大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with Robert Adams at the 2nd Batt RIR event, Campbell College, and has been added to the site with their permission. The authors fully understand the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Bruce Logan.
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I was 18 when I joined the Royal Ulster Rifles in June 1940. First year of the war. The last troops were coming out of Belgium when I enlisted. Just for the war.
I was trained in Ballymena, and was based in Newtownards, Holywood and sent to England. After a time a notice appeared, inviting people to enlist, and transfer to the Royal Engineers. It was special service in the Middle East, where the war was going on at that time. I transferred to Royal Engineers in 1942, and sent out to join the 8th Army as an engineer. I stayed with the 8th army until the end of the war. Served in North Africa and Sicily and in Italy, and I finished up in Austria, on the frontier of Austria.

They sent us from Liverpool, in a convoy right into the Atlantic. And there was a very severe storm at that time, and the crew told us that this would be top our advantage, because the German subs couldn鈥檛 operate in these conditions. We got right out into the Atlantic, and we called into Freetown harbour in West Africa for a few days. We were on a human meat-boat called the Rangatiki. And we just lay down on the decks. And then we got into Durban in South Africa. And we marched along the quayside and went onto a new ship called the 鈥淣ew Amsterdam鈥�. It was nicknamed the 鈥淔lying Dutchman鈥�, and it was absolutely rolling with troops. After a few days we set sail from Durban with a destroyer on each side of us. When we got out into the ocean the destroyers pulled away, and the New Amsterdam got up full speed. And we were advised it would protect us, we were in no danger from anybody. So eventually we drove up through the Red Sea into the Suez canal, and joined up with the 8th Army.

We travelled across North Africa into Tunisia, where the war ended in North Africa. And we were dealing with minefields most of our time, that was our job. After a time we had a narrow experience. We came back into Tripoli, and all the troops in Tripoli were rehearsed in a certain procedure. We were brought out onto the road, we lined both sides of the road, eyes in front of us, and we saw a cavalcade approach from the corner of our eye. So we took off our caps and waved our arms up and down and cheered like mad. And it turned out it was the King and General Alexander and General Montgomery and various other people in this cavalcade. It was quite an experience. I鈥檒l always remember that day.

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