Spitfire builder Archie Saunders had no time to celebrate VE Day in Burma

ARCHIE Saunders met his wife Nancy in a Spitfire manufacturing factory in Birmingham. Shortly after, he found himself on a boat bound for India and then Burma to serve his country in the Second World War.

Barely 18 when the war broke out, Archie turned 104 on 6th May at the Tiddington Court Care Home where he has lived for the eight years.

Working towards a motor trade apprenticeship as Britain went to fight Germany, Archie answered a government call for engineers to work in factories to build the equipment needed for the war effort.

With a choice ahead of him Archie, originally from Malvern, opted to work in a Spitfire factory in Erdington, Birmingham. What helped sway his decision was having two aunts living nearby, meaning that he had somewhere to stay.

As more men were called up, an increasing number of women came into the factory, including his future wife of nearly 80 years, Nancy.

“The girls that were around in the works said, There’s a girl up in the office who wants to come and meet you,” Archie told the Herald. “I said, ‘Well all right then, bring her down’. They came down and introduced her and that was the start of our romance.”

When Archie was called up, he joined the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers and built and repaired planes for the RAF. Before being sent overseas, he worked at a factory in London that repaired the tanks which would eventually be used in the D-Day landings.

“I was going to do training on the army vehicles and guns at my first posting which was to Buntingford. Then I was told along with others to pack our bags, we were being sent abroad.”

In September 1943, during a week’s leave, Archie and Nancy got married in Erdington. The following year, in 1944, Archie was sent to Burma.

“We knew where we were going because they issued khaki shorts and you could tell it was going to be hot.

“I made my way across and we were marched off the boat up to the railway station in Bombay. We did three days across to Madras where we were all mobilised – the next move was to pack up.”

Archie was in Burma on Victory in Europe Day, but there was no time to concentrate on what had happened back home. War in the East would carry on until the formal Japanese surrender on 2nd September 1945, following the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the previous month.

“I was on a trip across to Rangoon in Burma where I joined the advanced base workshop. That’s where I was on VE Day and I didn’t see all the jollifications that were going on, we didn’t have time to think about it.

“We had news from the top people in Burma saying the war in Europe was over.

“It was hard in Burma then for everybody because it was monsoon weather from May to September, so we were wet all the time and up to our eyes in water and mud.”

It was only in1947 that Archie had the chance to leave Burma and head back to England.

“We were working normally all through 1946, getting the country ready for the Burmese government to take back over,” he said. “We were told there was a ship coming in, a liner called the Duchess of Bermuda, so we were shipped down to Rangoon and we were waiting there. Well, we waited and waited and nothing happened, so we were told to go back to our units.

“It wasn’t until well into 1947 that the government ship the Worcestershire came and picked us up. I arrived home here on 16th April to my family in Birmingham.”

Archie was awarded the Burma Star for his war efforts. He has taken part in parades and ceremonies over the years around Warwickshire.

Looking back on his time during the war, Archie said he is proud of what he did.

“I treat my two years building Spitfires as a big part of my war service. I think they saved us.”