A Love Story (Typical of its time) and an Appeal for Help by Doris
Hello Everyone,
As I mentioned to some of you at the reunion, for quite a while now a German lady has been trying to trace a lost Royal Signals person with whom she would desperately like to make contact (if he is still alive) or find out more information about his life and UK family. I mentioned this to some of the attendees at the Langeleben Reunion and also naturally many other places, but feel it is important to put all the details together into one place, and also the story as both Doris and I believe it occurred based on information she learnt over the years from different relatives.
The first part is their story, in a romanticised Semi-fiction based on that information, but is as accurate as possible. It is however typical of many such love stories of the time.
John “Jonny” Randal, Royal Corps of Signals.
(Possible Birthday 24th April +/- a few days, and Birth year 1935 +/- 2 years)Young John had been born in the South-west of England in a pretty coastal town where the warm waters of the gulf stream made snow a rare thing, and the summers very Mediterranean like. He was born just a few years before the second world war, and so growing up saw the trade in his parent’s radio shop hit by the difficulty to obtain domestic radio sets, and a decline in repair work of Radios and electric phonographs caused by the difficulty to get parts, rationing and the other trials of war torn England.
He also saw how the beaches and hills around the town were fenced off with Barbed wire and access to the sea which he and the other children once enjoyed made nearly impossible, all this due to some far away place called Germany and a tin-pot dictator called Hitler, how he (as did all who grew up around him and the adults) hated the German’s and that Nazi “Swine”.
Ironically John was to, later in life, find that he loved Germany and what’s more, also a German girl, but that comes later in this story.
John (who was born in April in a year between 1933 and 1937) learned a lot from his father and had a keen interest in Radios that surely helped him select the Royal Signals, or the Army select him for the Signals. Then we do not know if he was a national service conscript or a career soldier, but he seemed to like the Army and his job. Details of his earlier and later postings are not known, but it is possible this was his first overseas posting, then he was about 18 when he arrived, and Army policy was not to send anyone under 17 and half years of age out of the UK.
In 1954 John was sent to the 1 ASSU Germany, the land he had hated as a child, and a land that although had been relinquished from “occupied enemy” to a free nation (at least the West part) in 1948, was by the British troops still considered an occupied enemy territory especially the older ones who had fought the Germans face-to-face after the d-day landings just some ten years before. This entrenched attitude towards all Germans only changed a year later when the West Germans created their new Army as a part of NATO and so stood side by side against the Eastern Block nations and Communism, suddenly in 1955 the Germans were overnight the good guys and friends, but that was too late for John’s love affair and the hand fate played him.
John was a tall good looking young man of between 18 and 20 when he was sent to Lemgo, arriving in the early spring when the hard German winters were doing their best to freeze the socks of any soldier who stood guard at the gates. It was a culture and thermal shock for young John, who had grown up in the mildest of English climates. He was however suitably impressed by the town to venture out and about whenever he could and soon developed a good basic German. His German was in fact so good, that he may have been on Army language courses related to his job.
Gerda Ursula Welsch (Born 1938 / Aged 16 in 1954)
Picture as she looked in 1954/1955
Gerda was a young girl who had survived the hardships of war both as a toddler and also as a young girl, and now thrived on the opportunities and hope that arrived with the new order and British forces. Like so many she was easily impressed by everything English and keen to learn all she could.
She had asked a Soldier to get her in to the camp to see an English Film in original English language, and it was during this visit in April or May 1954, that John (apparently pulling rank) first saw and “confiscated” her from the soldier. A Few days later while she was walking in the Mittelstaße in Lemgo town centre, John spotted her and invited her to a milk shake or ice, and from that their relationship started.
John and Gerda were soon a pair, meeting whenever they could and John coming to the grandparents and Gerda’s mother’s joint home (despite initial opposition from the adults) where they shared meals. John got good German home cooking in return for whatever he could smuggle out of the NAAFI or Cookhouse to give them. Cigarettes and Chocolate having been the main bartering currency between 1945 and 1949 (when the D-Mark was launched) was still a much respected sign of wealth and door opener to friendship with the older generation.
The parents (as any still today would be) were aghast at the relationship and aims of this older soldier to their 16 year old daughter, and at first made life very difficult for both John and Gerda, but as is so often the case could not stop the pair from loving each other.
The spot of the other residents of Lemgo to any girl who became “a Soldier’s groundsheet” and many other names of a harder nature, also had no effect on their love and soon they were committed to each other, and planned to marry.
John at first took weeks to break the resistance of the family elders, using Gerda’s older sister as a keen ally.
To help ensure there could be no resistance from either her family, nor his own in the UK, he and Gerda slept together in a relatives allotment garden hut, then he could claim duty and honour to ensure he should marry the girl whose virginity he had taken. Some when in the late summer Gerda fell pregnant, and John was delighted that this too would cement their right to marry.
