大象传媒

It was on June 4th 1944 that Rome was 'liberated' by a Commando group from the Combined British 8th (Desert Rats) Army which had marched from the sands of El Alamein in Egypt, through Cyrenaica, Libya, Tripolitania, Tunisia, over the Mediterranean Sea, through Sicily to the Mountains of Italy, and the American 5th Army who had joined us at Salerno. As a member of the 21st British Tank Brigade supporting the Canadian 1st Infantry Division, we had come to a halt for rest and recuperation near the Alban Hills after the grim Battles of Montecassino, the Gustav Line and the Liri Valley.

It might have been around the 8th June when our Padre, Father "Pop" Higgins of the Newcastle and Hexham Diocese, came screeching to a halt at my Tank in his Jeep and he shouted to me to be at H.Q. at 0600 hrs as we were going to Rome, another cloud of dust sent him on his rounds!

All the Catholics in the brigade were present and we set off in high spirits for the two hour drive to Rome. By 9 a.m. we were assembled in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Peter's ready for the celebration of Holy Mass. Fr. Higgins had borrowed vestments from a resident priest and was gloriously vested, and his two altar servers - both six feet tall - were incongruously vested in too small cottas and soutanes with their army boots sticking out below. This didn't matter as the Mass was magnificently celebrated in one of the most beautiful Chapels in the world. After Mass, Fr. Higgins announced that we were to take part in the first Papal Audience for Allied Troops.

By eleven a.m. we were gathered in the old audience chamber near the Sistine Chapel and as we were first into the hall, we closed up to the railing with a full view of the Papal Throne. This was too much of a good thing as the hall slowly filled with Officers more senior than the last until General Harold Alexander was ushered into the best spot in the hall. All of a sudden there was an awesome silence broken only by a small shuffling sound in the distance which grew nearer until finally entered the hall. It was the slippered feet of the carriers of the Gestatoria Sedia which carried His Holiness into our midst blessing us as he progressed to his throne.

Pope Pius X11 spoke to us in seven languages and finally came down to a point in front of us but surrounded by all sorts of Generals, full and half Colonels, and other Staff brass until we could no longer see him. After a few minutes, he moved to the other side of the hall... and magically... the brass went with him... leaving a clear path to his throne... to which he must return!

I was over the rail in a flash and standing so closely to the throne that he nearly had to push me aside in order to sit down. He offered me his Papal ring and as I knelt down to kiss the ring he asked, "Are you English or American?" After kissing the ring I drew myself up to my full height of 5'9 and a bit and said "Your Holiness - I am Scottish!" He gave me a very wan smile as if to say - here I am teaching humility to the whole world but Scotland is not listening!

Long afterwards and to this day, I can still sense the aura, ambience, atmosphere, call it what you will but it was different. It started long before he entered the Audience Chamber and lasted long after he had gone. Many souvenirs were bought that day, Rosaries, Postcards, trinkets for the family but unhappily they were all lost shortly afterwards when my Tank was knocked out by a German 88mm A/T gun losing two of my crew in the process, and I lost a great deal of interest in the war spending the next six months in various hospitals.

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