大象传媒

(Continued from A2668142)

WHEN THE LIGHTS GO UP AGAIN .. . .

[1946-1947]

Dad鈥檚 only experience of France during the war was in transit to and from leave. He always recalled a very beautiful coastal village in the south whose name escaped him, but which he always wanted to revisit. He remembered the extremely fat frogs in the frog-farm and how they croaked in the early evening. His journeys up and down the length of France were done standing up in cattle trucks on the railway, and he was the envy of his companions because he could happily sleep standing up and supported by the press of bodies around him.

(14th January 1947) (Posted to 140 Army Ordnance Depot)

(26th February 1947) (Army Release Leave Certificate signed)

(11th March 1947) (Proceeded on Release Leave - date-stamped Aldershot)

Mum was given a few hours off work to meet Dad鈥檚 train and remembered it coming into North Road station literally bulging because of the numbers of home-coming troops squeezed into it.

(11th April 1947 and 16th April 1947)

War Gratuity/Post War Credits deposits stamped at Trelawney Road Post Office, Plymouth.

(6th May 1947) (Release Leave expired),

(16th June 1947) (Released to Class Z(T) Reserve).

(21st June 1947) Married to Hilda Tapson at St. Simon鈥檚 Church, Salisbury Road, Plymouth.

(28th March 1948) Only child, Susan Mary, born in Plymouth;

(7th January 1949) (Release Leave Certificate stamped at Plymouth Food Office)

(30th June 1959) (Discharged from Reserve Liability)

鈥淒ad鈥檚 War鈥� was over.

REFLECTIONS

Dad鈥檚 war could be summed up in terms of what he didn't do; he wasn鈥檛 at Alamein, he wasn鈥檛 at Cassino, he wasn鈥檛 at D-Day. His role was a behind-the-lines one. But without the RAOC there would have been no front-line successes, as an army marches not only on its stomach(RASC territory) but on nuts, bolts, bullets, tyres, tanks, etc. No thundering without weapons. In any event, there is no doubt that Dad passed through times of danger and fear; he was not entirely without combat experience. I suspect he told a few more details of this to Martin, his Grandson, than he did to me, to his granddaughter Caitlin, or to Mum. Reticence before the ladies was characteristic of his generation. But the war never left him; his great desire for and delight in the pleasures of home and family showed how happy he was to have survived to come back and be Dad, Grandad and Uncle Ern for two generations. Towards the end of his life he began to read widely about the campaigns he had been in or near, and was glad to see modern historians seeking to find perspectives on the kinds of experience that ordinary soldiers had.

Three closing quotations from "Oasis into Italy" reveal some of those perspectives;

鈥淟ook around the mountains, through the mud and rain
You鈥檒l see the shattered crosses, some which bear no name.
Heart break and toil and suffering gone
The boys beneath them slumber on
They are the D-Day Dodgers who鈥檒l stay in Italy鈥�
(Anonymous).

鈥淭he crosses tell us nothing of the minds
whose common negative is history,
nor what last thought kicked at the blunted nerves
of those who left no relics to record
who lie unmarked in deserts of sand or sea.

O the cheated dead, uncounted, unseen,
as the winds of the world cry out; for the words
that drove them left merging echoes behind,
the flimsy frontiers they died for are changed,
and, though the guns are draped, there is no peace.鈥�
(鈥淭he Dead鈥�; Michael Hamburger)

鈥淒eath passed me by, but I
Caught his swift glance and knew
He saw me too.
- - - - - - - - -
This do I know, we shall
Meet, but I know not now
What time - or how.鈥�
(鈥淒eath passed me by鈥�; A.M.)

14th August, 1994

Then said he, I am going to my Father鈥檚, and though with great difficulty I am got hither, yet I do not now repent me of all the Trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and Skill to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, in token that I have fought his Battles who now will be my rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the Riverside, into which as he went down deeper he said, Death, where is thy sting? And as he went down deeper he said, Grave, where is thy Victory? So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side.

The Pilgrim鈥檚 Progress; John Bunyan

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many individuals have been extremely kind and supportive during my work on this memoir. I list them below with thanks for their help;

T/10691567 PTE Taylor, J.V. (鈥淭iny鈥�), RAOC, North Africa and Italy 1942-1947:-

Mr.G.Swain, Italy Star Association

The late Major.M.J. Dickson,
Mr. Randall
Mr Brender, all of First Army Association

Mr. Cook. No. 5 POD, RAOC Italy.

Mr George Thrower

RESEARCH CENTRES USED

The Regimental Museum, Regimental Headquarters, The Royal Logistics Corps, Deepcut, Camberley, Surrey GU16 6RW.

Ministry of Defence, Bourne Avenue, Hayes, Middlesex UB3 1RF

The Public Record Office (PRO), Ruskin Avenue, Kew, Richmond, Surrey, TW9 4DU.

The Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ.

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

D鈥橢ste, Carlo; Fatal Decision; Anzio and the battle for Rome London: Harper Collins, 1991.

Fernyhough, Brigadier A.H. History of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps 1920-1945

First Army Association 鈥淗eritage鈥� pamphlets

From Oasis into Italy; war poems and diaries from Africa and Italy, 1940-1946 London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1983

Keegan, John (Ed.) The Times Atlas of the Second World War London: Guild Publishing, 1989.

Lamb, Richard; War in Italy 1943-1945; a brutal story London; John Murray, 1993.

The Royal Army Ordnance Corps Gazette, June & August 1942

Return to Oasis London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1980.

Peniakoff, Vladimir; Popski鈥檚 Private Army .

Royal Army Ordnance Corps Training Establishment [Lectures] 1942-1943

The Second World War;1939-1945; Army Ordnance Services War Office, 1950

Smith, E.D.; The battles for Cassino Newton Abbot; David and Charles, 1989.

Wagner, Geoffrey; The sands of valour London: Buchan and Enright, 1986.

Whiting, Charles; The long march on Rome; the forgotten war London: Century, 1987.

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