大象传媒

A few years ago I recorded several conversations with my parents about their lives. My father was a from Deptford, and was conscripted into the Eighth Army Rifle Brigade. He fought in North Africa and Italy and was posted to Germany when the fighting ended. What follows is his account of his experiences during the war, which I transcribed from the tapes.

Harry's War

When I first joined the army, aged 20, they sent me to Winchester, where the rifle brigade had their headquarters. I was there for 6 weeks for basic training, which included marching, rifle shooting, unarmed combat, assault courses- you name it, we had it. I passed through the training and then went to Tidworth. Dunkirk was being evacuated at that time, so we were joined by a lot of soldiers just back from France. We carried on with our extra training with motor cycles and the Bren gun, but at one time we were called out to the race course. Someone had reported that the Germans had dropped some parachutists there and we had to dash out to Tidworth race course to look for them. While we were there we slept under the stands. We never found any Germans - all we found were gypsies with snares round the outside of the course to catch rabbits. I used to go round and take the rabbits out of the snares, skin them and gut them, and then we had rabbit stew for dinner. Those gypsies used to curse like hell.

Then in early 1940, they came round one night and said, 鈥淧ack all your kit鈥�. They put us in lorries and took us up to Liverpool docks where we boarded a boat. We were six weeks at sea before we finally reached Suez. We disembarked there and went straight up into the desert.

I served in North Africa from 1940 until 1943, when the invasion of Italy began. We started off with a 2 lb. anti-tank gun, and after a while that was upgraded to a 6 lb. gun mounted on a port茅e mobile. We were attached to the 4th Royal Horse Artillery, and we were the original desert rats. Our job was to go swanning round the desert looking for German echelons. When we sighted one we would contact the guns of the RHA and they鈥檇 blast the hell out of the echelon. Of course once they started shelling, the Germans would realise that someone must be spotting for the artillery, and as soon as they located us they came after us. We had to stay put until the artillery had finished, so we fought back with machine guns until the Royal Artillery bloke put up the red flag. Then it was 鈥淩ed flag. All right. Away!鈥� and we鈥檇 belt all the way back to where we came from. We did that most of the time.

We camped out in the desert and had to do everything ourselves, including cooking. To make cooking fires we used to take 4 gallon petrol tins, cut them in half, fill them up with sand, and then pour a load of petrol in and set it alight. We used to take it in turns to cook and one day I was working on two fires when one, we thought, started going out. So one of the boys put some petrol on, and as I was standing by the stove I went up in flames. All we wore were a pair of shorts and puttees and so, of course, I got caught by the flames on my legs and body, and my hair was all singed. They took me down to the MO and he put some stuff on and bandaged me up, but that night we had to move out because the Jerry was coming closer. They put me in the ambulance and I travelled in that for a couple of days. The MO wouldn鈥檛 let me go back to base to the hospital because he said that it would count as a self inflicted wound, and I would get a court martial for trying to dodge the fighting!.

On one occasion, while my legs were still in bandages, we were out with the port茅es with the Royal Artillery. One of the others was driving, as I wasn鈥檛 really up to it, when we found an Italian echelon. As usual we started belting the life out of it and they sent out machine gunners after us. The sergeant shouted, 鈥淐ome on, let鈥檚 get out. Let鈥檚 get out鈥�, but when we looked for the driver, we couldn鈥檛 see him anywhere. So the sergeant said鈥� You jump in the seat, Harry, and take us away鈥� So there I was with my legs bandaged, driving the port茅e. When we finally got back to our echelon and got off the truck, there was the missing driver on the front. We had a kind of crash bar across the front of the radiator and he had been hanging onto it all the way back. They sent him back bomb happy. His nerves had given way and that was that.

We used to get leave in Cairo, where we stayed in the hotels. We got up in the morning and had breakfast; we鈥檇 get eggs and bacon, because they had plenty of that in Cairo; then about 11 o鈥� clock we鈥檇 go down to a kind of a pub and have a few drinks and then we鈥檇 go to the cinema in the afternoon and sleep it off. Once we tried to get a steak and kidney pudding for dinner, but they never made them like Mum. When we were not drinking beer, one of our favourite drinks in Cairo was cold iced tea with lemon and sugar. It was a lovely cold drink and we needed it as the temperature was in the 120s. At night time we went down to the clubs where there were girls performing and asking us to buy them drinks and what have you. After a while, - it must have been 1942 I think -a lot of our blokes had regular girl friends in the clubs. Then the Australians came over and there was a bit of competition for the girls. If we went into the club and found an Aussie sitting there with one of our girlfriends, a right old fight would start.

