The true story of how some young boys helped catch a German spy
This is the true story of how some young boys helped to catch a German spy at the beginning of the Second World War.
Putting it into context, I was born in October 1932 and was almost seven at the outbreak of war. I already felt a bit worldly wise as I had been to London on holiday the previous year and therefore recognised all the main sights when reports of the Blitz started coming in. I was also aware of what war was about as my father had been gassed at Passchendaele and Don Bethell’s father had lost an arm in the Great War, as we called it then.
I therefore followed the increasing rumblings of war in 1939 with some interest as the prospect of hostilities was the main topic of conversation. Preparations were also being made in case the worst happened and so we were all issued with gasmasks. Men started appearing with LDV armbands (Local Defence Volunteers) which were succeeded by uniforms with the logo ‘Home Guard’. Preparations were being made for food rationing and petrol became unavailable for private cars. We went to Scarborough in August for a holiday and I remember seeing soldiers digging trenches in the parks. It would be the last time I saw the seaside for six years as the coast was out of bounds when war broke out and the beaches were mined.
The biggest danger to civilians was going to be air raids and, in the first year of the war, more civilians were killed than servicemen. On the outbreak of war the blackout began; all street lights went out for the duration and everyone had to have blackout curtains or shutters. Air raid shelters were built in people’s gardens and we had a kitchen strengthened to reduce the impact of bombs. On the first night of the war the air raid sirens went: the first of scores of times during the war. Stirrup pumps were distributed to put out fires caused by incendiary bombs and most men became ‘fire watchers’. At that time the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) was formed and uniformed wardens were recruited to patrol the streets and made sure that no one was showing a light. At the end of our row of houses was a large house with a billiard room which was converted into an ARP station for the wardens. This became a magnet for us boys (myself, Alan Lanceley, Don Bethell, Brian Dove and Peter Godbold) as it had aircraft recognition charts and the like which fed our passion for scouring the skies for allied and enemy aircraft.
Early in the war, spy hysteria broke out fuelled by government posters such as ‘Dangerous talk costs lives’. We did not need much excuse to go spy hunting. Many innocent citizens of slightly unorthodox habits were trailed by us and dossiers of their movements given to the ARP whose patience must have grown rather thin at our daily visits to the Post.
Our row of houses had a ‘back passage’ that separated the houses from the gardens beyond. Its primary purpose was for delivering of coal, access to the communal pump and the weekly emptying of the earth closets. Everyone had one except us as we were the first to have a wc inside. The back passage was also a common thoroughfare for everyone including Round Again. He was a rag and bone man, a lovely be-whiskered chap, who always announced his arrival with a shout of ‘Round Again’. He pushed an old pram into which he stowed cast off clothing and other articles that the neighbours gave him. He was a great favourite of ours and we would chat to him and tease him and he would, good naturedly, pretend to chase us.
The nightly bombing of Hull had begun and being only a few miles away we huddled in our shelters as the anti-aircraft guns deafened us and stray bombs landed on Beverley – happily avoiding us and the worst we ever suffered was a cracked window. Suddenly, Round Again stopped coming and was replaced by another man pushing the same pram. He had red hair and whiskers and spoke with a guttural accent and when we tried to tease him he chased us menacingly. We reported this to the ARP, who were rather impatient with us, suggesting it was known that Round Again had occasional absences at His Majesty’s Pleasure so it was presumed that he had got a mate to keep his business going while he was away. We were not convinced and the second time he came we were more inquisitive and he was more aggressive. Back we went to the ARP post convinced that he was a spy and this time they said they would look into it.
Who trailed him we do not know – whether it was the ARP or the police but they followed him into the fields behind Grovehill Road when they saw him throw his rags into a ditch. What happened next we can only surmise but we understood that the police or military had followed him after dark up to the Westwood, which commands a good view of distant Hull, and caught him in the act of signalling to enemy bombers as they approached Hull. When arrested, they found his pram was full of radio receiving and transmitting equipment. He was indeed a spy and our instinct had been correct.
We discovered later that he had been shot at Beverley Barracks as a spy and, sadly, Round Again’s body was found in a ditch in the fields behind us.
Shared by Miranda Crafts, Derek's daughter, and Charlie, his grandson
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