´óÏó´«Ã½

"This story was submitted to the People's War site by CSV/´óÏó´«Ã½ Radio Nottingham on behalf of Tom Slaven with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions"

In 1939 I was in the Territorial Army and was called up. I did 9 months service. I was posted with the artillery regiment 156 field, we were posted to the Isle of Wight then moved onto France. I was 19 years old at the time.
When we were at the Isle of Wight there were bombs every night and we lost a lot of men.
We went by boat to France for the big invasion. Then there was little to do in France and Belgium, then we went on into Germany.
We were the Artillery regiment so we couldn’t run away with the guns!
We went up to Anzio beach head and the rest of the regiment followed on. We moved up right to the peak of Italy. We were losing a lot of chaps there, mainly from the bombers. When we were reinforced the regiment moved up as far as we could go, by this time the Germans had packed in on the Italy front.
Results of the injured were many but we had to carry on. I was slightly wounded for 3 weeks then moved back up. I had ear trouble among other things.
Rome had to be captured and we played a good part in the advance which we aided, it took us 9 or 10 months to get to Anzio. Then the inventory took over. We assisted with plenty of 25 pounders. When we passed Rome we were halted and needed for another invasion. From there we were taken out of the line and rested in the Middle East, stationed mainly in Palestine. We were trained there for 3 months and our 5th Division was coordinated with home forces to East France. By this time the invasion was well underway and from then on it was plain sailing, comparatively speaking, to capture Rome.
From there when the second front opened up we, the 5th division, invaded France from the Mediterranean we went from Southern France to West Germany — we invaded from that side. But the praise mostly went to those invading from Britain side — that’s what it felt like at the time.
We were very successful in capturing — it was fairly easy.
When we saw the Germans lay down their weapons and we marched off we were very happy, delighted to have peace. Bells were ringing and the German Army was in complete failure. What was left of our regiment was happy, we played football which was good. That brings us to the end of the war.

© Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.