Alan Allport's website

Thursday, 23rd May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

The Times responds to the Foreign Secretary's news that a Polish Resettlement Corps will be created to demobilize emigre Polish troops who do not wish to return to their home country:

The absorption into the British community of numbers of men whose total, even without their families, considerably exceeds that of all refugees now in this country will present social, cultural, and economic problems in plenty. But the Polish soldiers are fit men in the prime of life, able to contribute their quota of hard and useful work to the reconstruction of the country which is to become their home. The sooner the Poles can pass through the rather ambiguous but honorable status they will possess as members of the Resettlement Corps, and emerge trained to take their place as ordinary members of the community in its ordinary work, the better for all concerned ...

Meanwhile, a reader writes to Anne Cuthbert in this month's Housewife complaining about the behavior of her five-year-old daughter. During her father's three-year absence overseas on active service the girl has been raised in her paternal grandparents' house, and has emerged spoiled and defiant: “instead of being friendly, she is suddenly very rude to all of us (including me) and spends most of her time pouting in a corner. The family criticize her openly …” Cuthbert suggests putting the daughter “in a really nice children’s hostel” until the father returns and they are ready to move to a house of their own.

Saturday, 18th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

A complaint about the rate of the Merchant Navy's demobilization reaches the Manchester Guardian from a reader in Alexandria:

Surely it is time that a change was made in the extremely unfair system of release applied to men who served with the Merchant Navy during the war. The principle is that a man whose release group has been reached may apply for discharge ‘on completion of his present agreement’. This agreement referred to is the contract with the shipowner which is undertaken at the commencement of each voyage, and is normally for a period of two years. This means, then, that a man whose release group is reached at any time after the commencement of a voyage may be called upon to complete up to two years abroad.

Wednesday, 15th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

A Manchester Guardian reader whose son, who has spent five years in the Middle and Far East and who is currently stationed at a transit camp in Egypt awaiting demob, comments on the repercussions of next month's Victory Parade in London:

[Quotes letter from son] “We are now at this place, which could more properly be called a ‘dump’. After 5.5 years overseas I have never seen anything like it – even in Burma – the food and service are frightful, whilst ordinary facilities don’t even exist. It seems very much in the air at present at to when we are likely to get away. We were told by one of the staff that we would have to be here for at least three weeks as the ‘victory parade’ personnel must have priority! It seems as though the question of our release is a minor detail and that we have served in the Territorials and right through the war all over the world for nothing.”

Wednesday, 8th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Lord Nathan, the under-secretary of state for war, assured the House of Lords yesterday that in future the separation of wives from their husbands serving in HM Forces overseas is to be reduced as much as possible, reports the Daily Herald.  The move has been prompted by the rapid rise in service divorces: 48,000 applications from servicemen still await a hearing, while it has been suggested that a further 200,000 marriages involving a soldier, sailor, or airmen are in peril. Speaking in the debate, Lord Elton recounted his experience as a prisoner-of-war in the 1914-1918 conflict. "Ever since then, I have been visited by a vivid and recurrent nightmare," he acknowledged: "I am again a prisoner of war. The war is endless, and I am irrevocably and wholly doomed to exile from my home and family. I always awake from it in acute mental agony."

LAC Brian Poole writes to his American penpal: “I’ve had some very grim news this week regarding demob. My trade is dropping behind in the general release numbers … that sort of smashes my hopes of being out in August into a thousand pieces.”

Tuesday, 7th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the German surrender, the Minister of Labour addressed a meeting at the Guildhall yesterday to report on the progress in resettling ex-servicemen and -women in civilian employment during the twelve months of peace in Europe, reports the Times. Mr. Isaacs had much to be pleased about; up to the end of March about 2,700,000 persons had been released from HM Forces, and it was expected that another 1.25 million would be out of uniform by the end of 1946. Isaacs spoke at some length about the special problems of disabled ex-servicemen. About 400,000 persons were listed on the official Ministry of Labour disabled register, and of those only 53,000 were still unemployed, 44,000 of whom were assumed to be able to compete in the insustrial labour market under ordinary terms.

Also in the Times: plans for the 8th June Victory Parade in London are in progress. More than 14,000 men will line the roads and direct traffic, including several thousands serving troops, RAF Police, and many reserve retired policemen who have volunteered for special duty.

Sunday, 5th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

The Attlee government is expected to make its long-awaited decision on peacetime conscription sometime this month, reports the Observer. It's expected that the term of national service will be two years. One of the great difficulties facing military planners is to strike a fair balance between those already in uniform and those still to be conscripted. Men who have already served for more than two years (and under wartime conditions) will be understandably aggrieved to see new recruits entering the Army, Navy, and Air Force under shorter terms of service than their own; yet military requirements may make it impossible to demobilize all wartime servicemen before calling up the twenty-four month conscripts.

