Our feet once again on terra firma, we felt much relieved. The railroad station from which we left was conveniently situated next to the dock. While waiting for our train to arrive, we were given an opportunity to observe the English railroads in action. Their freight cars do not seem much smaller than ours, but actually theirs have a capacity of only 25% of the American cars – 10 tons. The English passenger cars are quite unusual, being divided into small rooms called compartments, each compartment seating eight passengers. At one side of the compartment is a door leading to a long hallway which extends the whole length of the car. On the other side of the compartment is an exit door which opens from the outside. This is a much more comfortable mode of travel than that of the American passenger coach as it is conducive to more sociability among the passengers.
We were warned to keep the lights out in the compartment and to refrain from throwing cigarettes out of the windows. However, to our surprise, we noticed that the fire from the locomotive completely lit up the surrounding country as the train sped across the countryside. We made our first stop just over the border separating Scotland from England where we were initiated into the English custom of taking time out for “a spot of tea”, a habit which we never willingly adopted. Every time the train came to a halt, we attempted to ascertain from the people outside our exact whereabouts but to our regret, we never received any satisfactory answer. The English people realized only too well that “idle gossip sinks ships”. At 8 A.M. on October 8th, we arrived in Oxford station convinced that we were quite fortunate to be given the opportunity to visit that famous University town. Driven by bus through the city and to Slade Camp, we arrived in the usual English mist, fog and rain just in time to eat the British soldier’s breakfast consisting of salt pork, potatoes, oatmeal, rye bread and of course, tea.
Slade Camp was an English staging area and training camp, housing about fifty one-room barracks, each containing fifteen wooden beds, straw mattresses and pillows, a coal stove in the middle of the room (which usually emitted more smoke than heat), no running water facilities, a separate room for non-commissioned officers, dim lights and wooden shutters which acted as a substitute for blackout curtains. One of the brighter features of the camp was their version of our PX, a combination tea room, snack bar, theatre and night club called NAAFI (Navy, Army, Air Force Institute), which sold refreshments to the soldiers at very nominal prices (Tea: 2 cents. Cookies: 4 cents. Sandwiches: 6 cents). This feature proved more appealing when we learned that several attractive young ladies were employed there as waitresses. Travelling vaudeville shows and local talent performed weekly and dances were held for us and the boys of the 29th Division who, twenty months later, contributed to make the original invasion of France a success.
Calisthenics and hikes were the daily activities, but due to the compensatory amusement which we later found during the evenings, there was a usual paucity of complaints during our stay in Slade Camp. In fact, the “unusual” among army men occurred when we actually looked forward to our daily hikes. Perhaps, the reason why we enjoyed them so much was the fact that they were conducted over the suburban hills and dales of Oxford, most of which were owned by the University of Oxford and which were used in peacetime as “Lovers’ Lanes”. The contrast between the English countryside during time of war, with 30-ton tanks roaming the hills and Spitfires and gliders filling the sky, and the same picturesque scenes which we imagined typical of peacetime England, will forever remain in our memories.
At first, it was difficult to adjust our financial dealings to the English monetary system. The pound was fixed at four dollars in American money, the shilling at 20 cents and the penny at six for ten cents. Since the banks could get $4.02 for each pound, they made a slight profit on the exchange in the New York money market.
After setting up our barracks, we were given an opportunity to visit Oxford, which we did post haste. A bus terminal was located just outside the camp, about a fifteen minute walk from our barracks. It took only fifteen minutes to reach the center of town, Carfax, a busily-trafficked, well-populated business and entertainment district. Larger than most American towns, Oxford looks exactly like and English city an American would expect to find after reading about the English people and their country. Dotted with many movie and show houses (cinemas), stores, banks and business offices, Oxford was still “open for business” for the college student. The English rations which we received weren’t sufficient for our tremendous appetites, so every evening we went to town and consumed an additional supper, which also was insufficient. The English people were sacrificing and tightening their belts for the boys who were fighting on foreign lands. The English bars, called “pubs”, unlike our own, catered to the family trade and it wasn’t uncommon on a Saturday night for whole families to spend the entire evening sipping a few scotches and talking with the American soldiers. As a matter of fact, it was in the pubs that the Americans got to learn a great deal about the English, and vice versa.
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