大象传媒

This story by Alfred Francis

On July 10 1943 we set off from a port in Egypt and landed on D Day in Cicily, at Syracuse under heavy bombardment from the Germans. The ship we sailed on was the Orion.
Our platoon had been sent out to mop up some Germans on the road from Carlentina to Lentina, I was taken prisoner on July 15 1943 after crawling on a road that ran in a wooded valley.
We came to a bend in the road and could go no further when a German office came up with his pistol and captured us!
From there he took us to a farm in the vicinity where he put us in a barn full of hay. After a day or so nothing had happened but we thought they would fire the barn and burn us.
Eventually the Italian farmer came and let us out to take us to the valley where we'd been captured. We found the British army there with injured Germans.
Somehow we found our way back to out battalion where we found out our ambulance driver had been killed by the same Germans who had captured us.
I was a stretcher bearer during the Cicilian campaign lasted just 30 days.

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