大象传媒

By
Ronald Tee

of the 56th Reconnaissance Regiment, 78th "Battleaxe" Division of the British 1st, (later the 8th), Army from 1941 to 1946

as told to his daughter, Robyn.

Algiers

By the time we went through The Straits of Gibraltar, we knew we were heading for a landing. It turned out to be the landing at Algiers, the biggest landing of the war for the American and British Soldiers. We landed on the beaches with our weapons held high - ready to do or die. There was nobody there, so we made tea.

We very quickly received our vehicles from the port where our boats had pulled in, and headed for Tunisia with the rest of the army following behind. The idea was to beat the Germans to the Port of Tunis, but they made it first. We ran into them about 30 miles from the capital.

It was on this drive that we first experienced the German Stuka dive-bomber. This plane would come dead-straight down, very fast from a great height and not release its bombs 'til it was almost to the ground and then it'd zoom up and away. Attached to the plane was a gizmo that caused a terrible, terrible, screaming sound as the wind went through it. I'm sure there was many a soldier who filled his pants on first hearing this noise.

During the drive

The Germans were in considerable strength, including tanks. We had to back off, but not before we lost three men and a car that day. It would be many weeks before both sides drew up their battle lines. So now we came into our own- for what we had been trained.

Every day we would take off in our cars in different directions and the Germans would do the same. We'd be in a village one day and they'd be in the village the next. Very often we'd clash. Since they had tanks and we didn't, we were the ones who usually retreated.

I remember one day in particular. Out in the country, as the lead car, (there were about five other cars behind me,) I took a right hand turn and started to go up this big hill. All of a sudden at the brow of the hill appeared a German tank coming in our direction. He stopped, (obviously he had seen us) and the first thing we saw was this big gun coming slowly down.

I screamed at my driver to, 'Get the heck out of here!' Unfortunately, it was a very narrow road and he had to make three forwards and three backs, before we finally got ourselves turned around. In the meantime, they were firing at us. Finally, we turned the corner and since we were faster than them, we had no problem getting away.

I thanked God afterwards that the gunner was not very good at his job!

Read more about Ron's adventures in his book, A British Soldier Remembers by Ronald Tee and Ken.C Dowsett Printed in Canada by Epic Press.

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