大象传媒

This story was submitted to the people's war site by Helen Oram, Scotland csv on behalf of Allan Glennie and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

I was called up, unwillingly, to the Gordon Highlanders in 1942 at age 18. Brought up in Tarves,Aberdeenshire,I had never been much further afield than Aberdeen. However, Army life meant that it was the first time for a lot of us that we had three square meals a day, such was the poverty of those times.

I was posted to do rookies' training at Gordonstoun, where for three months we were not allowed out of the camp. Then we went to Camberley to do Commando training (Battle School) for three months.

We embarked from Tilbury docks on a troopship, out into the Atlantic. The convoy had to zigzag to avoid torpedoes.After we passed Dakar on the African coast, the all-clear was given and the lights could go up onship. At Cape Town the people greeted us by throwing oranges on to the ship. The convoy split up at Aden and we ran the gauntlet up the Red Sea.

On landing in Egypt we had to dress in khaki drill and get used to the desert heat.
Rommel's Army was near the gates of Cairo. We went up the line to El Alamein where the Eighth Army was poised.

The night of 23 October 1942 was "Monty's Moonlight". A colossal artillery barrage opened up from one thousand 25-pounder guns of the British Artillery. It was frightening. I was an infantryman with rifle and bayonet. We were told to advance. We started firing. The Germans broke loose with their vehicles, leaving the Italians to become POWs.

We advanced 100 miles. The Jerries put up a stand outside Benghazi. The artillery blasted hell out of them and they ran again. Rommel managed to get his forces off at Tunis (including the Hermann Goering crack troops) and sailed for Sicily.

We invaded mountainous Sicily. Walking up a single-file track to the village of Castiglione we saw many white coffins with the corpses of collaborators (partisans) who had been hanged by the Germans. We had to carry on advancing till we landed at the Straits of Messina. Two battle-ships, the Nelson and the Rudney, bombarded the shore. It was amazing to see the ships rocking backwards as the guns were fired.Half the division were shipped back to England. I was shipped to Reggio at the toe of Italy. This was 1944.

There I became a bodyguard to Monty. Seven of us shared this duty, standing guard through the night. When Monty travelled in the jeep with his driver, I would sit behind him with a loaded machine-gun. On one occasion collaborators took a pot-shot at him. All we could find when we scoured the trees were cartridges. As bodyguards, we ate better rations than the other men and got more water. (Ordinary daily rations were a packet of hard tack, half a tin of bully beef and half a bottle of water.)

Monty was ok with me, though he said very little and hardly spoke to anyone. He was teetotal, did not smoke or go with women. The officers disliked him. He and General Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, did not get on. I met Ike and thought he was a fine chap. I also met Churchill in Italy - he called us "a fine body of men". You had to admire the war correspondents like Richard Dimbleby who were up at the front line with us without armour or protection.

Montgomery had three big caravans in which he kept pets, rabbits and birds, which his batman had to look after.

We respected the Jerries and they respected us. If taken prisoner, they would salute,"Heil Hitler" and goose-step. The stories about the concentration camps were hard to believe. We liked the Australians best - easy come, easy go. they swapped hats with us.

Therafter we landed in Normandy on Amber Beach and advanced on a small town where the Germans were dug in. Rotting, stinking corpses were all around. The Americans were going like hell, chasing the Germans. We advanced through Belgium and Holland to the Rhine. There we stopped. There was a battle between the Americans and Russians as to who would be the first to enter Berlin.

I saw Belsen after the prisoners had been cleared. It was horrifying. We guarded the gates till the Pioneer Corps arrived. The Americans made the Germans dig pits and bury the corpses.

I was demobbed in York. We were given a full set of civvy clothes - suit,shirt,hat,etc- all packed in a box and tied with green ribbon. We were told, "Sit on your box" at York station, due to the risk of touts pinching them. Then train to Edinburgh, on to the Aberdeen train and bus to Tarves and home.

It was January 1946. My mother hardly recognised me: with fading sunburn, I was yellow. All she said was, "You're back, are ye!" I couldn't settle for weeks after.

I enjoyed the Army after the battle finished and would recommend it to any young man.

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