It is still far from clear how large the peacetime services will be after large-scale demobilization ends. The government hopes to recruit 500,000 long-service regulars, leaving about 700,000 men to be found through conscription. At least the Labour government no longer faces formidable opposition from its own backbenches on the question of peacetime conscription; the proposal, once highly controversial, is now felt to be largely inevitable.

Saturday, 4th May, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Ex-servicemen were warned in the House of Commons yesterday against fake agencies which are offering bogus jobs to the demobbed, reports the Daily Herald. Glasgow MP Sir James Hutchinson, a former French resistance liaison for Special Operations Executive, said that no amount of legislation would stop a fool and his gratuity from being parted: "Some people ask for trouble by investing in horses and dogs and other hazardous enterprises ... [but] a small group of unscrupulous people may well catch out men who are in no way fools but honest, plain, decent soldiers, sailors, and airmen."

The discussion took part during a wider House debate on unemployment. The Minister of Labour announced that in March 1946, 371,000 persons were registered unemployed across Britain. One problem is the geographical distribution of postwar job opportunities: while Scotland and South Wales continue to suffer from surplus manpower, in the West Midlands there are five jobs available for every two persons willing to fill them. London too is crying out for workers.

Flying Officer Charles Crichton, still awaiting demobilisation, writes to his mother from Iraq: "The German PoWs with us are nearly in the same boat as our men. They just sleep behind different sets of wire … I hear from [his brother] David that he is in a naval form of Belsen.”

Tuesday, 16th April, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

Mr. Attlee announced yesterday (the Times reports) that soldiers awaiting demobilisation or who have just been demobilised may be offered special short-term reenlistment contracts to extend their service for three or four years. The temporary arrangement is intended to bridge the gap until the postwar organization of the Army (including the tricky question of whether conscription of young men will be indefinitely extended) is settled. The Times welcomes the proposal, particularly as demobilisation has revealed a desperate need for skilled tradesmen in the Army: "pay and conditions are those already laid down for regulars, but there is the added aattraction of a bounty on acceptance and a gratuity ... the maximum which can be earned under this head is £125, a useful nest egg, but not extravagent according to the present standard in civilian life."

Wednesday, 10th April, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

“So far as the Government is aware there is no widespread dissatisfaction within the Services as to the progress of demobilisation. This masterpiece of self-delusion issued forth with Ministerial authority, almost unquestioned, from the House of Commons," complains 'K.B.M.' in the Manchester Guardian today:

Presumably on the basis of this delusion, during the early months of 1946 the speed of demobilisation of the Army has been allowed to slacken. Here in the Far East we are acutely aware of a injustice which has passed unnoticed. Though farthest, and in many cases longest, away from our homes, we have been consistently the last to return and the last in each group to be released. This may have been unavoidable when shipping was the limiting factor in release, but no longer now when it is recognized that speed of release is governed solely by the Government’s conception of national commitments. Nevertheless here we remain, in a country in which we are not wanted and do not want to be …

For many of us, these would have been our most precious years, and every day by which they are prolonged is an atrocious and intolerable waste.

James Lansdale Hodson notes in his diary this vexatious postwar British temperament: "We are suffering as a nation from some malaise - ill-manners, inefficiency, ragged tempers ...

According to B, who served in the WAAF for four years, girls in uniform got precious little courtesy from men in uniform and had to hump their heavy kit-bags and luggage about as best they could. 'I've been at RAF dances' ,she said, 'when WAAF have sat round the room without partners most of the evening while RAF officers have danced with somewhat scruffy civilian girls picked up in the nearest town' … in some messes run by Group Captains who hated the WAAF, they were not allowed to speak to male officers, and if B wanted to conduct a conversation with a fellow officer sitting in the same room she had to pass a note or go back to the WAAF site to use a telephone ...

Tuesday, 9th April, 1946

This is an entry in a year-long project to post-blog the demobilisation experience for British servicemen at the end of the Second World War. See here for an introduction to the project and here for a brief overview of the demobilisation process.

“A report is circulating," warns the Manchester Guardian, "that the Government intends to abandon the age-and-service principle on which demobilisation has been worked so far, and to substitute for it a length-of-service test from the beginning of July”. Gossip apparently began after George Isaacs, Minister of Labour, gave an ambiguous response on the subject in the Commons back on 5th March. Will the government confirm, refute, or ignore the rumour?