El Alamein
At the battle of El Alamein I was with an echelon of 12 guns, as a port茅e driver. At night we took the guns right up to the front and took them off the port茅es with all the ammunition and everything else. We drove the port茅es back behind the lines, through the minefield , which had been cleared previously, and we drivers were ordered to wait until we were needed. While we were waiting there, good God Almighty, what did we hear? - the bagpipes! And there was a Scottish regiment, the 51st Highland Division, I think it was, marching through playing the bagpipes. Of course what happened? Jerry heard them coming and just machine gunned them down. We just couldn鈥檛 believe it!

Another thing that amazed me, for the good this time, and why I鈥檝e always loved the Salvation Army, happened the same night. It was about one o鈥� clock in the morning, and the officer came up and said 鈥淒o you want some tea Purkiss?鈥�
I said 鈥淕o away, how can I light a fire with this lot going on?鈥�
He said鈥� Go back behind that minefield, there鈥檚 a Salvation Army van back there serving out tea and wads.鈥� Wads was the Egyptian name for cakes.
So of course I said 鈥淵eah. Pull this one. 鈥�
鈥淚鈥檓 telling you鈥�, he said. 鈥淵ou go back there鈥�.
And blow me. We walked back to the other side of the minefield and there was the Salvation Army serving out tea and wads in the middle of the battle!

There was a hell of a battle during the night, and in the morning they counted that our men had knocked out 90 tanks. We鈥檇 had special armour plated shells and I heard that when we knocked a tank out, the Germans would fetch up another tank behind it for protection. They reckoned that our shells were going through the first tank and into the second tank and knocked that out as well. And that鈥檚 what broke El Alamein - because the Germans had lost so many tanks. In the morning, just before dawn, the old man came down and he said 鈥淚 want a volunteer, to take a port茅e out and bring the men back. And the volunteer is you.鈥� And of course that was me. So I went belting through the minefield to the front line. The gunners took all the breeches out of the guns and jumped on the port茅e and I brought them back through the mine field. They had to pull out because in daylight they were sitting targets. Our commanding officer got the Victoria Cross for that, and there were quite a lot of Military Medals flying about, though as usual it was only NCO鈥檚 that got them, not the men. (I was a Private at that time).
On one occasion we took a bad bashing from Jerry and we lost a few guns and quite a few men. They sent us back to Suez to our base to get more guns, men and supplies, but before we could go back we got orders to pack up and go to Beirut. So we went from there to Cairo, up through what was then Palestine (now Israel), into what they now call Lebanon, to Beirut. At the time there was a lot of rioting going on and we were sent to guard the British Embassy and the printing works. We stayed there for about a fortnight, before they stopped the rioting. Then low and behold! as we were packing up to come back we saw these blooming great big armoured wagons, helluva size they were. What do you think they were? It was Montgomery鈥檚 headquarters, right up in Palestine though the war was in the desert. That鈥檚 where they controlled it from- miles and miles away from the front.

We left Lebanon and came back to Suez where we got our replenishments, guns etc., and went back to the desert. We went from there to the siege of Benghazi and eventually relieved them, and then we went right down south through the desert and round in a semi circle to trap the Jerry between us and Benghazi. And that finished that lot. Then we carried on through Libya, up to Tripoli and we took Tripoli over. I was surprised to find that there was a big population of Italians in Tripoli. We pushed on from there to Tunisia and of course by then we had thousands and thousands of German and Italian prisoners. They were sending a lot of them back to England and that was the cause of a near riot when we found out who was to escort them. Troops that had just come out from England and had gone up from the other side of Tunisia to meet up with us, were being sent over as escorts though we鈥檇 been out in the desert all those years, and these youngsters had only been out there 6 or 8 months. We said 鈥淭hat should be our job. We鈥檝e been here long enough. We should get that.鈥� Anyhow, old Churchill was coming to visit the troops and we threatened to tell Churchill about it if we got the chance. So they sent the Redcaps to keep us in camp and away from Churchill, so we never did get to see him.

