大象传媒

It was getting near Christmas 1942 when the sergeant shouted that there was someone to see me. When I went to see who it was I got the shock of my life. It was one of my mates I had been up the desert with. The last thing I could remember was when his tank was hit by an 88mm shell and burst into flames. I thought he had been killed but apparently he and his mate managed to escape from their badly damaged tank. Unfortunately they were then captured by the Germans. My mate tried to escape but was hit in the face by one fo the Germans who had recaptured him by hitting him in the face with the butt of his rifle. A few weeks later he did manage to escape and was then picked up by one of our patrols. I never saw him again after that meeting since I was drafted up the desert for the second time shortly afterwards.

On our way to rejoin our unit, we came across some Australian troops who were playing hell about the Italian prisoners they were escorting back down the line to the prisoner of war camp. They told us to look out for the Italians when they surrender and to make sure that their hands were open when they came forward. If there hands were closed they had something in them and what had happened before was that they had walked forward towards their captors with their hands up but closed. When they got close enough they had thrown grenades they'd been carrying at their captors. The Australians soon put a stop to that idea as when any prisoners were taken and came forward with their hands closed they would fire at their hands so they if they had anything in them, they would drop it.

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