- Contributed byÌý
- S_Lawrence
- People in story:Ìý
- Albert Lawrence (Dad)Adelaide Lawrence (Mum) Eric Lawrence (Brother)Carol Lawrence (Sister)
- Location of story:Ìý
- Walthamstow, London
- Background to story:Ìý
- Army
- Article ID:Ìý
- A8704505
- Contributed on:Ìý
- 21 January 2006
My dad was a bus driver based at Walthamstow bus garage and was also a Territorial Army reserve. He was away doing his two weeks training in August 1939 and was automatically seconded into the regular army straight away. As soon as the war started he was sent with the British expeditionary force to fight the Russians in Finland. While they were on their way the Finnish government gave in and they were then sent to Norway. Within a few weeks they were sent home because of the German occupation. While he had been away my brother and I had been evacuated to Bedford. He came to see us in Bedford as soon as he came home and that was the last we saw of him until he was invalided out of the forces around Christmas 1943.
I remember him digging our air raid shelter before he went away in 1939. I know he made a very good job of it with a concrete floor and a very thick Blast wall in front which served us very well in the coming war.
My mother who had stayed at home with my sister had decided in early 1940 that she would bring my brother and I home as nothing had happened regarding German raids. This as we all know was called the Phony War, nothing was happening and also I think she was lonely and missed us.
My dad had been sent to Egypt to guard the border to stop the Italians from invading. He was to fight — right through to 1943 until he was badly injured a few days before he was due to go to the invasion of Sicily. He was a member of an elite band of men known as the ‘Desert Rats’. These were named by Field Marshal Rommel who was surrounded in Torbruk for nine months. The main force there was Australians with a few British and other troops. They lived in holes in the ground and that is why Rommel called them ‘you Rats, you Desert Rats!’ He was evacuated with all the other troops by the Royal Navy back to their bases at Alexandra and so forth. He was to fight all the way to Tunisia and was then brought back to go to Sicily.
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