In 1943 I left North Africa for Italy. The Americans were part of the invasion. A waste of time they were. They were trying to take a place called Casino. It was a very high plateau and on the top of it there was a big monastery. The Germans had taken it over and fortified it so that it was practically impregnable. The Allies had to take it, because it oversaw miles and miles and miles of country and from there the Germans could see exactly what we were doing. The Americans kept having a go at it, but they couldn鈥檛 take it. They were bombing it and everything else, but the Germans were so entrenched that they were not making much impression on it. So what did they do? They called the British. I didn鈥檛 go up. I stayed down below with the gunners. By then we had American scout cars, sort of low level loaders, and solid metal, and 4 inch mortars. Our old anti tank guns were useless in Italy because there were too many hills and rough terrain. At Monte Casino we shelled the monastery from the bottom with the mortars, while the blokes went up the hill to capture it. We lost a lot of men because the hill was mined, with trip wires and everything else all the way up. We finally took it and got the Germans out and then we were able to advance.

I was in Italy a good 18 months from 44 - 45, long enough to learn the language. We couldn鈥檛 move during the winter. We had the snows and the rains and it was nothing but a load of mud. We couldn鈥檛 move without getting bogged down. And so we were billeted with the local population in a place called Regello, just outside Florence. The locals were pleased to see us and looked after us well. On one occasion, the family I was staying with were having chicken for dinner - a big treat. I was sitting at the table with the family, and the mother served me, as guest of honour, with the best bit -- the cockerel鈥檚 head, comb and all. Well, I didn鈥檛 want to offend them by refusing it, but I didn鈥檛 want to eat it either. So I made a big show of passing it over to the father as a mark of respect to the head of the house, and he seemed pleased to get it, from the way he scoffed it down. I had some of the breast.

From Regello, when the weather improved, we went up to Bologna. By that time we were equipped with 4 inch howitzers. From Bologna we went on to Udine, which was on the border of Italy and Austria and the border with Yugoslavia. Then we crossed the border into Austria and were stationed in a town called Klagenfurt. The Russians were only 10 miles away. We met up with them and took over Austria . I stayed in Klagenfurt for about 3 months, and while I was there the war in Europe ended. In Klagenfurt we had to take over the essential services, the food warehouses, the water works and so on to make sure they kept working. I had the waterworks. We took the transport over and organised all that. The youngsters that had only been in the army for a short period were sent home for a month鈥檚 leave, travelling overland. Those of us who had been in the army for most of the war were sent home permanently. We had to go right down to southern Italy to an aerodrome, and we waited there over a week before a fleet of Lancaster bombers came in and picked us up. We sat on forms in the plane, but there wasn鈥檛 room for me - I had to lay in the bomb bay, hoping that no one would press the wrong button.

We were supposed to land at an aerodrome near Peterborough, but it was fog bound and the nearest place we could land was in Cornwall. When we landed in Cornwall we had to wait by the plane while they turned out the customs people. Our kitbags were full of contraband 鈥� stockings, soap, sugar, tinned meat 鈥� whatever they were short of at home. The Customs men came out with a van, set up trestles and tables, had us walk past in a line. 鈥淎nything to declare?鈥� 鈥淣o,鈥� 鈥楴o鈥�, 鈥淣o鈥�. Nobody declared anything, and nobody was stopped, so they packed up their table and went away again, after we waited all that time for them. We had landed in the morning and stayed there until 10 o鈥� clock at night, and the RAF gave us our evening meal. Then we were put on the train and we got into Paddington the next morning at 7 o鈥檆lock. All the sirens were going, so I grabbed a Redcap and said 鈥淲hat鈥檚 going on. I thought the war was over?鈥�
鈥� It is ,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 VJ day. The Americans - the war with Japan is over and it鈥檚 declared a holiday.鈥�
I said 鈥淲ell if it鈥檚 a holiday, I鈥檓 not going to camp then, I鈥檓 going home.鈥� I think it was a Friday. So I said to the lads, 鈥淏e back here Sunday night and we鈥檒l get the train to where we鈥檙e supposed to be.鈥� So we all bunked off and went home. We had our one day off, then back to Paddington and up to Mildenhall near Newmarket. We arrived there in the morning, and luckily I knew the Company Sergeant Major in the HQ platoon. I was due for some leave so I asked him if he could get us kitted out the same day. He managed to get us all new uniforms, kit, money and rations, coupons for food and everything, and then I got a month鈥檚 leave. After that they sent us back to Suffolk to help harvest vegetables, and I was finally demobbed in September 1946.

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