John helped get the work underway for the wedding, bringing sugar and other ingredients for the wedding cake, as well as what he could for the reception. He also made moves to select the church and priest, and a date was soon planned. Then once that was achieved he tepidly approached his CO just before Christmas, to ask for permission to marry, which at that time was needed for any serviceman, let alone one wanting to marry “a German!” The wedding was planned for early February 1955.
The reason for leaving the CO to last soon became clear, then overnight John was “emergency posted” out from Lemgo supposedly because of his secret work with intelligence. When he failed to show up either at home or outside the camp gates, the family at first thought he was suddenly on manoeuvre or in Jankers for a few days for smuggling out coffee or cigarettes.
Discrete enquiries to other Soldiers (mainly on the gate) however showed something very serious had taken place. John was Posted and everyone in the camp ordered not to talk about him, or to anyone asking after him. The evident fear of the guards to even be seen talking to the family members at the gate meant this was indeed a serious threat.
That John did not plan to leave was evident from his personal belongings left behind in the parent’s residence. John had mentioned he was involved in some intelligence work and so the family may be scrutinised more than if he were just a simple Signalman but there may be an element of “Walter Mitty” as many Soldiers tried to make themselves sound like James Bond and somehow the most important person in the cold war.
John was gone, Gerda was pregnant and even the German Family commission who had close liaison with the Camps and normally got straight answers were surprised to find in this case, especially strange in this case as the girl was just 16, that there was a sudden brick wall when it came to trying to find out about John. Claims of National and International Security, Official Secrets, etc., only reinforced the feeling that John was posted against his wishes and maybe to prevent any possible security leaks that German relatives may have caused.
The family were devastated and soon came to believe John had lied to them, or suddenly changed his mind about marriage when Gerda became pregnant.
In April 1955, Gerda gave birth to a baby girl called Doris, and despite the fact at that time the state tried to take children off such young unmarried women, evidently the family rallied around her to ensure she could keep her child.
At some point the family threw away all his left behind belongings, and destroyed all his letters and photographs. They even in later years denied ever having seen him (all except the sister who later did acknowledge John was regularly a visitor to the house) and his name was tabu in their four walls. As they died off, so too did the clues and facts that the young child Doris would later so desperately need.
Many years later the older sister, told Gerda that John had tried to write several times after he had been posted, but that these letters came out of the post box and into the fire, some sent back as “Unzustellbar” (No longer at that address) but evidently never saying where they came from. Soon the letters stopped and life took its inevitable course.
Did an Officer with a deep hate of the Germans cause this break-up? Did John simply request to be sent away before the Wedding ring weighted down his freedom? Did his parent’s (if he was under 21 they may have influenced the Army?) have him posted or sent home? Maybe someone reading this knows of John and during his service elsewhere he may have mentioned his time at Lemgo or even why he left..., who knows?
Here from a late 1950s, is a picture of Gerda on the left, and Gerda’s ’s Mother on the right, (in case it reawakens any memories)
Details:
John Randall (maybe Randle or similar).
Royal Signals (1ASSU, Lemgo, Germany)
In 1954 he was between 18 and 20 (maximum 22) years old, was with the Royal Signals, 1 ASSU in Lemgo.
He gave his birth date as 24. 04. 1935 (according to later memory of an aunt, but this may be wrong)
Trade possibly an OWL (Radio Operator Wireless/Line)
He was Tall with Dark curly hair and a thin lanky composure.
Spoke good German, acting often as translator for the other soldiers when they wanted to buy anything in the town.
May have been good at picking it up, or trained to understand German for his job?
Parents had a Wireless Sales and Repair Shop in Cornwall or Devon,
Shop and Birthplace possibly in or close to Torquay or Newquay or similar sounding town name.
His 16 year old girlfriend was Gerda Ursula Welsch, sister of 26 year old Gertrud Beinke
John’s (then unborn) daughter’s name is Doris, she was born on 14th of April, 1955 in Brake bei Lemgo.
John’s daughter Doris has Children and Grand Children, one of who (a four year old) has a hole-in the kidney.
Doris had Cancer diagnosed five years ago, and this gave her renewed vigour to find out about he dad john, which despite extensive searching on her part has so far drawn a blank.
Doris does not want to upset his life (if he is still alive?), but make contact and tell him about his extended German family and her life, maybe exchange a photo or two.
Who he is not:
To ensure people do not chase people I have tracked down and eliminated, here details of who he is not...
John "Akeland" Randall (former Seargent of the Denbury Boys Training camp, and RSARS Amateur radio operator) living in Basingstoke and served as Sgt John Akehurst, a staff instructor of radio operating at Denbury, and whose real name is also John Randal, then I have personally spoken with him and none of his data matches.
John Randall the Radar Invenor of the klystrom and radio technician.
Doris’s Contact Details:
Doris Zender
Alte Schulst. 3
54552 Üdersdorf
Tel.: 06596-1018 inside Germany
From outside Germany Tel.: +49-6596-1018
or
e-mail: doriszender@web.de
If you can write or speak German, you can get in touch with Doris directly, otherwise write to me and I will pass it on with a translation.
Regards
Petra