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Albert Lycett (Sergeant)
No: 2075255 Royal Engineers
Decorations: Campaign Medals 1939/45 Star
Africa Star 8th Army
Italy Star 8th Army
Campaign 4 Defence UK Medal
Campaign 5 General Service Medal
Territorial Army Efficiency Medal
Blue Shoulder Lanyard awarded for Battle honours.
Earned at El Alamento, all ranks Royal Engineers.

My name is Albert Lycett, I am 79 years old, I took part in a lot of battles in Egypt and throughout the length of Italy, Sicily and including Cassino.

Chapter 1

What were my personal reasons for fighting in this war?
I think that with the threat of war hanging over Great Britain as it was in those days and the belief that a young man’s duty was to fight for his country against the dreaded Nazi disease under Adolf Hitler and company — well that was my reason, a belief that I was fighting for the right thing and to protect our homeland and families.
My history is, at 16 years old, I joined the Territorial Army because war clouds were looming over and Neville Chamberlain had been made to look a complete idiot by Adolph Hitler, and it was pretty obvious what was going to happen, so I joined the Territorial local unit because it was the Royal Engineers and my father had also been in the Royal Engineers during the first World War. I was only 16 but lied about my age and said I was 17 and joined up. This was early in 1939 and later in 1939 on the Friday night before war was declared on Sunday the 3rd September, I was called to the colours at the Drill Hall in Scotia Road and spent the next seven years in the Regular Army, 214 Field Company Royal Engineers, later other units until after the war in 1946, I was demobbed.
214 Field Company RE, TA, became 214 Field Company RE without the TA! We trained, digging trenches, handling explosives etc. until just before Dunkirk the company was posted to France, the B.E.F. Force. They weeded out what they called the ‘immatures’ youths like myself who were under age and posted us to various other units so that we weren’t put into the BEF firing line. I was posted into No. 1 Hants. Fortress Company, Portsmouth, which incidentally following Dunkirk was one of the first cities to be bombed as was Southampton.
We served on the sea forts in the Solent, Spitsand, Horsands and Nomansland. I served most of my time at sea, although we were dry land sailors on Nomansland Fort where the engineers were responsible for enginising costal defence searchlights which were in steel boxes welded on the outside of the granite forts, built incidentally by Henry VIII to keep the French out and we served there and also on the shore stations at Southsea Castle, Fort Monkton, Fort Gilkicker and Haslar, the submarine base, we had searchlights there. Also South Sea Castle and South Sea Common where the artillery had banks of anti-aircraft rockets mounted.
After a while the Royal Artillery took over the searchlights and rigged Anti-Aircraft guns on the forts and No. 1 Hants Fortress RE was turned into 576 Field Park Company RE and we moved down to Wimborne in Dorset picking up a lot of people who had been called up en route to form a new company from scratch. Three people called up got together as we registered names, these three jokers were named Graveyard, Death and Tombstone!!
Our company continued to be Coastal Defence, our patch was from Bournemouth down to Poole harbour and we mined the beaches, we mined the bridges, we produced various defensive weapons for the Home Guard, one of which being the Fougasse which was a French term for Fire. This comprised of a 40 gallon oil barrel and we called them 40-60s because they were made up of 40 per cent crude oil and 60 percent of magnesium which when set off at the side of the road, where a small charge of amanol explosive produced a flame 50 feet high 50 to 60 feet wide, intensely hot and the idea was to eliminate invading infantry and tanks, and vehicles and these were given with instructions how to use them and to the Home Guard, by us, the Field Park Company. With this kind of work behind us and from time to time taking part in cleaning up after Air raids in Southampton, Chatham and the New Forest, eventually I was made Lance Corporal, did some more courses in weapons training and was promoted to Corporal, sent on a course for electrical engineering which was supposed to last for six months, I did five months and then my unit, the 576 Field Park Company was posted abroad and I volunteered to come off the course and go abroad with them.
We set out on board for a trip on the Windsor Castle. We did not know where we were going, there might have been a clue in the fact that we had been measured up at Oxshott in Surrey by a tailor and each of us now had two pairs of short shorts, two shirts, khaki, and one ‘secret weapon’ in a big canvas bag. Undoing the draw strings of the bag, inside each one, there was a topee — and instead of a pair of socks, we had what they called ‘hose tops’ which were like a pair of socks with no feet in, but in addition to these, we had traditional army socks issued, the trick was, that when you put on the shorts, there would be a gap between your socks and your knees which needed to be camouflaged, for want of a better word, so over your socks you put these hose tops which would then accommodate the coverlets made of stiff canvass with two brass buckles on to go around your ankles and they would fill the gap between the top of your boots and your hose tops — very smart!
We had been practising putting these things on and off with some hilarity. However, after receiving the kit issue, we were called about three nights later to fall in with all equipment so we put on our webbing, ammunition, normal battledress, weapons and a kit bag with our new equipment in. As we proceeded to Oxshott station, we used to use this electric line from Oxshott up to Surbiton for ‘Jolly Night’s Out’ which usually meant, travelling up there for about ten minutes on the electric railway, there was a cinema in Surbiton, a canteen always open where you could drop in and they had got a couple of pubs, outside of that, there was not much else, but in Oxshott village they just had the woods if you were interested in pine trees, there was plenty to look at full of squirrels incidentally at that time, and the walk through these woods to the station was not at all unpleasant.
Anyway, I digress, we got on a train to London and were transferred to the Eastern Line at St. Pancras and got on a train drawn by a steam locomotive and after about half an hour, we lurched forward and started. During that journey, I don’t think the train ever exceed 25 miles an hour and it took us eight hours to get to Liverpool. We didn’t know where we were going of course until we arrived, and then we were marched off the train onto the backs of lorries and transported across the city. By now it was daylight — we had left at night — and the appalling devastation of Liverpool at that time, shocked us into silence, we had seen London and that was bad, but there were buildings left, whereas the docks in Liverpool was absolutely flat, there was nothing standing at all, but mounds of bricks that had been laid to get rid of the rubble, I suppose, bricks, bricks, bricks and no building standing, just devastation from the bombing which I understand was continuous and dreadful.
We arrived at the dock, I don’t know the name of it, and we fell in by the quayside alongside a big ship, craning our necks back, we tried to look up but we couldn’t see the top at all, all we could see was a wall of steel in front of us and some dock water just underneath it, lapping gently on the side, painted battleship grey with no distinguishing features. However, there was a gangway from about halfway down this steel wall, we fell into single file and were herded up this gangway and we set foot on the deck. It was an enclosed deck, but it was above sea level. We were allocated our quarters and took the gear in with orders to attend parade in half an hour — battle dress only.
We were given leaflets — Procedure on Board. Bunks/hammocks/beds must be made up by 0600 hours daily. Breakfast will be at 7, ablutions before breakfast, must be carried out in the special ablution areas. These were a long rows of wash-hand basins, cold water — sea water in fact — and backing onto these alongside the outer deck were another row of thunder-box type lavatories, these were sectioned off into single file and there would be forty side by side each other then a gap and a gangway and then another forty and another forty the whole length of the deck. This was on the deck I was on and this was port side. On the starboard side it was exactly the same. We had to get used to the idea of doing our ablutions usually after we had visited the — for want of a better term — loos and doing the necessary in the company of about, at one time, 30 other guys! Everybody tried to leave a space between themselves and the next person, and of course, that didn’t always work so very often you were sitting there shoulder to shoulder, there was no privacy at all.
Everybody delayed visiting the salubrious set-up there as long as possible, but inevitably, of course, sooner or later you had got to go and when you have got to go, you’ve got to go!

TO BE CONTINUED

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