大象传媒

Extracts from My Wartime Story by Harvey Jennings

I enlisted in the Essex Yeomanry, a local unit of Artillery based in Chelmsford as a young lad of eighteen, rather immature and quite ignorant of what I might be letting myself in for. I was taken on as a recruit signaller. Our instructors were mostly old soldiers and treated us young recruits very gently. Like most other Territorial, we were not properly equipped for war and quite untrained. After three months of the 鈥減honey鈥� war we were shipped off to Palestine as part of The First Cavalry Division.
The first few months of our arrival were spent at Nathanya. Here I was trained to be an Army driver and given a small truck to drive.
At the end of May 1940 the Germans launched their devastating attack on the Western Front and we were moved through Egypt to the Western Desert in September of that year. I drove a Stores truck through to Port Said and westwards past El Alamein. We were still only half trained and stationed in a battle zone facing the Italian Army who had advanced to Mersa Matruh. We had to dig shallow trenches for ourselves in the sand. We were out of shelling range but were reminded every night by visits from Italian bombers. The rumour was that we were to attack in the near future. However, I fell violently ill and was bundled off to hospital in Cairo so I missed to attack and subsequent advance along the North African coast and did not rejoin my regiment for two months.
Now we were confronting an Italian army bolstered by the arrival of a German Afrika Corps commanded by General Rommel. Suddenly everything changed: an unexpected German attack on our front line powered by German tanks. Our infantry could not hold them and it soon became a rout. I was left behind a ridge where we had lagered without realising our situation. When I walked to the top of the ridge to see what was going on to my horror I saw a dust storm hiding hundreds of vehicles in flight. This was about six in the evening and I had to join the melee with my truck. We drove for about four hours into the desert in the gathering darkness. We picked up about eight infantry men on the way, all without arms. At one point I closed with a big truck, which my officer 鈥� under some stress 鈥� was trying to start. I got out and asked if he had any orders. He just told me to go away!
That was the last order I received and I continued the drive. Not long after this my co-driver ran into the back of another vehicle and smashed our radiator. Obviously it could not be repaired and we were stuck. There were no other trucks to be seen. We had no idea where we were or where the Germans were so we set out to walk to the main road hoping for assistance. We picked up our packs and trudged off, keeping the North star a little off the right shoulder. After about an hour we stopped for a rest. We woke at dawn and pressed on, passing an Arab tented encampment. The Arabs brought us eggs and water in exchange for a blanket. In blazing sun we sighted the town of Benghazi but were told at a house that the English had left early that morning. We were dismayed, tired but got ourselves together to continue our effort to find safety, but it was not to be: we were apprehended by an armed body of Italians and we had to surrender to them. We were prisoners鈥︹�︹��.

After initial questioning we were moved to Tripoli and then by boat to Naples. We were allowed on deck as we passed through the Sicilian Straits and passed by Stromboli which was in eruption as we sailed by, an awesome sight. We berthed in Naples and entrained to Capua, put into a tented field in torrential rain. However we were allowed to write home for the first time in months. Eventually we were moved to Sulmona. Our treatment generally was civilised. Basic rations 250 grams of bread daily and an evening meal of vegetable stew with rice and occasional meat of fish. Shortly afterwards we were moved to a new camp south of Rome near the airport, building a workers鈥� estate in the suburbs. Eventually came the Italian armistice. We were moved en bloc by train to a large holding camp north of Rome and told to stay there. I decided to leave, which was not hard to do as the guards were leaving their posts in disorder. I walked into the hills where |I made friends with an Italian peasant who brought us food. Sometimes we were even invited into the hill village where he lived and given a meal. Afterwards we walked back to the hut in the woods. But new German soldiers were everywhere and we knew that the whole village could be burnt to the ground because the locals were helping us, but before I could start travelling south to locate the Allies, German soldiers found me and my two companions. We were entrained forGermany in cattle trucks, forty men to a truck, for five days before we were let out. We were marched to a transit camp containing thousands of prisoners, mostly Russian. The camp was patrolled by German guards with vicious dogs that were let loose at night. The Russians captured two of the dogs in their compound and killed, then left a note saying 鈥淭hank you very much鈥� after they had eaten them. We were moved to Dresden and put to work in a cement factory. Rations were 250gram black bread daily and an evening stew of potatoes or barley, meat tightly rationed.. We heard some news and were able to follow the course of the war fairly well. Then we were moved to a Horticultural centre near the River Elbe - where life was comparatively easy. However we were soon moved to Leipzig where we were incarcerated in an old school house in the centre of the city with bombed apartments all round. We had to work clearing the rubble.. In the later days of the winter 1944 and spring 1945 there were at least 3 raids every 24 hours. The weather was bitter, temp. down to minus 20 degrees and our rations cut right down. We, and the Germans, knew that the war was coming to an end; transport came almost to a standstill. The Nazis grew increasingly desperate, fearing the revenge of the Russians more than anything. All prisoners were assembled and marched through the rubble out of the city
At one stop I managed to slip out of the column and down a bank, and as the column moved off, found a large pipe opening which was the outlet channel from an adjacent gas works. I hid there with a companion for four days without food, listening to the battles going on in the distance. On the 3rd day we were discovered by a German civilian. We told him we were waiting for the Americans to come, 鈥渟o am I鈥� he said, and brought us some water. When the gunfire died down I finally made my way through the streets to an American artillery battery, After interrogation by them I was sent to a holding camp and eventually to an airfield from where a Dakota aircraft took me home to Lineham. I received a great welcome in my home town, Witham, Essex.
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