he had seen you in Vittel”.

I have always been sorry that we never knew the stranger’s name or address. I would give anything to thank him.