The 4th oldest or second youngest of
the brothers within the family was my grandfather William Albert or “Billy”. Although he was my grandfather, he was the one I knew least and, until recently, I had no idea that he had served throughout WW2. Born in 1904, he lied about his age for the benefit of the recruiting officer and therefore, at the age of 16 years and one month' signed up to the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers in December 1920. His first posting was to Dublin at the time of Irish partition. Presumably it was the time of Michael Collins’ flying squads and the tasks of the Battalion were mainly peace keeping and escort duties. Some things never change! In 1921 the Battalion returned back to Lancashire and Billy remained at the depot for a couple of years before being attached to the 2nd Battalion LFs and shipped out to Nowsheera in India, where he joined his elder brother and became a regimental signaller.
He left the service in 1926 on completion of his time but oddly did not transfer to the reserve because he was deemed medically unfit! Between the wars he “settled down” and became an explosives worker at the Royal Ordnance Factory in Chorley. However, some bloke called Hitler raised his ugly head and despite having two young sons and ensconced in a reserved occupation, he once again lied about his age (took a year off this time) and occupation (gave the occupation of his older brother Harry) and joined up again exactly 4 weeks after war was declared. Because of his previous service he was assigned to the Royal Corp of Signals and after a short period of training was packed off with the rest of the BEF to France.
After his return from Dunkirk he remained in the UK for a while before being posted to the Persia and Iraq Force (PAIFORCE) who were based in Tehran and subsequently to the middle east command based in Cairo. I still have no idea what he did out there but I do know that he spent 3 months getting to Tehran from South Africa so either he had travel issues or there are a few gaps in his army record. He finally returned from Africa in July 1944 and was latterly posted to the Y station at Forest Moor in Yorkshire. He was demobbed in August 1945 and then returned to the ordnance factory again.
I never met my grandfather. Although he liked a pipe he was not a big smoker. However, he died in 1959 of cancer of the oesophagus when I was only 3. Nobody questioned his death at the time but I am convinced that working in the carcinogenic atmosphere of the ordnance factory certainly did not help. The strange thing for me is that no one ever mentioned his war service. My father, mother, uncles or anyone else never mentioned a thing, which was unusual and I only found out a couple of years ago when I ordered his army record. Very strange indeed.
Percy Estall Page 1 2 3 4 5
