Becoming an Officer’s Assistant

Becoming An Officer’s Assistant

An officer went around asking you what did you want to be, and I wanted to be a dispatch rider. A few days after he came back, he said, “You are going off to Tunbridge Wells.” I was gonna be an officer’s assistant, plotting the range and switch on the map. I said, “No sir,” I said, “I put in for a dispatch rider.” And he looks at me with a serious look and he said, “You’re in the army now.” So, that ended that and I had to go on the course and I was glad I did. I liked my job after. I was assisting an officer by the name of Captain Gordon Warren and I really enjoyed my time with him.

The Duties of an Officer’s Assistant

Sometimes it was forward but usually it was Battery Headquarters, we would have to pass the information on to the troops for the guns to fire, you were always plotting on the map references that you would get from the OP.

Interviewer: And the OP, of course, is the Observation Post?

Yes, I’m sorry. Yes.

Interviewer: So the, the information would be passed back from the OP, or the Observation Post, to Battery Headquarters?

Yes.

Interviewer: Where you were.

Yeah.

Interviewer: ...and you would be plotting the map for the officer?

For, for the officer in the OP, plus the troops that were gonna do the firing.

Interviewer: So that...